In this week’s readings regarding Aristotle’s “Rhetoric,” I kept coming back to the idea of body rhetoric. My exposure to body rhetoric is limited to Debbie Hawhee’s IDIS lecture last Fall, and as I am not in the body rhetoric class this semester, I cannot provide any references that describe how body rhetoric is theorized today, but in Aristotle’s work, especially in his discussion of fear and how humans experience it, I sense that the body was an important aspect or area of consideration in classical rhetoric. For example, when describing fear Aristotle writes, “If fear is accompanied by an expectation of experiencing some destructive misfortune, it is evident that no one is afraid if he is one of those who thinks he will suffer nothing” (130). Later on Aristotle uses words such as “agony” and “suffering,” and I tried to imagine myself as someone contemplating how well the imminent agony and suffering I was about to endure would feel. As I would want to avoid such pain, I would allow myself to be persuaded by whatever it was that was trying to move me to judgment, which Aristotle notes as what persuasive speech is directed at (156). So, what am I getting at here. Ultimately, I’m getting a better sense of what Rick referred to last week as “power over” rhetoric as opposed to Isocrates’ “power with” rhetoric. As I read Book 2, I continually saw Aristotle or rather felt Aristotle driving at the idea of rhetoric as being a force directed at the minds of the hearers with the goal of planting the idea in their mind that if you don’t listen to me, then I’m going to overpower you.
Taking this idea of “power over” rhetoric a little further, Aristotle’s discussion of the young raised an interesting issue for me in terms of how or whether teachers use and teach “power over” or “power with” rhetoric with their students. If what Aristotle says about the young is true in that “the young are prone to desires and inclined to do whatever they desire” (149) does a “power over” rhetoric work best in the classroom? As I write this, I recognize how unethical such an approach would be, as it gets away from the goal of getting students to understand rhetoric as a “way of knowing” and building knowledge, which is more attuned to a “power with” approach. I wonder what type of rhetoric Aristotle used in his own teaching. If he followed his own advice when teaching the young, would he use a “power over” pedagogy?