Phaedrus Part 2

In the second half of Phaedrus, the debate of rhetoric as an art continues. While, Phaedrus thinks all speechwriting is bad, Socrates disagrees and thinks there can be a difference between good speeches and bad speeches. This raises the question of what qualities make a speech good? Thinking of past speeches in history, there are have been some terrible and some wonderful. For example, George Bush has a bad reputation regarding his speech giving abilities, while Obama has been given a great deal of admiration for his skills. It is interesting to consider whether there are truly good speeches and bad speeches today or if the speeches are given value based on the speaker's reputation. Can modern day society separate a speech from the speaker and judge them separately? Or are the two completely connected?

Socrates discusses in the second half of Phaedrus the question of rhetoric whether rhetoric should be considered an art. He makes the point that the speaker has to know truth and also have the skills of persuasion in order to be a good speaker. I agree with this point because many speakers today can preach the truth but still fail to persuade their audience because they are not persuasive enough. For example, growing up as a Catholic I attended multiple masses in which the priest gave homilies that were based on Catholic truths and knowledge yet still ended with people dozing off in the pews and twiddling their thumbs. I found myself wondering on many occasions like that if the message could be made more powerful if the priest developed rhetorical skills. Things like the organization of a speech, analysis, synthesis, and dialectic that Socrates discusses are very important to maintaining the audience’s attention and could be helpful in these situations. 

Socrates believes that in order for the rhetorician to be persuasive, they must understand how people react and respond to different kinds of persuasive devices. I think this lesson of learning how to categorize audiences is especially important today because appeals to emotion may not be appropriate for some audiences while appeals to numerical facts/statistics may not be appropriate for others.

Questions for Discussion:

1. What qualities do George Bush and Obama have that make their speeches good or bad in comparison to one another?

2. Provide an example of a type of appeal that is appropriate for a particular audience but not for another. Where have you seen appeals that work well, and where have you seen appeals that did not work for the intended audience?