Aristotle once wrote that being unskilled in rhetoric is as disappointing as being unskilled in self-defense. He wrote that “It is absurd to hold that a man ought to be ashamed of being unable to defend himself with his limbs, but not of being unable to defend himself with speech and reason, when the use of rational speech is more distinctive of a human being than the use of his limbs.”
Given America’s current sociopolitical cold war, I think the salient points of this quote are the use of the word “defend” and the idea that rational speech is one of the things that make humans human, i.e., civilized creatures. When it comes to defense, words are not just “violence”; words are also a kind of armor against violence. Yes, words may be uncomfortable but not necessarily violent. If we are going to call words violence, then we have to make room for the idea that words are also a good counter to that violence. In other words, an effective way to deal with people who speak effectively against you is to be able to use words effectively yourself.
When it comes to rational speech as a distinctively human trait, we realize something that other rhetoricians have also recognized: communication is the glue that both helped build civil society and keeps it together. . . barely, these days. If we lack defensive confidence in communication—that is, if we don’t have enough faith in our skills to enter any debate in which we are invested—we are relinquishing one of our best tools for remedying misunderstandings and collaborating effectively.
So, I would like to extend Aristotle’s analogy as a preface to the rest of this essay. If, in a time of war, regular citizens must take up arms, forge their plows into swords, then it may be time for us to acquire the requisite skills for holding together a free and civil society. This is not to say that debate is necessarily analogous to war, but I’d prefer a war of words over a war of firearms.
Fortunately, the Greeks produced a system that looks like, at best, a curriculum for acquiring rhetorical skills and, at worst, a bootcamp for forging those skills. Given the name chosen for this system, it aligns more with the latter option.
The Progymnasmata
The Progymnasmata (“pro” meaning “before” and “gymnasmata” meaning “exercise,”) looks like a fancy word for practice, and it is, but its athletic connotations should not be ignored. Sure, this could be taken slowly over a course of years, but it could also be implemented like rhetoric’s answer to CrossFit.
The program is as follows:
Fable: a narrative, typically fiction, which is meant to teach a lesson.
Narrative: the ability to argue through the telling of a story.
Chreia: a brief narrative mean to supplement an argument as its illustration.
Proverb: the elaboration of common maxims to support a claim
Refutation: the direct countering of opposing views
Confirmation: the main body of a text where an argument is presented and supported
Commonplace: an argument for or against a virtue or a vice
Encomium: explicit praise of a person or a defense of that person’s actions
Invective: explicit blame of a person
Syncrisis: comparison of opposites to better understand both.
Ethopoeia: imitation of a perceived virtuous and usually well-known person.
Ekphrasis: elaborate description, typically of art
Theme: one’s main argument to be proven; a thesis statement
Deliberation: putting all previous exercises together into an argument for or against something.
Traditionally, the exercises within the Progymnasmata should be done in sequential order—one exercise provides the scaffolding for the next. However, we would be wise to take some creative license and appropriate this set of exercises according. For example, maybe we use only some or most of the exercises. Educators may decide that some exercises need more time than others. Perhaps the exercises should be accomplished within a month or several months. Maybe we add new exercises. The point is that we have a structure and plan for implementing effective communication and argumentation skills for the better working of civil society.
The time is ripe for taking seriously a system like this. With AI making extemporaneous oral communication the only form of communication still exclusively human, and as communication breakdowns open the door to targeted violence, the skills necessary for effective civil discourse are direly needed. Thus, my next essay will explore Exercises 1 through 4 of the rhetorical Progymnasmata and the general efficacy of storytelling.