http://homepage.mac.com/tehart/Asian_Rhe...frame.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetoric
Despite the fact that the populations of China and India make up over one quarter of the population of the Earth, and that "60% of humanity lives in the Pacific Basin,"[1] and that both countries have a history that in some cases predates that of Greece and the ancient Near-East there is not a voluminous body of work on the rhetoric of Asia. The Rhetoric Society Quarterly in its almost twenty years of publication has devoted one article to Asian rhetoric[2] and has published one bibliography devoted to the subject of Asian Rhetoric.[3] Most of the references to be found in this bibliography are to speeches and the current writings of figures such as Mao Tse-Tung and other recent figures that have played a prominent part in the Asian political scene.
The major research that has been done in the area of Asian rhetoric seems to be primarily the work of Robert T. Oliver, a former professor of speech at Pennsylvania State University and who wrote extensively on the subject of Asian rhetoric and A. S. Cua of Catholic University who written on argumentation and Confucian rhetoric.
What I wish to focus on in this paper is the way in which ethical qualities are conveyed and which ethical qualities are particularly valued in Asian rhetoric and how this contrasts with the aretaic qualities that the speaker wishes to convey in the Aristotelian model of rhetoric. This enterprise, however, is somewhat handicapped by the fact there do not appear to be any paradigmatic examples of Asian rhetoric that are compact enough to be subjected to a thorough analysis, nor are there, in the popular literature of China, any that are of an early enough date to be models of Asian rhetoric and still fall with the purview of the historical era that we are dealing with. The Bhagavad Gita is an extended rhetorical piece which forms part of a larger epic, the Mahabharata and the larger unit of which it is a part has sometimes been compared to the Iliad both in terms of length (the Mahabharata is longer) and in terms of its centrality to Indian culture, however, because of the Gita's extensive length it is not suitable for a detailed analysis and there seems to be no other primary example from India that could serve as a paradigm for that country's rhetorical use of ethos.
The situation with respect to devising a paradigmatic oration for the rhetoric of China is even worse in that the central works of the Confucian tradition are not primarily concerned with rhetoric but with ritual, poetry, and ethical customs. Popular works that provide paradigms might include the six classic novels (San Kuo Yen Yi ( Romance of the Three Kingdoms); Shui Hu Chuan ( The Story of the Water Margin); Hsi Yu Chi ( Pilgrimage to the Western Regions); Chin P'ing Mei ( Golden Vase of Plum Flowers); Ju-lin Wai Shih ( Unofficial History of Officialdom); and Hung Lou Meng ( Dream of the Red Chamber)), however, these all come during the post-Classical period and the earliest, the San Kuo Yen Ki dates from 1494.[4]
Due to the lack of suitable models therefore I must rely on secondary sources in presenting any kind of information about ethos in Asian rhetoric. A primary resource then will be the work of Robert Oliver who as a teacher of speech and one who worked extensively in Asia is familiar with patterns of Oriental thought. Dr. Cua, who teaches philosophy at Catholic University, has been kind enough to loan me a copy of his paper "The Possibility of a Confucian theory of Rhetoric" which will appear in a forthcoming volume edited by Kathleen Jamieson entitled Rhetoric: East and West.
ETHOS IN CLASSIC TIMES
The classical pisteis or proofs were considered to be those of ethos, pathos, and logos, appeals in which the rhetorician presented himself as a person of good character, or in which he appealed to the emotions of his audience, or in which he appealed to the principles of reason. In the Western tradition, however, it has usually been felt that the strongest appeal is that of ethos, the ethical appeal, and that rhetoric derives its force from the character of the speaker.[5] In the Greco-Roman tradition this ethical appeal has been based on the character of the speaker, that he has shown himself to be a person of good sense, good character, and good will or fronesiV, arete and eunoia.[6]
Aristotle links his discussion of ethos with a discussion of the virtues as a means of generating goodwill and friendship.
These qualities [good sense, good character, and good will] are all that are necessary, so that the speaker who appears to possess all three will necessarily convince his hearers. The means whereby he may appear sensible and good must be inferred from the classification of the virtue; for to make himself appear such he would employ the same means as he would in the case of others.[7]
It is only after this discussion that Aristotle proceeds to discuss the emotions, which he defines as "all those affections which cause men to change their opinion in regard to their judgements, and are accompanied by pleasure and pain."[8] Ethos is a way of affecting the emotions but it is not itself one of the emotions.
Quintilian, however, classes ethos as one or more of the emotions[9] specifically those that are calm and gentle and which persuade and "induce a feeling of goodwill"[10] These emotions, moreover, are continuous while those of pathos are momentary. The ethos that Quintilian describes or desiderates in the orator
is commended to our approval by goodness more than aught else and is not merely calm and mild, but in most cases ingratiating and courteous and such as to excite pleasure and affection in our hearers, while the chief merit in its expression lies in making it seem that all that we say derives directly from the nature of the facts and persons concerned and in the revelation of the character of the orator in such a way that all may recognize it.[11]
This contrasts sharply with Aristotle's view that ethos is not one of the emotions but one of the causes of the emotions. The emotions that are generated by ethos for Aristotle are those of friendship and goodwill or affection towards the speaker based on his demonstration of the aretaic qualities of fronesiV, arete, and eunoia. For Quintilian the ethical appeal has become rooted in an appeal to the emotions but specifically those gentle ones that are linked to feelings of benevolence.
The change from Aristotle's conception of ethos to that of Quintilian represents a loss to the theory of rhetoric inasmuch as it has passed from being something that is sharply defined and differentiated into something that is vaguer and which has been assimilated into one of the emotions. The primary meaning of ethos, however, remains that of Aristotle and ethos is used throughout this paper as Aristotle used it, as a system or network of virtues that excite favorable feelings in the audience.
THE RHETORIC OF INDIA
As Jensen points out in his article[12] the terms "Asianism" and "Asian rhetoric" have been used in a pejorative sense for centuries to indicate a "florid, bombastic style, exaggerated rhythmic effect, excessive figurative embellishments, and the valuing of form over substance."[13] Of course, it should also be noted that Asia, during the classical period, referred to the area that is sometimes called Asia Minor or the Near East.
Robert T. Oliver in a Culture and Communication: The Problem of Penetrating National and Cultural Boundaries[14] addresses the problem of establishing the ethos of Indian rhetoric. In a chapter entitled "The Rhetoric of Hindu- Buddhist Idea Systems" he examines the nature of Indian rhetoric and observes that writing was considered to be at best an approximation of what the speaker meant originally:
In India, also, even down to the nineteenth century, writing was considered too imprecise a means of conveying meaning to have any great communicative importance. Until the seventeenth century, books were inscribed on leaves and sheets of bark , which were hung like washing on lines and were called "treasure houses of the Goddess of Speech." What was truly meant was what was said at the time of composition. Then a rough approximation of this meaning was transmuted into visible symbols and "stored"; but what the true meaning might be could only be conjectured in terms of the personalities, the problems, and the intentions of the composers of the message. Reading became a search for precision--aided but also handicapped by the admittedly imprecise medium of written words.[15]
What is especially noteworthy here is the similarity to the Plato's comments on writing in the Phaedrus.[16] Our main concern, however, is not with the Indian view of speech as opposed to writing but of the kind of ethical appeal, in short the aretaic qualities, which is used as a form of proof in Indian rhetoric.
Oliver poses four questions, the last of which is "...what kind of discourse is effective? What are the responsibilities of speakers? What are the proper uses of speech?"[17] The answers that he gives are based on his conception of Buddhist rhetoric. Briefly put the answer is that while we may appeal to the selfishness of people "we should not appeal for selfishness but from it." The ethical appeal is not based on personal advantage but is rather a warning against it.
A better summary of the Indian view of ethos may be obtained from Oliver's book Communication and Culture in Ancient India and China in which he states that
A person was not valued for his idiosyncratic characteristics but for his compatibility with his group. Ethos in ancient India did not arise from special merits of the individual but from his quality of representation of his family, his community, and his caste.[18]
This conception of conformity or representation of family, community and caste is, of course, most marked in the rhetoric of Hinduism. What seems most noticeable, however, from even a superficial reading of the Hindu religious classics, such as the Gita or the Upanishads is the way in which the ethical appeal of Krishna or of the guru derives not just from his relationship to the caste but from his special relationship to the divine. In this respect there seem to be parallels to what Kennedy sees as the source of the authority of Judeo- Christian rhetoric. This is an aspect that Oliver does not deal with in either of his books and would seem to be a fruitful area for investigation.[19]
In contrast to the Hindu rhetorician, who is bound by exigencies of caste, community, and family, Oliver sees the Buddhist rhetorician as confronting a different set of problems. As noted above[20] the problem for the Buddhist rhetorician was one of dealing with an appeal that was not to the selfishness of men but one that was from that selfishness. Oliver's comment on this point is that "Speakers will attain their greatest effectiveness when they show their listeners that they ought not to seek satisfaction of their desires but should instead seek to transcend desire itself."[21] This attempt to transcend desire contrasts sharply with Aristotle's discussion of the emotions. The second book of the Rhetoric is an attempt to show how the emotions can be manipulated in order to create a favorable disposition towards the speaker whether by arousing an emotion, such as anger, or by attempting to calm it and restrain it. Since the emotions are rooted in desire, for instance anger, which is
a longing, accompanied by pain, for a real or apparent revenge for a real or apparent slight, affecting a man himself or one of his friends, when such a slight is undeserved.[22]
The speaker is advised by Aristotle to:
put the hearers into the frame of mind of those who are inclined to anger, and to show that his opponents are responsible for things which rouse men to anger and are people of the kind with whom men are angry.[23]
This is obviously an attempt not to pass beyond desire but to manipulate and use desire for one's own purposes. The Western attempt to appeal to the passions would then be a violation of those principles of calmness and detachment that were implied by Oliver's statement that the Buddhist rhetoric should attempt to transcend desire.
Speech, in the Buddhist conception, according to Oliver, has three functions, it is to be "true, real (in terms of the attendant circumstances), and useful...."[24] This is, as Oliver says, the beginning of a theory of rhetoric and what remains, as far as the use of ethos goes, is to enumerate the aretaic qualities of the speaker. Oliver quotes the Buddha's description of the monk as an effective preacher:
Abandoning falsehood, he speaks the truth, is truthful, faithful, trustworthy, and breaks not his word to his people. Abandoning slander, he does not tell what he has heard in one place to cause dissension elsewhere. He heals divisions and encourages friendships, delighting in concord and speaking what produces it. Abandoning harsh language, his speech is blameless, pleasant to the ear, reaching the heart, urbane, and attractive to the multitude. Abandoning frivolous language, he speaks duly and in accordance with the doctrine and discipline, and his speech is such as to be remembered, elegant, clear and to the point.[25]
The qualities that are particularly valued in the Buddhist monk as speaker then are not those qualities which are aggressive and manipulative but those qualities which tend towards conciliation. Thus he is supposed to be truthful and to encourage concord rather than seeking what a Westerner would regard as a victory. The monk is also described as being urbane and sober, qualities which would seem to correspond to the notion of fronesiV in Western rhetoric. In fact the overall qualities of good sense, good character, and good will would seem to be as desirable in Buddhist rhetoric as they are in Western rhetoric, the most salient difference, however, is that whereas the goal of the Western rhetorician is persuasion, i.e., a change of opinion and a consequent action based upon this opinion, the goal of the Buddhist rhetorician is, by implication, conciliation and mediation. The qualities that enable this conciliation are the monk's truthfulness, faithfulness, trustworthiness, urbanity and sobriety.
The rhetoric of India, in both its Hindu and its Buddhist forms, is not without an ethical basis then. The nature of the ethical appeal, however, is rooted in conceptions of the good, of the aretaic qualities that are especially prized and valued, from those qualities that are prized and valued in the West. Thus for the Hindu rhetorician, as described by Oliver, the primary qualities to be sought are those by which he may fully represent the traditions of family, community, and caste, while for the Buddhist rhetorician the qualities that are valued may be described as those of truthfulness, compassion, and conciliation.
SUMMARY
Given that there are no paradigmatic speeches to which we can turn for analysis, as we could turn to speeches of the embassy to Achilles in the Iliad, which provides with an idea of what a pre- Socratic Western rhetoric might have been like,to get some idea of the nature of Indian and Chinese rhetoric we were forced to turn to secondary sources to get some idea of the ethical concerns of these foreign rhetorics.
As might be expected from cultures that have highly evolved religious and ethical beliefs there is an ethical element present in their rehetorics. It is, also as might be expected, different from the ethical concerns that dominate Western rhetoric. In the case of India the primary concern, within the Hindu- Buddhist framework sketched by Oliver, is the representation of tradition. The speaker expresses himself as an embodiment of the traditions of caste and family and it is from this representation of self as the embodiment of tradition that gives his speech act such ethical force as it possesses. In the Confucian tradition the speaker derives his ethical appeal from his presentation of himself as a person who embodies certain virtues, virtues that have a rough correspondence to the Aristotelian virtues that were to be embodied by the orator. These virtues are those of ritual propriety, righteousness, and benevolence. These virtues also entailed certain corollaries, such as impartiality and patience. These virtues, as embodied in the speaker, belong to the superior man, the chün-tzu, who is near to the status of a sage. Since these virtues belong to a superior man they are particularly attractive and therefore make up the ethical appeal of the chün-tzu.
The aims of rhetoric, as might be expected from cultures that value these virtues more highly than the West does, are also different. The primary difference, which is especially noticeable in our discussion of Confucian rhetoric, is that the aim is not that of persuasion but that of conciliation. In a rhetoric that aims at persuasion, persuasion being understood as that which causes a person to change his opinion or to form an opinion where he had previously not held one and to manifest this through some action, such as voting in a legislature or on a jury, there exists the tendency to overcome the opponent through the use of devices such as humor, irony, or to play upon the emotions in a variety of ways. In both Buddhist rhetoric, as described by Oliver, and in Confucian rhetoric, this last tendency, to play upon the emotions, is regarded as something to be resisted.[48]
The rhetoric of the Far East manifests an emphasis upon certain virtues, which may have analogues in Western or Classical rhetoric but for which there is not necessarily a direct parallel. It further manifests a regard for the feelings of the opponents that is not evident in Western rhetoric. Further it aims not at victory or conversion as much as it aims at conciliation. The virtues that make up the ethical appeal are those virtues that one would expect in a rhetoric that aims at conciliation. Propriety, li, because it derives from a set of traditional rules emphasizes that the speaker has a due regard for the social relations that exist between him and his audience, whether it is that of the ruler or of the people or some other relationship. Righteousness, i, establishes the moral tone or quality of the speaker. Benevolence, jen, because it contains within itself the characteristics of regard for the feelings of others, receptivity, and impartiality manifests itself as the speaker's indifference to his own feelings and his concerns for the rights of others. Within this framework of aretaic notions it would be difficult, if not impossible, to construct a rhetoric that has as its aim anything but conciliation.
It is possible, of course, to reconstruct to some degree, the nature of the rhetorics of other cultural or belief systems, such as those for Taoism, Mohism, and others that contrast in a greater or lesser degree with the systems outlined here. Robert Oliver has a number of articles on aspects of Confucianism and Taoism and other people such as Chad Hansen have written about the nature of linguistics and its influence on Chinese thought,[49] however, the basic outline for the rhetorics of the two largest belief systems, Hindu- Buddhist, as Oliver refers to it, and Confucian seem to be as outlined here.
Obviously more work needs to be done in order to form a definitive analysis of Indian and Chinese rhetoric and since there has been no work in the early history of either culture that occupies a place comparable to that of Aristotle's rhetoric in the West, i.e., one that has exerted a formative influence on the rhetoric of either Indian or Chinese culture it is unlikely that anything more than a piece by piece analysis can or will be done.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetoric
Despite the fact that the populations of China and India make up over one quarter of the population of the Earth, and that "60% of humanity lives in the Pacific Basin,"[1] and that both countries have a history that in some cases predates that of Greece and the ancient Near-East there is not a voluminous body of work on the rhetoric of Asia. The Rhetoric Society Quarterly in its almost twenty years of publication has devoted one article to Asian rhetoric[2] and has published one bibliography devoted to the subject of Asian Rhetoric.[3] Most of the references to be found in this bibliography are to speeches and the current writings of figures such as Mao Tse-Tung and other recent figures that have played a prominent part in the Asian political scene.
The major research that has been done in the area of Asian rhetoric seems to be primarily the work of Robert T. Oliver, a former professor of speech at Pennsylvania State University and who wrote extensively on the subject of Asian rhetoric and A. S. Cua of Catholic University who written on argumentation and Confucian rhetoric.
What I wish to focus on in this paper is the way in which ethical qualities are conveyed and which ethical qualities are particularly valued in Asian rhetoric and how this contrasts with the aretaic qualities that the speaker wishes to convey in the Aristotelian model of rhetoric. This enterprise, however, is somewhat handicapped by the fact there do not appear to be any paradigmatic examples of Asian rhetoric that are compact enough to be subjected to a thorough analysis, nor are there, in the popular literature of China, any that are of an early enough date to be models of Asian rhetoric and still fall with the purview of the historical era that we are dealing with. The Bhagavad Gita is an extended rhetorical piece which forms part of a larger epic, the Mahabharata and the larger unit of which it is a part has sometimes been compared to the Iliad both in terms of length (the Mahabharata is longer) and in terms of its centrality to Indian culture, however, because of the Gita's extensive length it is not suitable for a detailed analysis and there seems to be no other primary example from India that could serve as a paradigm for that country's rhetorical use of ethos.
The situation with respect to devising a paradigmatic oration for the rhetoric of China is even worse in that the central works of the Confucian tradition are not primarily concerned with rhetoric but with ritual, poetry, and ethical customs. Popular works that provide paradigms might include the six classic novels (San Kuo Yen Yi ( Romance of the Three Kingdoms); Shui Hu Chuan ( The Story of the Water Margin); Hsi Yu Chi ( Pilgrimage to the Western Regions); Chin P'ing Mei ( Golden Vase of Plum Flowers); Ju-lin Wai Shih ( Unofficial History of Officialdom); and Hung Lou Meng ( Dream of the Red Chamber)), however, these all come during the post-Classical period and the earliest, the San Kuo Yen Ki dates from 1494.[4]
Due to the lack of suitable models therefore I must rely on secondary sources in presenting any kind of information about ethos in Asian rhetoric. A primary resource then will be the work of Robert Oliver who as a teacher of speech and one who worked extensively in Asia is familiar with patterns of Oriental thought. Dr. Cua, who teaches philosophy at Catholic University, has been kind enough to loan me a copy of his paper "The Possibility of a Confucian theory of Rhetoric" which will appear in a forthcoming volume edited by Kathleen Jamieson entitled Rhetoric: East and West.
ETHOS IN CLASSIC TIMES
The classical pisteis or proofs were considered to be those of ethos, pathos, and logos, appeals in which the rhetorician presented himself as a person of good character, or in which he appealed to the emotions of his audience, or in which he appealed to the principles of reason. In the Western tradition, however, it has usually been felt that the strongest appeal is that of ethos, the ethical appeal, and that rhetoric derives its force from the character of the speaker.[5] In the Greco-Roman tradition this ethical appeal has been based on the character of the speaker, that he has shown himself to be a person of good sense, good character, and good will or fronesiV, arete and eunoia.[6]
Aristotle links his discussion of ethos with a discussion of the virtues as a means of generating goodwill and friendship.
These qualities [good sense, good character, and good will] are all that are necessary, so that the speaker who appears to possess all three will necessarily convince his hearers. The means whereby he may appear sensible and good must be inferred from the classification of the virtue; for to make himself appear such he would employ the same means as he would in the case of others.[7]
It is only after this discussion that Aristotle proceeds to discuss the emotions, which he defines as "all those affections which cause men to change their opinion in regard to their judgements, and are accompanied by pleasure and pain."[8] Ethos is a way of affecting the emotions but it is not itself one of the emotions.
Quintilian, however, classes ethos as one or more of the emotions[9] specifically those that are calm and gentle and which persuade and "induce a feeling of goodwill"[10] These emotions, moreover, are continuous while those of pathos are momentary. The ethos that Quintilian describes or desiderates in the orator
is commended to our approval by goodness more than aught else and is not merely calm and mild, but in most cases ingratiating and courteous and such as to excite pleasure and affection in our hearers, while the chief merit in its expression lies in making it seem that all that we say derives directly from the nature of the facts and persons concerned and in the revelation of the character of the orator in such a way that all may recognize it.[11]
This contrasts sharply with Aristotle's view that ethos is not one of the emotions but one of the causes of the emotions. The emotions that are generated by ethos for Aristotle are those of friendship and goodwill or affection towards the speaker based on his demonstration of the aretaic qualities of fronesiV, arete, and eunoia. For Quintilian the ethical appeal has become rooted in an appeal to the emotions but specifically those gentle ones that are linked to feelings of benevolence.
The change from Aristotle's conception of ethos to that of Quintilian represents a loss to the theory of rhetoric inasmuch as it has passed from being something that is sharply defined and differentiated into something that is vaguer and which has been assimilated into one of the emotions. The primary meaning of ethos, however, remains that of Aristotle and ethos is used throughout this paper as Aristotle used it, as a system or network of virtues that excite favorable feelings in the audience.
THE RHETORIC OF INDIA
As Jensen points out in his article[12] the terms "Asianism" and "Asian rhetoric" have been used in a pejorative sense for centuries to indicate a "florid, bombastic style, exaggerated rhythmic effect, excessive figurative embellishments, and the valuing of form over substance."[13] Of course, it should also be noted that Asia, during the classical period, referred to the area that is sometimes called Asia Minor or the Near East.
Robert T. Oliver in a Culture and Communication: The Problem of Penetrating National and Cultural Boundaries[14] addresses the problem of establishing the ethos of Indian rhetoric. In a chapter entitled "The Rhetoric of Hindu- Buddhist Idea Systems" he examines the nature of Indian rhetoric and observes that writing was considered to be at best an approximation of what the speaker meant originally:
In India, also, even down to the nineteenth century, writing was considered too imprecise a means of conveying meaning to have any great communicative importance. Until the seventeenth century, books were inscribed on leaves and sheets of bark , which were hung like washing on lines and were called "treasure houses of the Goddess of Speech." What was truly meant was what was said at the time of composition. Then a rough approximation of this meaning was transmuted into visible symbols and "stored"; but what the true meaning might be could only be conjectured in terms of the personalities, the problems, and the intentions of the composers of the message. Reading became a search for precision--aided but also handicapped by the admittedly imprecise medium of written words.[15]
What is especially noteworthy here is the similarity to the Plato's comments on writing in the Phaedrus.[16] Our main concern, however, is not with the Indian view of speech as opposed to writing but of the kind of ethical appeal, in short the aretaic qualities, which is used as a form of proof in Indian rhetoric.
Oliver poses four questions, the last of which is "...what kind of discourse is effective? What are the responsibilities of speakers? What are the proper uses of speech?"[17] The answers that he gives are based on his conception of Buddhist rhetoric. Briefly put the answer is that while we may appeal to the selfishness of people "we should not appeal for selfishness but from it." The ethical appeal is not based on personal advantage but is rather a warning against it.
A better summary of the Indian view of ethos may be obtained from Oliver's book Communication and Culture in Ancient India and China in which he states that
A person was not valued for his idiosyncratic characteristics but for his compatibility with his group. Ethos in ancient India did not arise from special merits of the individual but from his quality of representation of his family, his community, and his caste.[18]
This conception of conformity or representation of family, community and caste is, of course, most marked in the rhetoric of Hinduism. What seems most noticeable, however, from even a superficial reading of the Hindu religious classics, such as the Gita or the Upanishads is the way in which the ethical appeal of Krishna or of the guru derives not just from his relationship to the caste but from his special relationship to the divine. In this respect there seem to be parallels to what Kennedy sees as the source of the authority of Judeo- Christian rhetoric. This is an aspect that Oliver does not deal with in either of his books and would seem to be a fruitful area for investigation.[19]
In contrast to the Hindu rhetorician, who is bound by exigencies of caste, community, and family, Oliver sees the Buddhist rhetorician as confronting a different set of problems. As noted above[20] the problem for the Buddhist rhetorician was one of dealing with an appeal that was not to the selfishness of men but one that was from that selfishness. Oliver's comment on this point is that "Speakers will attain their greatest effectiveness when they show their listeners that they ought not to seek satisfaction of their desires but should instead seek to transcend desire itself."[21] This attempt to transcend desire contrasts sharply with Aristotle's discussion of the emotions. The second book of the Rhetoric is an attempt to show how the emotions can be manipulated in order to create a favorable disposition towards the speaker whether by arousing an emotion, such as anger, or by attempting to calm it and restrain it. Since the emotions are rooted in desire, for instance anger, which is
a longing, accompanied by pain, for a real or apparent revenge for a real or apparent slight, affecting a man himself or one of his friends, when such a slight is undeserved.[22]
The speaker is advised by Aristotle to:
put the hearers into the frame of mind of those who are inclined to anger, and to show that his opponents are responsible for things which rouse men to anger and are people of the kind with whom men are angry.[23]
This is obviously an attempt not to pass beyond desire but to manipulate and use desire for one's own purposes. The Western attempt to appeal to the passions would then be a violation of those principles of calmness and detachment that were implied by Oliver's statement that the Buddhist rhetoric should attempt to transcend desire.
Speech, in the Buddhist conception, according to Oliver, has three functions, it is to be "true, real (in terms of the attendant circumstances), and useful...."[24] This is, as Oliver says, the beginning of a theory of rhetoric and what remains, as far as the use of ethos goes, is to enumerate the aretaic qualities of the speaker. Oliver quotes the Buddha's description of the monk as an effective preacher:
Abandoning falsehood, he speaks the truth, is truthful, faithful, trustworthy, and breaks not his word to his people. Abandoning slander, he does not tell what he has heard in one place to cause dissension elsewhere. He heals divisions and encourages friendships, delighting in concord and speaking what produces it. Abandoning harsh language, his speech is blameless, pleasant to the ear, reaching the heart, urbane, and attractive to the multitude. Abandoning frivolous language, he speaks duly and in accordance with the doctrine and discipline, and his speech is such as to be remembered, elegant, clear and to the point.[25]
The qualities that are particularly valued in the Buddhist monk as speaker then are not those qualities which are aggressive and manipulative but those qualities which tend towards conciliation. Thus he is supposed to be truthful and to encourage concord rather than seeking what a Westerner would regard as a victory. The monk is also described as being urbane and sober, qualities which would seem to correspond to the notion of fronesiV in Western rhetoric. In fact the overall qualities of good sense, good character, and good will would seem to be as desirable in Buddhist rhetoric as they are in Western rhetoric, the most salient difference, however, is that whereas the goal of the Western rhetorician is persuasion, i.e., a change of opinion and a consequent action based upon this opinion, the goal of the Buddhist rhetorician is, by implication, conciliation and mediation. The qualities that enable this conciliation are the monk's truthfulness, faithfulness, trustworthiness, urbanity and sobriety.
The rhetoric of India, in both its Hindu and its Buddhist forms, is not without an ethical basis then. The nature of the ethical appeal, however, is rooted in conceptions of the good, of the aretaic qualities that are especially prized and valued, from those qualities that are prized and valued in the West. Thus for the Hindu rhetorician, as described by Oliver, the primary qualities to be sought are those by which he may fully represent the traditions of family, community, and caste, while for the Buddhist rhetorician the qualities that are valued may be described as those of truthfulness, compassion, and conciliation.
SUMMARY
Given that there are no paradigmatic speeches to which we can turn for analysis, as we could turn to speeches of the embassy to Achilles in the Iliad, which provides with an idea of what a pre- Socratic Western rhetoric might have been like,to get some idea of the nature of Indian and Chinese rhetoric we were forced to turn to secondary sources to get some idea of the ethical concerns of these foreign rhetorics.
As might be expected from cultures that have highly evolved religious and ethical beliefs there is an ethical element present in their rehetorics. It is, also as might be expected, different from the ethical concerns that dominate Western rhetoric. In the case of India the primary concern, within the Hindu- Buddhist framework sketched by Oliver, is the representation of tradition. The speaker expresses himself as an embodiment of the traditions of caste and family and it is from this representation of self as the embodiment of tradition that gives his speech act such ethical force as it possesses. In the Confucian tradition the speaker derives his ethical appeal from his presentation of himself as a person who embodies certain virtues, virtues that have a rough correspondence to the Aristotelian virtues that were to be embodied by the orator. These virtues are those of ritual propriety, righteousness, and benevolence. These virtues also entailed certain corollaries, such as impartiality and patience. These virtues, as embodied in the speaker, belong to the superior man, the chün-tzu, who is near to the status of a sage. Since these virtues belong to a superior man they are particularly attractive and therefore make up the ethical appeal of the chün-tzu.
The aims of rhetoric, as might be expected from cultures that value these virtues more highly than the West does, are also different. The primary difference, which is especially noticeable in our discussion of Confucian rhetoric, is that the aim is not that of persuasion but that of conciliation. In a rhetoric that aims at persuasion, persuasion being understood as that which causes a person to change his opinion or to form an opinion where he had previously not held one and to manifest this through some action, such as voting in a legislature or on a jury, there exists the tendency to overcome the opponent through the use of devices such as humor, irony, or to play upon the emotions in a variety of ways. In both Buddhist rhetoric, as described by Oliver, and in Confucian rhetoric, this last tendency, to play upon the emotions, is regarded as something to be resisted.[48]
The rhetoric of the Far East manifests an emphasis upon certain virtues, which may have analogues in Western or Classical rhetoric but for which there is not necessarily a direct parallel. It further manifests a regard for the feelings of the opponents that is not evident in Western rhetoric. Further it aims not at victory or conversion as much as it aims at conciliation. The virtues that make up the ethical appeal are those virtues that one would expect in a rhetoric that aims at conciliation. Propriety, li, because it derives from a set of traditional rules emphasizes that the speaker has a due regard for the social relations that exist between him and his audience, whether it is that of the ruler or of the people or some other relationship. Righteousness, i, establishes the moral tone or quality of the speaker. Benevolence, jen, because it contains within itself the characteristics of regard for the feelings of others, receptivity, and impartiality manifests itself as the speaker's indifference to his own feelings and his concerns for the rights of others. Within this framework of aretaic notions it would be difficult, if not impossible, to construct a rhetoric that has as its aim anything but conciliation.
It is possible, of course, to reconstruct to some degree, the nature of the rhetorics of other cultural or belief systems, such as those for Taoism, Mohism, and others that contrast in a greater or lesser degree with the systems outlined here. Robert Oliver has a number of articles on aspects of Confucianism and Taoism and other people such as Chad Hansen have written about the nature of linguistics and its influence on Chinese thought,[49] however, the basic outline for the rhetorics of the two largest belief systems, Hindu- Buddhist, as Oliver refers to it, and Confucian seem to be as outlined here.
Obviously more work needs to be done in order to form a definitive analysis of Indian and Chinese rhetoric and since there has been no work in the early history of either culture that occupies a place comparable to that of Aristotle's rhetoric in the West, i.e., one that has exerted a formative influence on the rhetoric of either Indian or Chinese culture it is unlikely that anything more than a piece by piece analysis can or will be done.