Virtues and Jesus

            People can lie with their words. That sounds like a pretty obvious statement, but there’s more to it than the average person might think. Heinrichs starts chapter six with the Isocrates quotation that says, “The argument which is made by a man’s life is of more weight than that which is furnished by words.” Isocrates is referring to character. An audience will truly know a person’s true ideals and valor if said person chooses to die for a cause, while some people who might express certain values via words are more able to mask up their true intentions. In other words, an audience is most likely to trust an argument if the source of the argument seems foolproof and earnest. This brings us to the key of obtaining a strong relationship with your audience. Cicero mentions that for starters, your audience has to be receptive and attentive. This makes sense because in order to even have a chance at making a point and appealing to people, people should want to be there in the first place and willing to hear you out. Your audience should also be well disposed towards you, in other words, like and trust you. All these delve into a deeper technique of ethos.

            Being a good person is not enough. If only Jesus could here that. Here, here. I’m not saying that being a good person isn’t enough to pass through those golden gates of Heaven or reincarnate into an Egyptian God. I’m just saying that, if your purpose is to successfully persuade and claim a role of leadership, being a good person will not get you anywhere. I could be the Mother Theresa in all her innocent and pious existence. But what if Mother Theresa is actually an antisocial hermit who’s scared of the mere thought of touching another person’s flesh? What if oxygen makes her go into cardiac arrest and the thought of speaking her mind makes her gag-reflex work overtime? Mother Theresa is a social misfit who is scared of standing out. Yes, she helps orphan kids and plants programs that help the growth of the Amazon rainforest. But would you trust her to lead you to rebel against a communist government? Does she really look like the type that would know what to do if a man put a gun to her forehead on a subway? No. Oh, she cares. I just wouldn’t trust her with my life if the world was about to burn and she led a rebellion against an a-class serial killer president. But I think it’s pretty obvious that Mother Theresa wouldn’t lead people to a massacre in a future dystopian society.

            All of this boils down to the actual factors that affect your credibility and skill for attaining leadership. Aristotle’s three essential qualities of a persuasive ethos are: virtue, practical wisdom, and selflessness/disinterest. For people to follow your advice, to follow you, period, they need to know that you actually care about their well-being. An example of this would be if I were to be in love with a certain male counterpart and in need advice as to how to approach a certain subject with him (Although, if I’m being completely honest, If I were to love someone, I’d ensure myself that the feeling is mutual and if that were the case, the trust between us would be sufficient as to my broaching any subject with him—just clarifying. I know how it deeply interests you to know how I handle my love life. Isa Love 101.) If this was the case though, I would certainly not accept advice from a girl who happens to obsessed with the certain guy. I’d be even more suspicious if the only time she has ever spoken to me is a year ago when she told me I had split ends. That is just not a source that is out for my well-being. Her interests are not purely selfless and so she makes for a persuasive-less ethos. This explains the three traits of persuasive leadership. The audience must believe you share their values, that you appear to know the right thing to do on every occasion, and that their interest is your sole concern.

            We have to share their values. We have to be virtuous. By virtuous I don’t mean necessarily good at heart like my former example of Mother Theresa. A person’s virtuous-ness is based on their audience. Let’s say a female tells the pope, “I think I like girl.” The pope would see that as virtuous-less seeing as the Catholic religion is so against that. If she were to tell the same thing to a group of teenagers in liberal San Francisco, they’d congratulate her for being independent and highlighting her identity. An example Hienrischs gives is Julius Caesar. “While Jesus had a pure kind of virtue, Julius Caesar’s was decidedly rhetorical.” When you think about it, most of the people nowadays that uphold values of a group are rhetorically virtuous; they don’t actually do what their heart knows is right, they simply must be seen to have the “right” values. Of course, the “right” values are relative. This is why values and ethics are a part of ethos. Values change depending on your audience, on what they regard as morally correct. A good arguer knows how to appeal to their audience’s values. Basically, you just have to pretend to care. You have to be a good actor. Period.

            It is only expected that you would like to “pump up your rhetorical virtue for a particular audience.” But while bragging helps pump up your rhetorical virtue, character references beats it in that it is a less supercilious way of raising your standing. The “tactical flaw” is the rainbow at the end of the ethos tunnel. By revealing some defect that shows your dedication to the audience’s values, you subtly earn some points with them. An example Heinrichs uses is a man who sends a memo to everyone in his office and later figures out that he screwed up his figures by a decimal point or two. And he says, “Sorry, my bad. I wrote it late last night and didn’t want to wake the others to check the facts.” Here, he is placing his mistake on the very caring aspect of his personality.

            Appealing to a specific audience, using ethos to its full extent, is not just a matter of actually feeling specific virtues. You have to be really good at seeming to obtain those virtues. Seeming versus being. Uh-oh, I’m feeling a Hamlet discussion coming on. He always does manage to bring himself into the conversation.