The Rhetorica ad Herennium is a fundamental guide on how to swindle a crowd. While reading that and Cicero’s excerpts I was reminded of the musical Chicago and the character Billy Flynn. Billy Flynn is exactly the kind of orator/defense attorney that is encouraged in these texts. In ad Herennium, the truth is not even secondary to the delivery; it isn’t mentioned at all. And the outcome of a particular dispute is not determined by the veracity of a particular argument, it is determined by who can best “razzle dazzle.”
With the trick of amplification and diminution, which Cicero suggests in De Inventione, Billy underplays Roxy’s responsibility in the murder of her lover, Fred, and overplays Fred’s malicious intentions toward Roxy. If the murder had really been self-defense, then the law would support such action, says Cicero, and Billy represents the murder as such. Cicero, admittedly, touches on morality, but only as a way to appeal to an audience, and he certainly does not champion ethics as vehemently as Quintillian does.
And speaking of morality... I have a feeling that it it too early in the semester to start railing about Marx theory and feminism (especially involving a society that is so completely stratified), but I’m going to do it, anyhow. I’ll start with the former theory and work forward (since I really only have one female remark to make about the texts).
One only has to see or read The Satyricon in order to see how highly the “humane and cultivated” Romans valued “all forms of virtue.” I also find it interesting that, throughout history, the wealthy have underestimated and undervalued the lower classes. I believe that morality is actually more real amongst the lower classes, because they have less to gain by false morality. The higher the classes get, the more creative are the crimes, the more fluid the morality. As Quintillian said, “There is always the risk of falling into the common fault of condemning what one does not understand.” Even as an afterthought, Cicero characterizes morality as belonging solely to an educated and superior class.
Perhaps I misconstrue. (?)
All I have to say about feminism relates to Philodemus. I’d be willing to bet that he never thought it possible that mere "foolish" women would be reading his words.
In the reading and in one other student's post, the injunction in the text to loosen up the fatigued audience with laughter had far too modern a ring for my taste. I reference the video of the two commentators we saw in class last week. Both of those men sickened me for different reasons. One was a strident fear-monger who spoke in broad generalities without any concession for valid differences of approach or any actual definition of terminology employed. The other addressed me as some sort of crass idiot who just needed to be prodded into yukking it up with him --not because of true humor--but as evidence that he could formulate the best adolscent forms of personal attack against those who might disagree with his equally unsubstantiated (perhaps unnamed?) agenda. He banked on the fact that I might be tired of the more serious forms of the basic diatribe. He's was right. I simply turned them both out. Bombast is always preamble to a swindle.
ReplyDeleteHmmm...If the ruling classes are the ones to determine the moral codes that bind the community, perhaps in a sense morality does belong to them. That is, if only a certain group can alter ethical codes to suit their particular needs, those bound by those codes may not act appropriately whether or not they "buy in" to established laws and mores.
ReplyDeleteWell I don't know about razzle dazzle but certainly an argument that covers all the bases, diffuses, enlarges and hits them again could be very convincing. Linda Daly
ReplyDeleteThe reason Quintillian hits morality so hard is because he (and the others) were fully aware that their techniques of speaking alone could equally serve an honest attorney or Billy Flyn. The demand for the "vir bonus" in Cicero and Quintillian is outside of rhetorical technique. Its why ethics/morality was a separate subject Quintillian taught, and a preamble to rhetoric itself in his educational plan. He intended to pass these skills on to those who had been trained to use them in a fashion he deemed moral/ethical.
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