This week, we seem to be focusing heavily on ethos. In the book, Thank You for Arguing, it is the first method that Heinrich addresses on how to win over an audience. Heinrich focuses on Aristotle and the term "character" as he explains the proper definition of ethos. Heinrich starts it off by dividing ethos off into three sections. The first part of ethos is disinterest. Wether you believe it or not, an audience is more sustainable to trust a speaker who shows little interest in bettering themselves. Someone who truly cares about the audience and their needs, much more than there own.
The second section of ethos would be virtue. This is focusing on the audience's values and trying to understand them. An audience will appreciate you more if you can relate to them. This means a speaker should take the time to learn about the audiences language, culture, certain traditions, and everything in between.
Lastly, the final section is practical wisdom. This is overall just proving your credibility and how much the audience can trust you. You want the audience the have faith in you that you can do your job and you will do it properly.
All of these things combined, you will have a pretty good shot at persuading your audience. Heinrich does make it clear that you do not need ethos to win an argument. You don't need to have good character for the audience to trust you. Although, he states it surely will help and encourages everyone through ethos, to have a better character.
I think it is very interesting how even with all of these, it is not 100% chance the audience will be persuaded. I agree that the audience needs to see interest, it reminds me of a normal friendship and if you do not think someone cares about you, then it would be hard to be there friend. This is also the same with your second point of virtue. Sharing the same values with someone is very important in building a relationship. I agree that these are all important to persuading an audience.
ReplyDeletethis function makes more sense when you remove one of its parts because say your sole persuasion points are ones anger and patriotism, without acknowledging a way to carry out change you've simply stirred the pot on a soup you will not eat. this works in any combination of these premises.
ReplyDeleteI like that you added ethos to one of the topics and that you talked about the three components of ethos. I like how you mentioned Aristotle and his theories. I find it very interesting how some of these comments are the key to persuading people.
ReplyDeleteEthos is a very powerful part of rhetoric that has important components that are backed by Aristotle, who is the Einstein, in my opinion, of rhetoric/literature. Even though it is no guarantee that every audience will react certain ways with these certain techniques, they give persuaders a good chance of being successful. Each portion of ethos comes together with the others and overall, is a smart way of persuading.
ReplyDeleteEthos is a very interesting aspect of persuasion. I think that the first part of ethos (disinterest) is probably the most important. If the audience thinks that the person is only interested in helping themselves then the audience is not going to be very likely to believe them. The second part of ethos (virtue) seems to pair well with the first part as that it is easier to show that you care about the audience when it looks like you care more about them rather than yourself. I think that the third part of ethos (practical wisdom) is not as related to the first one as the second one was. I think it is interesting that people can use some/all of these and not necessarily win the audience over.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this post because it helped me further understand ethos and how it is used. I thought the examples you provided were a great way to help an audience learn about the topic
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