Re: The role of information design in education?

Conrad,

> I think that in Europe today
> the concept of Rhetoric is
> hugely undervalued. Maybe
> Socrates is to blame, but
> there is the idea here in
> Europe that people who study
> Rhetoric are just studying
> how to tell lies more
> convincingly.

Given the direction of your recent "thought-streams", you might want 
to take a look at Bryan Garsten's _Saving Persuasion: A Defense of 
Rhetoric and Judgment_ (Harvard University Press, 2006), which

	"analyzes the formation of an antirhetorical tradition in
	modern political thought, investigates its rival classical
	tradition of rhetoric and judgment, and explores the promise
	that a politics of persuasion offers contemporary democratic
	societies."

You may know that there is now a burgeoning literature in what Garsten 
calls the "nostalgic search for ancient solutions to modern problems," 
so I want to be clear that Garsten's very strong and balanced book on 
the classical tradition of republican rhetoric does NOT fall into this 
category. Garsten is actually sympathetic to rhetoric's critics (such 
as Hobbes -- himself a master practitioner of the rhetorical arts, 
verbal and visual); nor does Garsten join in postmodernism's (often 
over-the-top) celebration of the ancient Sophists.

Instead, Garsten emphasizes the very real limits of the ideal of 
persuasion, and he resurrects traditional teachings of rhetoric (from 
Aristotle and Cicero, whom Garsten describes as rhetoric's "most 
subtle and sophisticated expositors") geared at "taming" the 
rhetorical beast.

	"The goal of this study is to find a place for political
	rhetoric while firmly putting it in its place. Persuasion
	cannot be saved without also being tamed."

I have several projects in the pipeline for she-philosopher.com on 
closely related subjects, including one on the development of 
early-modern iconography themed around this principle of "taming" the 
rhetorical arts (plus a wonderful allegorical print of Hollar's on 
disputation and the dangers of agonistic politics), but won't be 
getting around to finishing up such projects any time soon, I fear, so 
you'll have to wait a while yet for the promised gallery of pix. :(

But Garsten does touch on one strain of iconography popular in the 
Renaissance, which featured the "Gallic Hercules" as a double 
(ambiguous) symbol of eloquence. The impetus for this particular 
imagery came from Lucian, who stated that the Gauls worshipped 
Hercules not as a symbol of force, but of oral persuasion, and 
portrayed Hercules as an orator "whose power consisted of chaining men 
into groups and dragging them about". (Memorable, no? ;-)

FWIW, Dürer intensely disliked this hybrid Hercules/Mercury god of 
forensic eloquence, because the imagery was so closely associated with 
the didactic pragmatism of Erasmus after his 1506 translation of the 
"Hercules Gallicus" (Dürer was an ardent follower of Luther, and both 
men disdained Erasmus's trust in the powers of verbal persuasion). As 
a result, Dürer produced 2 mock-heroic designs satirizing what was by 
then a commonplace symbol of humanist eloquence.

So, here we have evidence of a *visual* antirhetorical tradition, too. ;-)

Also, one other emblem of Renaissance syncretism which might interest 
you: the device (identity, brand) for Cicero's academy was a 
Hermathena, another symbol displaying the paradoxical attribution of 
opposite qualities to a single god. Cicero hunted a very long time for 
the perfect herm, and once he found it, used it to ornament his 
lecture hall. Then, in the 16th century, Achille Bocchi chose this 
same symbol as the impresa for his own academy, fully integrating the 
hermaphrodite with the religious mysteries, and giving new life to a 
classical term of visual rhetoric.

(And a really cool image, it is, too ... IMHO. ;-)

Deborah
_____

Deborah Taylor-Pearce
[email protected]

___________________________________________________________________

Use the following address to post a message to all subscribers: 
 [email protected]

To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your options, visit:
 http://list.InformationDesign.org/mailman/listinfo/infodesign-cafe

For all Information Design matters:
 http://InformationDesign.org

Problems? Write to:
 [email protected]
___________________________________________________________________