Public speaking at its core is about the ability to persuade others. Nobody invented talking, or the public, or public speaking. In ancient times, public speaking was huge in terms of shaping the world. It still is today, but it manifests in different ways through social media, messaging through virtual platforms, and marketing. 

If it seems like today’s orators/messengers are moving away from “Logos” or logical appeals in their arguments, I think you’re right. Particularly public speaking- vis-a-vis social media and technology - is still popular and instrumental in shaping policy-making/public decisions, but on balance as a society we seem to be moving away from logic and science. With the rise of social media, technology, and a host of other things, there’s also a decrease in the appeal to logic and reason and an increase in arguments rooted in emotion. Any person, entity, or company messaging an audience today blurs the lines between media, marketing, and public speaking. 

Someone can be an effective public speaker using good, structured rhetorical arguments, but that doesn’t necessarily mean what they were saying is true. Yet in ancient times, there was certainly a high value placed on thoughtful rhetoric. There was a divide between “yes you know how to make reasonable arguments and sound persuasive” but is what you’re saying true? Or ethical?

In ancient Athens, oral tradition dictated education. As the structure of government evolved, landowners took on democratic power given to them by the people, and they started using speeches to persuade the rest of the citizenry to vote for them. Essentially, the future of every Athenian depended on public speaking.

Rhetoric was elevated in Athenian life, as was education. Essentially, you had people who were going to be a part of public life and policy making under a democracy. Tutors were essential: they subscribed to the Sophists schools of thought and in turn trained students for public life. Sophists were paid teachers of rhetoric or philosophy in ancient Greece. They were the sages, the experts: the original tutors. Tutors existed before democracy did, smart people have always been around and who have taken the time to think about more complex aspects of the human experience and politics, etc. They’ve been around for a long time. They believed you could teach someone anything through rhetorical argumentation. One of the important things to be able to rise to prominence as a Sophist was to prove your arguments through speeches in a public forum. That’s where public speaking became central to Athenian democracy. 

Under Pericles, a new form of government, the Greek assemblies - the Supreme Courts of Athens - formed to annually debate new vs. old laws, and public speaking became a critical skill. The courtroom would have anywhere from 200 to 6,000 jurors who would make a ruling on the basis of the given arguments. In order to be appointed for paid public office positions, citizens who wished to participate had to submit an application. Public speaking abilities were crucial to these roles and to policy-forming protocol.

Rhetoric is comprised, famously, of ethos (credibility/character), logos (logic), and pathos (emotion). 

• Ethos: somebody eventually establishes ethos through popularity, credibility, then continues to gain followers for themselves or people who will listen/and believe through pathos. 

• Pathos: the way we stir up emotions. Humans are emotional individuals, when we press that button we can get them going.

• Logos: arguments structured in reason, or logic. Ancient Greece highly valued argumentation grounded in logic. 

The way the Athenians’ public life and future depended on their ability to speak publicly, the future of businesses and politicians depends on their ability to persuade. An effective way to do that is through emotions, and today you can do it in a wider forum through social media. Back then an orator’s voice could only reach, say, 500-1,000 people when talking about politics and policy. Now, a single person can reach millions of people in a moment, and social media has taken on an aspect of public messaging. Recording a video of yourself and broadcast it to everyone is the new public speaking. 

The nature of public speaking is changing in the direction of focusing on emotional messaging because it’s the most primitive and hardwired part of our brain - we can connect to emotional messaging so much more than logic and reason.

By knowing what the tools there are within rhetorical speaking/public speaking and being able to identify what tools the orator/messenger is using, you can start to reason through them and think more critically about the messages coming to you. You can ask yourself questions like, “Why am I believing/ being persuaded by what they’re saying?” If you can say the logic comes together, that’s great! However, we often fall into traps of being persuaded by pre-established notions of a speaker’s credibility that come from their reputation, not what they are saying in the moment. It’s always wise to examine which of the following statements we would agree with: 1. The things a speaker is saying are based in fact, or 2. The speaker is trying to get away with persuading people to do things based on the regard people have for them. For example, if a firefighter tells you the brush around your house is fine, but then the health inspector comes and says it’s not fine, who do you believe? You might be tempted to believe the firefighter because of who they are, not because what they’re saying is true.

Being able to identify whether arguments are based on emotion, reason, or the credibility someone holds because of who they are is an incredibly important skill, especially in the age of the internet and AI-based marketing. For example, I like Apple, but so much of their marketing/public speaking is based on an emotional appeal. Their Apple watch is truly great tech, but they sell it by appealing to my emotions, using ads that make me feel like, “If I want my grandparents to live, I had better buy this watch!”. As a young person I don’t really have as much of a need for all the health and safety features of the Apple Watch, but if I’m the one who goes out and buys this watch for myself based on their messaging. I’m acting on my emotions. 

You may have seen the recent documentary on Netflix, The Social Dilemma, which speaks to how companies are utilizing social media to market to their audiences. But what they’re ultimately selling is the ability to change the world - even by a fraction of a percent. Knowing your audience can change the entire motivation and argumentation of a speaker. On the internet, the entire rest of the world is the audience. If you can persuade just a tiny fraction of the world to do something that benefits you, that is the massive upside everyone engaging in public speaking and messaging over social media is looking for.

Everybody has an angle, and everybody wants you to ride their emotional rollercoaster. So, is there a way to distance yourself or be more aware of what you’re being persuaded to do and how you’re being persuaded?

The answer is, of course, Yes. Next time you watch something or listen to public speaker or an ad try to think about what aspects of rhetoric their messaging is focusing on. Is it appealing to reason? Is this something they want you to believe or do because of who they are and the credibility they have? Or is its purpose to stir up your emotions and make feel the way they want you to feel about a product or policy?

Here’s a fun, famous story. One of the ancient Sophist tutors, Protagoras, had a pupil, Euathlus, to whom he promised his tutelage free of payment until he had won his first court case as a lawyer in the Athenian court. Euathlus, being the clever pupil that he was, devised a way to avoid paying Protagoras’s fees by suing Protagoras in court and claiming that he wasn’t a good tutor. Protagoras famously replied to the court, “If I’ve done my job well and taught my student the art of rhetoric and public speaking, you’ll rule in his favor, and in such a case he’ll have won his first court case and I’ll be owed my fee .”

We at PCH Tutors subscribe to Sophists’ school of thought and think tutors are invaluable to helping students achieve success in academics and thoughtfulness as life-long learners.

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