A Greek Rhetorician and an American Pastor

I wrote this essay last year for my rhetoric class. It's intriguing to see the influence that Greek rhetoricians still have on modern thought and speech, though they have been dead for centuries. Thanks to classical tradition, this speech made history when it was given by black civil rights idealist, Martin Luther King Jr. in 1963. In this essay I attempted to pinpoint just a few of Aristotle's ancient yet effective rhetorical techniques employed by King in this speech. 

            “One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity…still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition”…

            This famous speech given by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on August 28^th, 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial five years before his assassination, utilizes many human emotions and numerous methods of persuasion. One of the most dominant emotions evoked by King’s words is pity – pity for the plight of the black man and for social inequality in our country. Another is indignation – still others are anger, sadness, shame… emotions all analyzed by Aristotle in his The Art of Rhetoric. The Greek philosopher, nearly two thousand years before Dr. King’s time, outlined specific methods for provoking these emotions, methods put here into practice by King. His use of pathos is the decisive element in the effectiveness of this speech – it is what stirred so many American spirits and became the defining moment in the black race’s struggle for equality.

            The two main emotions to which King appeals in this speech are pity and indignation. Moreover it is not so much an appeal directed towards the oppressed as to the oppressors of America, designed to compel them to feel ashamed, drive them to action, and open their eyes to the harsh reality around them. No one, whether white or black, young or old, has heard this speech and remained unmoved by the preacher’s powerful words, crafted with these emotions in mind. They are effective because of the skill of a very persuasive orator, one who would have made Aristotle proud.

            The first and perhaps the most dominant emotion provoked is pity… “We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality…We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "For Whites Only".”… Americans who are blind to the situation of inequality among blacks and whites are made acutely aware of its injustice as King portrays our racist society of 1963. Those who are aware and have done nothing are provoked to guilt by these scenarios. Those who are the victims of the injustice are moved from apathy to action. For all, pity is an emotion very powerful and important in regards to King’s aim, which is to peacefully end the social injustices suffered by the Negroes.      

            Aristotle states in his guide to persuasion that the key to stirring up any emotion is to know the states of men’s minds when they are full of this emotion, to know what causes them to feel the emotion, and to know what kinds of men feel the emotion. He must also be aware of how to take advantage of this knowledge. Dr. King utilizes this knowledge of the state of men’s minds when they feel pity, what causes them to feel pity and what kinds of men feel pity. Aristotle’s definition of pity is “a feeling of pain caused by the sight of some evil thing, destructive or painful which befalls one who does not deserve it.” King demonstrates to us that we should pity the oppressed Negro – “We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied...” 

         At the opposite end of the spectrum are the people who cannot feel pity – those who think it impossible for similar evils to befall them and who think they possess all the good things of life. These are the people such as the opponents of and passive bystanders to, the Negros’ fight for freedom… the “vicious racists,… [Alabama’s] governor having his lips dripping with the words ‘interposition’ and ‘nullification’..” of the “dark and desolate valley of segregation.” 

         King also employs the technique of repetition to pound home the message of  social racism’s injustice with phrases such as “now is the time,” we must/cannot”, “let freedom ring,” and, his most famous phrase, “I have a dream.” Those who are not suffering under these conditions are moved to pity for those who are, and the oppressed are likewise moved to pity each other and themselves. Perhaps some blacks standing in Washington that day had previously shut their eyes to their position, felt apathetic, or accepted the situation as their only known mode of life. But on August 28^th of 1963 they could not help being moved to realization and action. Blacks and whites everywhere, across time and land, were captivated by the power of King’s words. “Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.”

            The second primary emotion evoked by this speech is indignation; “…we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient find s in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.” Indignation became a major drive for blacks and whites alike in the civil rights struggle of the 60's - it expressed itself in indigation towards racist whites, towards Southerners in general, towards the laws and government of the nation which had caused so much stifling of equality,  and towards America as a whole. 

         Thus Luther addresses two domininant emotions which played powerful roles in this historic struggle. These emotions, indignation and pity, are ones which Aristotle defined thousands of years ago, ones common to mankind throughout the ages, ones as powerful in modern America as in ancient Greece. Human pathos existed then as it exists now, and Aristotle's pathetic appeal is still capable of stirring men to action - to speak out, to make new laws, to address corruption and oppression, and to try their best to change the world. 

Reflections on a New Year...

Rosh Hashanah is just around the corner and this always prompts an overflow of reflection and thought upon the past months than any other time of year... at least for Jews! We are preparing to head into a new cycle of holidays, prayer, Shabbats, worship, avodas Hashem, mitzvot, etc... These thoughts seem, in their turn, to prompt three things - regret, satisfaction, and gratitude.
      Contemplation upon the past twelve months mainly brings forth regrets for me... .There are so many areas in which I could have done better, so many things I wish I could go back and change. If I had only spent that one hour doing something productive instead of something social - or if I had spent that other hour taking the time to pour into someone who needed help rather than retreating into my own priorities - then perhaps neither of those hours would be bemoaned as "time I can never get back." Time is a funny thing that way - as my Abba put it, there is never going to be another "now" like this "now." Every "now" is its own separate entity, unlike every other "now" that will ever exist. So how do we make each of those "nows" count? Make time to study Torah, and to pour into other people when they ask for it... and don't say "when I have time I will study; for perhaps you will never have time." That is to say, perhaps you will have time, but the time you will have in the future is not going to be the same time you have now. This is time you may be wasting, and later regretting next Rosh Hashanah.
      But contemplation also prompts satisfaction - and not only personal pride, but satisfaction in Hashem, that we have tried our hardest this year to please Him, and that perhaps we have even succeeded in a few areas. As we throw our stones into the river at Tashlich, maybe there are a few less in our hand - or maybe the sins we cast into its depths are not the same ones we cast last year. Have we won any small battles against Goliath this year? I have a paltry few to my credit, though when aligned against my regrets they seem too insignificant to matter. At least I tried. Even if I get discouraged with how futile my efforts at pleasing Him seem to be, even when keeping Torah seems like a waste of time... "should we sin all the more so that grace may abound? Certainly not!" We may think that if we have salvation, it shouldn't matter if we keep the Torah or not... yet... if you were walking along the seashore and suddenly saw that jewels were coming in with the waves and lapping up against your feet... would the knowledge that you couldn't gather them all stop you from attempting to pick up as many as you could???? Mitzvot are jewels.... and though they alone can not save us from the destruction we deserve, why shouldn't we try to be perfect as He is perfect and holy as He is holy?
      Lastly I feel an overflow of gratitude to Hashem this time of year when I reflect upon how gracious He has been to us, in keeping us alive, sustaining us, and privileging us to reach this season. As stated above, we don't deserve that we should be living comfortably in this community, nor that we should be living peacefully as Jews in this world, nor even that we should exist. We do not deserve to be here. But we are..and when I realize this, I also realize how grateful I am. Gratitude is a combination of the above two emotions - regret of our mistakes and shortcomings, and satisfaction in our salvation through the Torah. As I come into Rosh Hashanah and the beginning of our new year, I'm not going to forget what I've done this past year - nor what He has done for me.
     To life! To fewer regrets the coming year! Shana Tova!
   

 

Proof 2 - Right of Conquest, Part One

     This is the first part of my senior thesis' second proof concerning the right of military conquest. Enjoy and leave your comments below, critical or otherwise!


          “In international law, the Right of Conquest is defined as ‘the purported right of a conqueror to territory which he has taken by force of arms.’ This theory is based on the proposition that a state which emerges victorious in war is entitled to claim ownership of the land of which it has taken possession during a war.” (Right of Conquest, Real Property, Real Properties Information) This Right of Conquest, however, was gradually modified after World War Two when aggression was made an official crime codified in the Nuremburg Principles and passed in 1974 as United Nations resolution 3314:  “The completion of colonial conquest of much of the world… the devastation of World Wars I and II, and the alignment of both the United States and the Soviet Union with the principle of self-determination led to the abandonment of the right of conquest in formal international law. The 1928 Kellog-Bridan Pact, the post-1945 Nuremburg  Trials, the UN charter, and the UN role in decolonization saw the progressive dismantling of this principle.” (Right of Conquest, Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia)

            However, in Joshua’s day, conquest was certainly a legal right in formal international law. (Some may argue that the right of conquest is also still legitimate today in spite of the United Nations, based on the assumption that the conquering force is more capable of securing peace and stability to the territory than the lawfully entitled governance of which it has taken over.) But whether or not a modern country currently has the right to invade and conquer territory is irrelevant, for when Joshua dispossessed the Canaan approximately three thousand years ago, he was entitled to do so by the authority of God and the authority of the sword; that is, the right of conquest. No American has ever suggested, during the short two hundred years or so that this country has existed, that we should return the United States to the Native American tribes, its original owners. So why should Israel return land (which they owned for seven hundred years until the Babylonian captivity) to ancient peoples such as the Canaanites and the Jebusites? Land in which they maintained a continuous presence until they were granted its legal rights in 1948? Every nation that has possessed Israel throughout history has won it by the sword, yet strangely, it is only when the Jews defeat aggressive Arab invaders and claim land historically their own that dissenting voices arise.

            The first step in Joshua’s conquest of Canaan was the destruction of Jericho. In the Torah, Joshua sent two spies from their encampment at Shittim across the Jordan into the city to explore, where they stayed with Rahab the harlot. After they returned to Joshua’s camp the Israelites set out to march around Jericho every day for six days.  On the seventh day, Hashem commanded them to march around the city seven times and conclude by blowing their shofars and giving a loud shout. As they did this, the walls of the great city miraculously disintegrated and the Israelites took Jericho. They went on to conquer Ai, accept the surrender of the Gibeonites, kill the king of Bethel, gain control of Shechem, (completing the conquest of northern Canaan,) and decisively defeat southern Canaan as well. The land was then partitioned according to Hashem’s commands, each tribe receiving their allotted portion of land.

            Thus Israel belonged to the Jews hundreds of years before ancient empires such as Rome and Greece even existed – through military strength they conquered Canaan’s inhabitants and maintained their presence in Israel until the Babylonian exile. After they returned from Babylon they also continued to live in the land until a portion of it became legally their own once more in 1948. In spite of being surrounded on all sides by hostile Arab nations who opposed their state status when the United Nations’ resolution was passed, they have remained a strong State of Israel for sixty-four years.