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How To Improve Your Rhetoric

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The history of rhetoric – the art of verbal persuasion – stretches back about 2500 years and its very basics are typically taught in high school in the Western hemisphere. It is also a particular subject at many universities around the world.

The classic Greek philosophers Empodocles, Protagoras, Gorgias, Isocrates, Plato and Aristotle have all made valuable contributions to this field. Plato criticized the unethical aspect of persuasiveness in the dialogue Gorgias and made other insights in Phaedrus. Aristotle made the subject more systematic in his work Rhetoric. In the Roman Empire Cicero and Quintilian are some of the most well-known figures in this regard.

Rhetoric have suffered various setbacks throughout history, but have regained its strength and relevance during the 20th and 21 centuries. Although the dark side of rhetoric is associated with mass psychology collectivism under the aegis of modern totalitarianism, it is accepted as something important and probably inevitable in our current world and democratic societies. Both the left and the right use it, although sometimes in quite different ways.

How about the individual male as he enters the world stage, whether it be a very small such, and even online to a significant degree? With the basic rhetoric triad of ethos, logos and pathos as a point of departure, I will give suggestions on how to improve one’s ability to persuade and be regarded as a more valuable and respectable person.

Ethos

Ethos is linked to a person’s character, and includes a whole plethora of different factors such as social status, appearance, life experience, moral conduct and behavior. The downside of this aspect is that most men will not be listened to even though they may have multiple strengths, for the very simple reason that only a few men can become billionaires, celebrities, lobbyists or politicians. It does not matter if you are smarter than PewDiePie since he has 56 million subscribers while you have 56 (or at least 56 lays I hope).

However, that is no reason to cry because a more average man can still improve his life a lot at his particular level and to some extent strive to reach higher grounds. More specifically it can mean to improve his earnings, body composition, dress style, social network, social capital and ethics. To have a pretty woman at his side will also be a benefit and make him look good. No one listens to losers and why should they?

With regard to actual speech, or actio as it is called in rhetoric, confidence, voice, posture and body language all matter.

Further, do not be a complete macho guy but do not act like a weak male either. Find that optimal balance, vary the way you speak, and change somewhat depending on audience and context. Practice and real experience are crucial ingredients. Study other males, avoid obvious mistakes, but find your own particular way of doing it.

Logos

Logos is the intellectual and logical dimension of rhetoric ability and affects the way you may able to influence people. I know that many think that it is only a waste of time to go to university, but that notion should be approached with some caution. To have a master’s or doctoral degree, even if it often has little significance from a mere income perspective, imply a certain level of intellectual sophistication and/or create incentives for to obtain more advanced knowledge.

Regardless, you should be able to better discern knowledge and information in order to improve your logos. No one has complete knowledge and sometimes it is wise to just accept that you do not know this or that, but for example politics, economics, cultural studies and genetics are not rocket sciences. Use unimpeachable sources, to the extent that such exist, and avoid low-value and flawed studies. Think thrice before accepting mainstream science as truths.

As for relevance, facts and logic do not always – far from it – win, but that does not mean that you should neglect it. People will respect a knowledgeable man, and notice that you are well-informed. In this way, a man’s logos will positively affect his ethos in a benevolent feedback loop.

Pathos

Lastly, pathos is related to feelings. A masculine man will almost instinctively reject, even scorn, emotionalism.

Still, the wise man knows that emotions affect people under various circumstances, and often overlap common sense morals, such as to be horrified by war, rape, murder and other consequences of the darker shades of the human psyche. Therefore an appeal to emotions can be important and will not even conflict a more aloof and rational image.

I am not a super-big Trump fan but I’ll have to admit that I like his persuasive way of stating obvious common sense ideas about right and wrong. Instead of trying to appear like a virtuous man he just asserts what is right or wrong and then moves on.

Additionally, to be upset is only one type of emotion. Two of the historical functions of classic rhetoric were to entertain and please the audience. Wittiness, discussed in Aristotle’s The Nicomachean Ethics, is considered as at least a lesser virtue. Therefore, a sense of humor is a powerful weapon and a definitive part of the arsenal.

Yet a delicate balance is required, and humor should not be the backbone of a man’s persuasiveness (if he is not comedian, obviously). On the other hand he probably could not be without it either.

Conclusion

As has been illustrated, these three main elements of rhetoric do not exclude but complement each other. Strong logos and pathos influence a man’s ethos in a positive feedback loop and might be a key to gradually rise to higher grounds, whether it is only within the frames of a man’s private life and workplace, or a more socially important occupation as a politician or public debater.

Looked upon in this broader sense, rhetoric improvement becomes almost the same as general self-improvement, which transcends the traditional conduct of the art of speech.

Read More: How To Recognize Meaningsless Rhetoric From Masters Of Deception

31 thoughts on “How To Improve Your Rhetoric”

        2. Yeah, that’s probably even a bigger problem they have than the one I mentioned.
          The most effective comedy (and comedians) is based in truth.
          The left has neither.

        3. The left has no sense of humor, the only thing they are allowed to laugh about is something bad happening to their enemies, since they take themselves too seriously anyway.

        6. But the only memes that are effective, political in nature or otherwise, are the ones based in truth.
          Every meme that has ever made anyone laugh, or, more importantly, changed someone’s mind, was a result of the truth that the humor or ridicule shed light on.
          Otherwise it’s a stupid, useless fucking meme.
          Like what we get from leftists. That shit is weak.
          Having said that, I don’t necessarily disagree with your statement. Only a fool would say it lacks a basis in reality.

  2. Let us not forget the importance of the P.R.I.N.G.O. philosophy…
    Pimps
    Reproduce
    Inside
    Naive
    Girls’
    Ovaries

  3. Audiovisuals/optics are indeed a key factor in so many ways. The manosphere should use the fact that leftists represent what is ugly and lack standards. Come to think of this contemporary classic, as a complement to the witty memes.

  4. “its very basics are typically taught in high school in the Western hemisphere. It is also a particular subject at many universities around the world”
    This reminds me of a time in my late 30s when I was at a swimming pool and I was approached by a young woman in a somewhat scandalous bikini, who started for some reason to tell me about precisely this subject, explaining as above that the three parts of rhetoric were ethos, logos and pathos. It was all very impressive although I can’t for the life of me remember why she was telling me about it, although it seemed as though she’d learned it on the course she was doing. She seemed rather young and as I can see about as far as my hand without glasses / contacts on, I spent time the whole time hoping that she’d learned it at university and not at school.
    The latter seems unlikely though, as I don’t believe there are many schools out there that provide a classical education of any sort – classics as a subject has all but been done away with I think – at least in the UK. As for the study of rhetoric in universities, you might learn about this if you join a debating society or something, but other than as I was rather saddened to discover, if you find any departments or institutes of rhetoric in the modern world, the likelihood is that it will be in the context of discourse or narrative theory, and while I have nothing at all against that in theory, in practice what this means is that it will in likelihood be run by a bunch of hard left marxists & feminists i.e. the rationale for studying rhetoric will not be to get better at pulling birds or whatever (well maybe in the case of the feminists) but to develop marxist / progressive ideology and to further indoctrinate.
    If you consider that last fact, its interesting perhaps that progressives have provided something of a twist on the ethos part of rhetoric. It is no longer just about who you are as an individual –
    i.e. whether you are rich, handsome, popular etc – but also the particular class (in classical marxism) you belong to or these days the identity politics you ‘take up’ to position yourself within as a “discursive” subject. Likewise, if you’re not the one doing the positioning, for example if you are white, heterosexual or male, you are the one who will find yourself positioned, and as you might guess that may not be to your advantage.
    In fact it is that first part of rhetoric, ethos, that determines who gets to dominate the discourse in todays world. The dominant, oppressor class – the class that gets to speak too much – is typically thought to be white heterosexual and male. It follows that within an economically redistributive politics of rhetoric the latter will be disinvited from speaking, that is de-privileged in terms of ethos (c.f. mansplaining) so that those they have silenced (yeah remember that mass of quiet women in your lives?) are invited to speak instead. Endlessly, forever, and without end, as you may have noticed.
    So, rhetoric is certainly something that the individual needs to consider in terms of how they come across and command attention etc, but like with everything else, there is a wider social / class / identity group aspect to this.

  5. If anyone is interested in seeing some persuasive rhetorical technique, I recommend the book Unlimited Selling Power, which I’ve spoken of at ROK before and reviewed here: http://masculineepic.com/index.php/2017/02/25/unlimited-selling-power-review/
    These will help you to get into your prospect’s mind and actively influence how your ethos, pathos, and logos appear to them, which is what really matters.
    I’ll soon be reading another book on rhetoric called Verbal Judo.

  8. the left co-opts what is our and uses it as their own.
    I’ve seen one too many using the term “snowflake”
    with complete confidence that it was always theirs

  9. Without doubt ethos is 90% of what society listens to with pathos the remaining 10%
    Aramis and D’Artagnan have no impact whatsoever… 😛

  11. Rhetoric is the opposite of dominance. It is meant for the irrational, but it is manipulation.
    The dominant defines things for being dominant. In this sense, persuasion is an imitation of dominance.
    The inferior one seeks validation from the dominant man by imitating him, to so obtain (false) value, from him and other dominant men(society). These are frauds. —Who needs persuasion if not the inferior?— Those who need to compete more are the ones at the bottom, not the ones at the top. Teaching men to be persuasive is the same as teaching them to be imitators. It is one thing to be aware of it, and a very different thing to “depend on it”, to so be “apparently” relevant.
    Many frauds everywhere already(e.g. hollywood, news, google, the state, etc. manipulator< who pretends reason, moral and specially masculinity by redefining its meaning(cowardice=peaceful, depravity=normal, theft=business/merit, money=value, laws=altruism, oppression=machismo, etc.). He is the one you want to vote for, the one you get to like so much, and even admire, ironic. The manipulator steals from you the necessary perspective to consciously agree or disagree with him, because you will end-up accepting his lies as truths.
    Logos = independent/masculine, ethos = follower/dependent, pathos = emotional/feminized.
    Forums in Internet lack structure, true hierarchy, logic, science. They are more about ethos and pathos = collectives, emotional, manipulative, dependent on the system as “others” defined it now, through persuasion: the state.

    1. Interesting comment. The difference between the masculine right (and masculine men in general) and the left is that the first category conform to objective standards in terms of ethics, looks, and logos, whereas the left is more interested in Opressive Olympics, emotionalism and lack standards of logos AND looks. It is bad that cunning – the fox that Machiavelli referred to – has to be a common feature at the expensive of logos and courage but if one has no other choice then that is the way to go.

    2. Interesting counter-point. In game this tends to be true, where you have to run attraction-heavy routines when your value is low. But then when your value is high, you depend far less on it, and can more-or-less be yourself.

    3. “Rhetoric/verbal skills is NOT needed by great men to be great, but by low-quality males dependent on validation to imitate being dominant”
      By that reasoning, I suppose Aristotle, Cicero, Augustine, Shakespeare, and Winston Churchill were low-quality males.

        1. Gimme a break. Saying persuasion skills somehow are unmasculine is like saying being athletic is unmasculine. It’s so obviously wrong to anyone who has lived a day in their lives that it doesn’t warrant rebuttal.
          Ad hominem? Sure, guilty as charged. My experience has been when people attack a skill so thoroughly it means they lack the skill themselves (but wish they didn’t).

    6. Who needs persuasion if not the inferior?—…
      Telling men to be persuaders, is telling them to play the game of the inferior….
      …Rhetoric/verbal skills is NOT needed by great men to be great, but by low-quality males dependent on validation to imitate being dominant, like politicians who replace reality with laws(words), to redefine their own inferiority…
      This is why Trump is so unsuccessful

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