How Rhetoric Shapes Your Opinions

The discipline of rhetoric was the keystone of Western education for over two thousand years. Only recently has its perceived importance faded.

In this book, renowned rhetorical scholar Robin Reames argues that, in today’s polarized political climate, we should all care deeply about learning rhetoric. Drawing on examples ranging from the destructive ancient Greek demagogue Alcibiades to modern-day conspiracists like Alex Jones, Reames breaks down the major techniques of rhetoric, pulling back the curtain on how politicians, journalists, and “journalists” convince us to believe what we believe—and to talk, vote, and act accordingly. Understanding these techniques helps us avoid being manipulated by authority figures who don’t have our best interests at heart. It also grants us rare insight into the values that shape our own beliefs. Learning rhetoric, Reames argues, doesn’t teach us what to think but how to think—allowing us to understand our own and others’ ideological commitments in a completely new way.  Thoughtful, nuanced, and leavened with dry humor, The Ancient Art of Thinking for Yourself offers an antidote to our polarized, post-truth world. 

Robin Reames is associate professor of English at the University of Illinois at Chicago, specializing in rhetorical theory and the history of ideas. She teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in contemporary and ancient rhetorical theory, language theory, rhetorical criticism, political rhetoric, writing, as well as courses in literature and literary theory. Her research is guided by an interest in the visceral and primordial power of human speech, for which ancient rhetoric serves as a first theory. Her book, Seeming and Being in Plato’s Rhetorical Theoryexamines how Plato used rhetorical theory to forge the primordial distinction between seeming and being—the foundational fissure from which Western metaphysics emerged, and the very grounds of the opposition between true and false. Her new book is The Ancient Art of Thinking For Yourself: The Power of Rhetoric in Polarized Times.

Reames and Shermer discuss: what rhetoric is • what reason is • how rhetoric changed Reames’ life • rhetoric vs. facts (rhetorical truths vs. empirical truths) • the point of reason (to understand reality or to persuade?) • Canons of rhetoric: invention, arrangement, style, memory, delivery • bullshitters vs. liars • induction and deduction • rhetorical, ideological, and metaphorical thinking • how to debate contentious issues • how to have impossible conversations • culture wars • conspiracy theories and why people believe them.