Blog #6 -- Cicero, Billy Mays, and yes, Oprah

Cicero's main premise is that there isn't an art like speaking. Essentially, rhetoric can consist of different aspects (see: Aristotle's 5 Canons), but the speaking part should have the highest priority. I believe this 100%, and not just because it is an easy argument that I can get credit for.

You can look back on all the "good" (a term I hate to use) rhetors, and they are considered "good" because of their ability to speak. Sure, theorists are primarily studied through their books, essays, transcripts, and etc., but the influential people of our time are superior speakers. Why do you think that the late Billy Mays was so popular among informercials? He provided a symbol, and icon, and was able to speak and influence audiences. He was loud, but charismatic. And not everyone can learn to be a good speaker. Sure, you can learn speaking technique, meter, diction, and etc., but there is an intangible aspect to speaking that isn't learned, its biological.

To get a more serious example, would be Oprah Winfrey. Most of my blogs have focused on politicians, so I will stay away from Barrack Obama or Sarah Palin here. Oprah has been influential for years and will be the most successful woman of all time for a very long time. How did she get so influential? It wasn't her ability to write. She has a different type of rhetoric. I would call it humanistic rhetoric, a term that I just came up with. I don't know if this means something different, but I think that humanistic rhetoric is trying to report on human behavior to portray humans as "good" people. In other words, we aren't evil people. This is what Oprah tries to do everyday. She tries to bring up the human population and explain why sometimes we aren't "good" people. Her ability to speak is much more important than any other aspect.

If Cicero were alive today, he probably wouldn't care much about Oprah. However, he wouldn't disagree that she is influential and it stems from her ability to speak. Speaking is an artform that is tough to teach, difficult to replicate, and impossible to outweigh.