In Plato's Gorgias, and in Elder Bednar's speech "To Sweep the Earth as With a Flood" similar rhetoric appeals are used in order to convey their messages persuasively to their given audience.
Socrates uses logical appeals and reason to show the flaws there are to rhetoric while questioning Gorgias, a sophist. For example, on page thirty seven Socrates states "Don't arithmetic and the person skilled at arithmetic teach us as many things as have to do with number?" Socrates points out that someone like a mathematician who is skilled and learned of a specific subject is just as capable, or better qualified to teach others about their techne, which adds to his argument that rhetoric has many flaws. Just like Socrates used reason and logic, Elder Bednar uses logical appeals through his use of multiple statistics about the use of social media when spreading the gospel. For example, he tells us that the "Because of Him" video that the church created was "viewed more than five million times during Easter week in 191 countries and territories of the world." In both instances, the use of the logical appeal gives their audience a clear reason to believe their claims being made.
Bednar also establishes this ethical appeal at the beginning of his speech by replaying many videos of church leaders explaining how future technological advances will unite the church and bring the gospel to millions around the world. This was a wise way of establishing his ethos because he did so in two ways. First, he quotes respectable men who church members trust which connects him to their honored character. Second, the videos show his credibility to the subject of technology use because he uses technology to prove his point. Socrates uses a similar approach by using oral rhetoric, Gorgias' main expertise, to prove to Gorgias that rhetoric can be flawed. Gorgias gets pushed into a corner because of some of the points that Socrates brings up which adds to his credibility and ethical appeal.
Clearly, Socrates and Elder Bednar increase their ethos in different ways and manners. Socrates perhaps uses a more ignoble approach to increase his ethos by making others decrease their ethos. In contrast, Elder Bednar seeks to improve his own ethos by building on the ethos of others.
ReplyDeleteI think that Socrates would have liked bednar. Elder Bednar is a really smart guy. You could tell that he had really done his homework on this topic by the way he used quotes and statistics. For me what really drove home the fact that Bednar knew what he was talking about was the way that he used social media in his talk about social media. He not only talked the talk but he aslo walked the walk.
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ReplyDeleteIt is interesting to see how Socrates builds credibility by masterfully displaying his own skill with the spoken word, something that Gorgias supposed he was better at. Similarly, Elder Bednar establishes his own credibility through the use of technology.
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