For One Persuasively Painful Moment

In Gorgias’ Encomium of Helen, Gorgias heavily relies on deliberative oratory as his topic of invention. Mainly, he did this in the beginning of the text. He makes a claim about goodness and unworthiness when he stated that, “it is equal error to blame the praiseworthy and praise the blameworthy” (par. 1). This was then the medium used to prepare the audience for the ultimate message of “is it just to blame Helen” when her actions could be due to being “passionately in love, or being persuaded by discourse or abducted by force or constrained by divine constraints” (par 20). Thus, by having an initial introduction stressing that the goodness of society as a whole suffers by the praise of the blameless and the blame of the praiseworthy, followed by an ending that causes the reader to doubt whether Helen’s motives are to be praised or blamed thus heightens the pressure of the situation and sets a more serious tone. As a reader, I was persuaded to be slow to cast judgment and think through the situation thoroughly. But such thoroughness lead to a lack of response or conclusion on my own part.

There have been many times where casting doubt has been used as a means of persuasion to motivate me to be thorough in consideration of the presented material. Mostly, this mode of persuasion has been most heavily utilized by teachers. I’ve had more experiences than I can count where I have been called upon in class and been asked a question. Regardless of if I answer confidently or with obvious unsurety, the professor will often respond by restating my answer in the form of a question. This question is then followed by a painful moment of panic spanning all of eternity where I frantically go through all the information again in my head so that I can confidently defend or reject my own answer. These succeeding moments following such questions are some of the most persuasive moments I have experienced. In such cases I am pressured to think. Unfortunately, panic-driven thinking, at least in my case, rarely leads to rational conclusions or deeper understanding of information. In fact, a very anticlimactic, “. . . ummmm I don’t know” is almost sure to follow. Surely this is evidence of irrational persuasive influence.