Rhetorical Leadership

A recording of my presentation at the "Democracy in Crisis" seminar 16th of November 2024 in Oslo at the House of Literature. The presentation is in Norwegian.

For local audiences, join us for a live seminar at the House of Literature (Litteraturhuset) in Oslo 16. november. Sign up for free at https://www.litteraturhuset.no/nb/arrangement/demokratiet-i-krise For global audiences, here is a summary of the current democratic crisis we are living through and all its many aspects. I also discuss why democracy is worth fighting for and what we can do to meet...

Discussion with a Russian dissident about the rhetoric of the Russian opposition to Vladimir Putin from 2021-2023. We cover four sentencing speeches by Alexei Navalny, as well as sentencing speeches by Vladimir Kara-Murza, Memorial leader Oleg Orlov, and student activist Darya Kozyreva. A three part discussion. This episode covers the aftermath of Navalny's death and the current disorganized and c...

Discussion with a Russian dissident about the rhetoric of the Russian opposition to Vladimir Putin from 2021-2023. We cover four sentencing speeches by Alexei Navalny, as well as sentencing speeches by Vladimir Kara-Murza, Memorial leader Oleg Orlov, and student activist Darya Kozyreva. A three part discussion. This episode covers the last two major speeches Alexei Navalny gave from prison before...

Discussion with a Russian dissident about the rhetoric of the Russian opposition to Vladimir Putin from 2021-2023. We cover four sentencing speeches by Alexei Navalny, as well as sentencing speeches by Vladimir Kara-Murza, Memorial leader Oleg Orlov, and student activist Darya Kozyreva. A three part discussion. 00:00 Introduction Alexei Navalny 06:07 Yves Rocher speech, February 2021 (English) 18:...

Over 300 years BCE, Isocrates warned Athenians about the curse of empire in his oration "On the Peace." The central claim was that ruling over an empire was as devastating to the moral well-being of Athens and their potential subject states as tyranny is to a leader and his subjects. He draws a contrast between domination and leadership and points out a future for Athens where they can again lead...

Perelman made a category of arguments that he termed to be "based on the structure of reality." Dr. Steven B. Katz joins us to discuss each of the arguments within this category, and how they rely on culturally accepted connections termed "liasons of succession" and "liasons of co-existence" in order to gain acceptance of other claims.  Essentially, you find structures of reality that are already...

Isocrates believed most knowledge needed for practical judgement was contingent and more easily found by internal and external arguments. Plato believed all true knowledge can be derived from first principles. Both were right https://intelligenceofpersuasion.blogspot.com/2012/10/seeking-light-for-ourselves-in-darkness.html?m=1

Dr. Ivana Stradner, who grew up in Serbia, discusses the rise of Serbian nationalism, Putin's strategy of increasing ethnic tensions in the region, and why we may be close to a new war in the Balkans.  

Perelman made a category of arguments that he termed "quasi-logical." Quasi does not mean "fake" in this context, but just that they are similar to the arguments made in formal logic. Dr. Steven B. Katz joins us to discuss each of the arguments within this category, and how they rely on some of the most basic cognitive patterns that humans use to make sense of the world around us. Because we can p...

In just a few years, India has been transformed from a vibrant liberal democracy to a majoritarian autocracy under Narendra Modi. Under his Hindu majority rule, Muslims and Christians are subjected to extrajudicial killings and mosques and churches are burnt to the ground. Dr. Ashok Swain, a Hindu and Professor of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University, joins Dr. Isaksen and Noor Jahan...

"A speech writer in Norway is supposed to be invisible." Kristine Dahl was working as a lawyer for the Norwegian government when she was asked to help write a speech for a government minister, and that's when she discovered a passion and talent for speech writing. Since then, she has written speeches for many ministers and business leaders, and she shares how she approaches a new assignment, trick...

Cherise Bacalski, an appellate attorney who makes oral arguments at the Utah Supreme Court and Utah Court of Appeals, also took a master's degree with an emphasis in rhetoric. She shares how her education in rhetoric helped her to become a better advocate and the role of ethos and identification in legal argumentation. 

Properly understood, the classical image of the tyrant is not a form of government, but rather a disease of the mind. In this episode, Dr. Isaksen revisits a text he wrote in April 2016 describing the classical symptoms of a tyrant and how Trump already then displayed every one of them. It is a modern version of the classical rhetorical exercise "the topos of the tyrant." For more details about th...

When Dr. Azamat Junisbai grew up in Qazaqstan, he looked down on those who spoke Russian with an accent. Although he was an ethnic Qazaq born in Qazaqstan, he had absorbed the colonial mindset that Russian language and culture were superior to the Qazaq language and culture. With Russia's attack on Ukraine, many in Qazaqstan are coming to a reckoning with Russian imperialism and its legacy in Eura...

Dr. Björn Olsen is a Professor of Infection Medicine at the Department of Medical Sciences, Uppsala University in Sweden. He was an active participant in the public policy debate where Sweden chose to disregard the advice and recommendations of the global scientific community and pursue a separate strategy that led to many unnecessary deaths. As a critic of the Swedish strategy, Olsen experienced...

During the Second World War, Chaim Perelman, a leader in the Jewish Belgian Resistance was writing a philosophical treatise on justice. Frustrated, he discovered that his training in analytic philosophy renedered him unable to make any arguments about why his cause was more just than that of the Nazis, because he had been trained to disregard arguments about values, preferences, or the probable. S...

00:00 Defining demagoguery 04:00 Why Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt were not demagogues 10:30 Case Study: Earl Warren's demagogic argument about Japanese Internment 12:20 Threat perception and demagoguery/ "The Flight 93 Election" 14:40 Signs and evidence of threats 15:45 Demagoguery in the gay marriage debate 17:30 Demagoguery as "algae in a pond" allegory 18:30 How Trump out-competed other...

Dr. Patricia Roberts-Miller, author of "Demagoguery and Democracy," talks about how demagogues arise out of a demagogic culture, the forms of argument we can recognize as demagoguery, their appeal, and why a culture of demagoguery is corrosive to democratic deliberation.

Although from humble origins, Quintilian rose to prominence in Rome as a teacher of rhetoric and became the first imperial endowed chair in rhetoric in Rome. He was a skilled and compassionate educator who tried to help his students become the "vir bonus" or "good man speaking well." Towards the end of his life, he summarized his educational methods and philosophy in the "Institutes of Oratory" an...

Cicero gave his life defending the Roman republic from the emerging tyrants and saw rhetoric as tool to build, uphold, and defend a free and just society. In his writings on rhetoric and politics, he describes the virtues and skills needed by someone who would unite wisdom and eloquence to become the ideal orator. Dr. Enos joins us to discuss his life, writings, and legacy.

Aristotle wrote a work on rhetoric that would define a discipline. He rejected Plato's denunciation of rhetoric and showed why it is an art, a discipline, or a science and gathered the gems of all the manuals of rhetoric up to his day in a work that has endured for over 2000 years. Richard Enos and David Isaksen discuss some of its main contributions to rhetorical studies and what you can learn fr...

UK award-winning public speaker, Simon Day, shares his journey from being terrified of public speaking to mastering the art, as well as some of the secrets to his success including adopting and adapting the rhetorical style of Barack Obama, learning the Memory Palace technique, storytelling, and perfecting his delivery with lessons from music. Find more from Simon at https://simonspeaks.co.uk/

Cicero called Isocrates "the father of eloquence" and said that from his school proceeded giants who had an enormous influence on Athenian society and Greek culture, but he is often overlooked in histories of rhetoric and philosophy. In this episode, Richard Enos and David Isaksen discuss his contributions to the philosophy and teaching of rhetoric. Positioning himself between the philosophers and...

Dr. Richard L. Enos, expert on classical rhetoric, shares some of his insights on the historical moment in antiquity where rhetoric was conceived as a discipline. The innovation of the alphabet gave a larger portion of society easy access to tools for abstract thought, leading to fundamental changes in society. Dr. Enos traces how the ancient traditions of oral histories and memorization technique...