39 - The Glorious History and Ugly Present of Rhetoric feat. Rob Goodman
Description
Rhetoric is supposed to inspire. Imagine Cicero exhorting the Roman people, Churchill vowing to “fight on the beaches.” Yet, when politicians speak today, it’s almost always boring or obnoxious. Why?
Prof. Rob Goodman, author of Words on Fire: Eloquence and its Conditions comes by today to talk about the history of rhetoric, what Cicero knew that we don’t, and the political speech styles of Trudeau (boring), Trump (obnoxious), and X González (pretty great, actually).
Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/user?u=35146517&fan_landing=true)
This episode is a crossover collabo with Graham Culbertson of the Everyday Anarchism podcast. Graham asked me over to talk Athenian democracy, Plato, anarchism and how modern meritocratic education sucks. We had a nice time with it and hope you do too.
Support the show
Published 05/11/23
War tends to bring out the human propensity for atrocity. Nobody likes indiscriminate killing, torture and so on. What to do about it? One response is to avoid war altogether. According to Yale prof Samuel Moyn, that’s what most people wanted after World War II and after Vietnam. But more...
Published 09/05/22