"Persuasion Beyond Logic: The Importance of Rhetorical Training for Military Officers"

About the Author

Megan McIntyre is a PhD student at the University of South Florida where she works as Mentoring Coordinator for the University's First Year Composition program. Her research interests include writing pedagogy and practice as well as the intersections of rhetoric, writing, ethics, and politics.

Contents

Introduction

Donald Rumsfeld and Operation Iraqi Freedom

Winning Hearts & Minds: The Way Forward in Afghanistan

Rhetorical Training & Effective Intercultural Communication

An Overview of Rhetorical Training

Conclusion

Works Cited

An Overview of Rhetorical Education

Colonel McFarland’s discussion, as well as the discussions of many of those who have written on the importance of cultural training for military success, also begs the question: What kind of rhetorical education is most important as part of the larger cultural education curriculum, which is already in place in most military institutions? An efficacious rhetorical education program may look different for different branches or roles in the military, but any useful rhetorical training program would include both a theoretical and a practical dimension. A discussion of the ways in which rhetoric enables a speaker or writer to navigate particular contexts and appeal to different kinds of audiences requires an understanding of how ancient rhetorical theory (Plato, Aristotle, Isocrates, Cicero) was entrenched in practical discursive and persuasive activity. Rhetorical theory cannot be separated too far from its practice.

The theoretical dimension of rhetoric would naturally include a discussion of Aristotelian definitions of rhetoric, but the increased emphasis on intercultural communication would necessitate an additional theoretical dimension. Over the last three decades, an increasing number of rhetorical scholars have turned their attention from rhetoric as persuasion to rhetoric as responsibility. Scholars like Emmanuel Levinas and Diane Davis have theorized a rhetoric dedicated to the ways in which our identities are rhetorically constructed through our interactions with others. This attention to interpersonal communication, which is a cornerstone of the cultural awareness curriculums implemented at military academies over the past decade, has a particular history in rhetorical theory.

While the theoretical dimension of rhetorical training would closely resemble a philosophy course, with its attention to the fathers of Western philosophy including Plato, Aristotle, and Isocrates as well as postmodern theorists like Levinas and Davis, the practical component of such a course would likely resemble the writing and rhetoric courses that are part of general education curricula at institutions of higher education across the country. Such a course asks students to think beyond acts of writing and speaking as the uses of mere words. Instead, rhetorically focused communication courses require students to examine the ways in which rhetors understand their audiences and use appeals to authority, emotions, logic, and timeliness to persuade a particular audience in a particular moment. Such exercises, with their attention to contextualizing and humanizing communication, would offer soldiers important practice in navigating ethical discourse in unfamiliar cultural sites.