The Greeks and Romans have a great deal still to teach about writing and speaking, particularly through their rhetorical figures of speech, which can carve brand into the audience’s brain.
The Roman lawyer Quintilian said, “We should not write so that it is possible for the reader to understand us, but so that it is impossible for him to misunderstand us.”
Let’s look at two rhetorical figures of speech: anaphora and the epistrophe. Anaphora is the repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginning of successive clauses to great emotional effect:
(Winston Churchill)
We shall fight on the beaches,
We shall fight on the landing grounds,
We shall fight in the fields and in the streets.
Epistrophe is the opposite: when the repetition occurs at the end of a sentence.
(Malcolm X):
As long as the white man sent you to Korea, you bled. He sent you to Germany, you bled. He sent you to the South Pacific to fight the Japanese, you bled.
They can be consciously used to give what we say moral force. Let’s use them to modify former Bank of England governor and current Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s celebrated speech at Davos, where he exhorted “middle powers”, such as Canada, to ally themselves because of a collapsing trans-Atlantic order. In his reflective, and somewhat self-castigating speech, he said:
For decades, countries like Canada prospered under what we called the rules-based international order. We joined its institutions, we praised its principles, we benefited from its predictability. And because of that, we could pursue values-based foreign policies under its protection.
We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false: that the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient, that trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And we knew that international law applied with varying rigor depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.
This fiction was useful, and American hegemony, in particular, helped provide public goods, open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security and support for frameworks for resolving disputes.
Let’s center the writing around the idea of self-deceit, and incorporate both anaphora and epistrophe, highlighting even more the connotation of self-blame:
In the old order, the strong did what they wanted, and we deceived ourselves. In the old order, the weak were punished, and we deceived ourselves. But, in the old order under American protection, we had sea lanes, a good financial system, security, and support, and we continued to deceive ourselves. But we are unprotected now, and we must awaken to the truth.
Saying it like this, Carney would have made the same point but with more moral urgency, portraying a whole nation blinded to an ugly reality. Rhetoric and style can add an ethical valence to writing.
I work with professionals and rising executives, usually from other countries. Even in the context of technical material. I can teach you to convey your message with emotion so that readers and listeners do not endure what you have to say; they welcome it and remember it.
Work with me.
