Rhetoric

“Homilies, Slogans, Proverbs, Rhetoric and other Masonic verbiage”

Rhetoric is perhaps the most intriguing art of the ‘Seven Liberal Arts and Sciences’. Rhetoric is defined as “the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing, especially the exploitation of figures of speech and other compositional techniques.” Well, there’s no doubting that our Masonic ritual contains exploitative and persuasive text, and it’s my proposition that once the ritual texts are learned, they actually become part of your core psyche, helping to form and adapt your attitudes and thus making the individual more recognisably ‘Masonic’.

I’m sure you’ve heard it said; “Masonry is a way of life”. Technically that’s a homily. A homily is an inspirational catchphrase that is less than a proverb and probably not as obvious as a slogan. “Making good men better” is a slogan. “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush” is a proverb. Proverbs express universally accepted wisdom. Slogans capture ideas. Homilies are ‘feel good’ statements. A homily makes us feel good inside, because we believe it says something about us. It is inspirational. Our homily says to us; “Masonry is a way of life”, “We are Masons and we live a Masonic way of life”.

Whether you realise it or not, we just reached that conclusion by means of rhetoric. The second of the seven liberal arts and sciences, rhetoric teaches the art of critical thinking. To arrive at the very foundation of conceptual thought and to express those thoughts. Having a sound foundation in how we think, may be even more important than what we think about. Critical thinking allows us to negotiate our way through homilies, slogans, proverbs and other ideas to arrive at deeper truths about life and about ourselves. That destination is called wisdom.

That seems to be an obvious conclusion for us. At least it feels good anyway. But rhetoric teaches us to challenge the formula and arrive at deeper understandings and better understand truth about things. Does “a + b = c” under all conditions? Do all Masons live a Masonic way of life? Can one be a Mason and not live a Masonic way of life? Can one live a Masonic way of life without being a Mason? These are examples of rhetorical questions generated by the logic of critical thinking. The answers test the logical truths of our original thought.

So now a closer look at one of those rhetorical questions; Can one live a Masonic way of life without being a Mason? In order to try to understand the fundamental concepts in their parts, we have to understand the attributes that underly Masonry and the Masonic way of life. We can then compare them with the non-Mason way of life, to disclose any uniqueness derived in being (or not being) a Mason. For example logic says that to enjoy the Masonic way of life, one must be a Mason, but we all know that there are ‘three degrees’ in Masonry. Can members of all degrees enjoy the same Masonic way of life? Is full enjoyment dependant on being a Master Mason? Can a Brother in a ‘lesser degree’ enjoy a lesser Masonic way of life and is there such a thing a “lesser Masonic way of life”? More questions and we still haven’t even determined if a Masonic way of life is unique to only Masons. This is how rhetoric can tie you up or conversely, how it can free and open your mind.

Really clever people in business, advertising and particularly those in politics use the art of rhetoric to influence us every day. When we accept their slogans and inspirational catchphrases without thinking, without critical understanding of their underlying meanings, we find ourselves in danger. They can be used to sway us and set us onto on a path that we never intended to take. That is how individuals, Political parties, Boards of Directors, Governments and indeed, Nations can be manipulated against their better judgement towards an objective they don’t necessarily believe.

Without practising the art of critical thinking, how can we detect the underlying truth of things? Without understanding how rhetoric can be used to influence us, how will we protect ourselves against being led down the wrong parts by clever words.

Masonry’s answer is to point us at the ‘tool set’ of the seven liberal arts and sciences as a means to become better men. Among them. rhetoric is a mason’s working tool that teaches us to think, to critically examine and test assumptions about life and about ourselves. It helps us to choose the way of life among the many paths spread out before us, and helps us guard against taking the wrong path. Ultimately rhetoric is a tool that helps point the way towards wisdom, but we have to reach in and use the tool to benefit from it as ‘wisdom does not come without work’.

Freemasonry is kindness in the home, honesty in business, courtesy in society, fairness in work, concern for the unfortunate, resistance towards evil, help for the meek, forgiveness for the penitent, love for one another and above all Reverence of God.

Freemasonry is many things but most of all Masonry really is ‘a way of life’ and that’s not just a homily.

The elements of rhetoric

If we wish to captivate or convince an audience, then what do we need to consider?

Cicero, perhaps the greatest orator ever known was a disciple of Quintillian whose codification of the elements of rhetoric in the first century CE spoke of five cannons: Invention, Arrangement, Style, Memory and Delivery. These have served as a basis for creating and teaching rhetoric since the classical period.

• Invention – The initial process of determining what is to be said. Primarily it is about the writer’s understanding of the content.
• Arrangement – How best to order the various elements of the content.
• Style – How best to construct the content in order to be compelling and persuasive. It is what is often considered today to be the whole of rhetoric.
• Memory – Our ritual has evolved because it is ‘simple’ to be memorised. Memory is firstly, memorizing the structure and secondly, memorizing the relevant content.
• Delivery – Optimising your delivery of the content. It is more about the pragmatics such as; projection, breathing, impassioning and so forth.

Our ritual is littered with ‘Metaphors’ and ‘Archaism’ but also embraces many different forms of Rhetoric.