A very interesting chapter and mainly focused on how the classics lost their popularity and how academia forgot what the liberal arts were intended for which is to train an elite for leadership. In this chapter there was a major burden that the main character focused on which was "how rhetoric could help lead us out of our political mess". Rhetoric played an indispensable role in founding the American Republic but it also declined and deprived us of the most valuable tool of democracy. Rhetoric is the art of persuasive speaking/writing especially in the use of figures of speech. Cicero was a very famous man who's name was bought up quit often in this chapter in which he was a roman philosopher, politician, lawyer, orator, political theorist, and constitutionalist that contributed a lot. Metanoia is an important word for this chapter and means "change of heart" which helped me understand many things.
In this chapter I learned that America's founding as a "Christian nation" system of government owes a great debt to rhetoric even though the decline was before the revolution. Sheer academic inertia allowed the rhetoric to maintain a large presence in a higher education through the 18th century. John Locke a modern philosopher inspired lots of founders and occupied a rhetoric chair at oxford. When you talk politics you have to use all tricks learned such as code language as well as the emotional tools.This was a very good book and I really enjoyed it , I also learned many life lessons while reading it.
In this chapter I learned that America's founding as a "Christian nation" system of government owes a great debt to rhetoric even though the decline was before the revolution. Sheer academic inertia allowed the rhetoric to maintain a large presence in a higher education through the 18th century. John Locke a modern philosopher inspired lots of founders and occupied a rhetoric chair at oxford. When you talk politics you have to use all tricks learned such as code language as well as the emotional tools.This was a very good book and I really enjoyed it , I also learned many life lessons while reading it.