Rhetorical Leadership

For local audiences, join us for a live seminar at the House of Literature (Litteraturhuset) in Oslo 16. november. Sign up for free at https://www.litteraturhuset.no/nb/arrangement/demokratiet-i-krise For global audiences, here is a summary of the current democratic crisis we are living through and all its many aspects. I also discuss why democracy is worth fighting for and what we can do to meet the current crisis. Why is democracy under attack from within as well as from authoritarian dictatorships in other countries? What has happened to the electorate in democracies that leads many of them to elect authoritarians?

Discussion with a Russian dissident about the rhetoric of the Russian opposition to Vladimir Putin from 2021-2023. We cover four sentencing speeches by Alexei Navalny, as well as sentencing speeches by Vladimir Kara-Murza, Memorial leader Oleg Orlov, and student activist Darya Kozyreva. A three part discussion. This episode covers the aftermath of Navalny's death and the current disorganized and chaotic state of the Russian opposition. We discuss four speeches by Oleg Orlov, Vladimir Kara-Murza, and Darya Kozyreva and the possible way forward to a free and democratic Russia.00:00 Aftermath of Navalny's death and introducing Oleg Orlov00:50 Oleg Orlov's sentencing speech (English)10:39 Oleg Orlov's sentencing speech (Russian)19:50 Reaction and Analysis32:20 Vladimir Kara-Murza's sentencing speech (English)36:14 Vladimir Kara-Murza's sentencing speech (Russian)39:25 Reaction and Analysis1:00:46 Kara-Murza on Lessons Not Learned (English)1:03:40 Kara-Murza on Lessons Not Learned (Russian)1:05:40 The current disorganized state of the Russian opposition1:14:47 Darya Kozyreva sentencing speech (English)1:18:58 Darya Kozyreva sentencing speech (Russian)1:22:27 The need for organization and acknowledging the sadness of a lost country

Discussion with a Russian dissident about the rhetoric of the Russian opposition to Vladimir Putin from 2021-2023. We cover four sentencing speeches by Alexei Navalny, as well as sentencing speeches by Vladimir Kara-Murza, Memorial leader Oleg Orlov, and student activist Darya Kozyreva. A three part discussion. This episode covers the last two major speeches Alexei Navalny gave from prison before he was murdered and their impact.00:00 Russian invasion, protests, and Navalny's early nationalist politics14:30 Contempt of court speech (English)26:20 Contempt of court speech (Russian)37:41 Reaction and analysis52:19 Navalny's final speech (English)59:51 Navalny's final speech (Russian)1:06:30 Analysis and conclusion

Discussion with a Russian dissident about the rhetoric of the Russian opposition to Vladimir Putin from 2021-2023. We cover four sentencing speeches by Alexei Navalny, as well as sentencing speeches by Vladimir Kara-Murza, Memorial leader Oleg Orlov, and student activist Darya Kozyreva. A three part discussion.00:00 Introduction Alexei Navalny06:07 Yves Rocher speech, February 2021 (English)18:12 Yves Rocher speech (Russian)29:19 Analysis36:06 Veteran Speech (English)48:12 Veteran Speech (Russian)59:44 Analysis and conclusion of part 1

Over 300 years BCE, Isocrates warned Athenians about the curse of empire in his oration "On the Peace." The central claim was that ruling over an empire was as devastating to the moral well-being of Athens and their potential subject states as tyranny is to a leader and his subjects. He draws a contrast between domination and leadership and points out a future for Athens where they can again lead a benevolent alliance of free city states that will be more stable and more mutually beneficial for all involved.

Perelman made a category of arguments that he termed to be "based on the structure of reality." Dr. Steven B. Katz joins us to discuss each of the arguments within this category, and how they rely on culturally accepted connections termed "liasons of succession" and "liasons of co-existence" in order to gain acceptance of other claims.  Essentially, you find structures of reality that are already there (already accepted) and then apply them to a specific situation. As Kenneth Burke points out, these structures may only be "natural" in the sense that a path made through a field is natural. Nevertheless, as soon as that structure or path has been made it is there as a structure that can be used to pass from A to B. This episode builds on the episodes "Chaim Perelman's Theory of Argumentation" and "Perelman's Quasi-logical Arguments."

Isocrates believed most knowledge needed for practical judgement was contingent and more easily found by internal and external arguments. Plato believed all true knowledge can be derived from first principles. Both were righthttps://intelligenceofpersuasion.blogspot.com/2012/10/seeking-light-for-ourselves-in-darkness.html?m=1

Dr. Ivana Stradner, who grew up in Serbia, discusses the rise of Serbian nationalism, Putin's strategy of increasing ethnic tensions in the region, and why we may be close to a new war in the Balkans.

Perelman made a category of arguments that he termed "quasi-logical." Quasi does not mean "fake" in this context, but just that they are similar to the arguments made in formal logic. Dr. Steven B. Katz joins us to discuss each of the arguments within this category, and how they rely on some of the most basic cognitive patterns that humans use to make sense of the world around us. Because we can perceive similarity, difference, and the relations of parts to the whole, we are able to use these as basis for arguments to move others. This episode builds on the episode "Chaim Perelman's Theory of Argumentation."

In just a few years, India has been transformed from a vibrant liberal democracy to a majoritarian autocracy under Narendra Modi. Under his Hindu majority rule, Muslims and Christians are subjected to extrajudicial killings and mosques and churches are burnt to the ground. Dr. Ashok Swain, a Hindu and Professor of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University, joins Dr. Isaksen and Noor Jahan Khan, who has a Master's degree in Mass Communication from Bangalore University and grew up as a Muslim in India, to talk about how this change came about and what can be done to save Indian democracy.

"A speech writer in Norway is supposed to be invisible." Kristine Dahl was working as a lawyer for the Norwegian government when she was asked to help write a speech for a government minister, and that's when she discovered a passion and talent for speech writing. Since then, she has written speeches for many ministers and business leaders, and she shares how she approaches a new assignment, tricks of the trade, the democratic function of her profession, and the current state of eloquence and speech writing in Norway.

Cherise Bacalski, an appellate attorney who makes oral arguments at the Utah Supreme Court and Utah Court of Appeals, also took a master's degree with an emphasis in rhetoric. She shares how her education in rhetoric helped her to become a better advocate and the role of ethos and identification in legal argumentation.

Properly understood, the classical image of the tyrant is not a form of government, but rather a disease of the mind. In this episode, Dr. Isaksen revisits a text he wrote in April 2016 describing the classical symptoms of a tyrant and how Trump already then displayed every one of them. It is a modern version of the classical rhetorical exercise "the topos of the tyrant." For more details about the rhetorical exercise, listen to the podcast episode on the topos of the tyrant https://rhetorical-leadership.transistor.fm/4  The original text performed in this podcast is available at http://intelligenceofpersuasion.blogspot.com/2016/04/why-trump-is-tyrant.html00:00 Trump at CPAC 202300:57 Revisiting 2016 predictions01:27 How freedom died in antiquity02:57 Those who tried to save it04:32 The Trumpian peril05:42 Trump is a classical tyrant07:16 What Trump could/would do as president10:22 The vices of the tyrant11:06 Suspicion13:02 Arrogance15:06 Cruelty and savagery17:00 Immorality and avarice19:34 Resist tyranny19:51 Our democratic complacency21:17 The weakness of our institutions

When Dr. Azamat Junisbai grew up in Qazaqstan, he looked down on those who spoke Russian with an accent. Although he was an ethnic Qazaq born in Qazaqstan, he had absorbed the colonial mindset that Russian language and culture were superior to the Qazaq language and culture. With Russia's attack on Ukraine, many in Qazaqstan are coming to a reckoning with Russian imperialism and its legacy in Eurasia. As a Qazaq sociologist, Dr. Junisbai shares his unique insights into this ideology and the hold it still has on many Russians.00:00 Introducing Dr. Azamat Junisbai00:24 Russia's image of its empire02:16 Growing up in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic04:22 The end of the Soviet Union07:55 The diminished status of the Qazaq language09:30 "How broken and colonized was my mind and language?"11:00 The Asharshylyk (genocide by hunger)12:50 Why the Qazaq Genocide is not more widely acknowledged16:50 Russia as the colonial master17:50 The endurance of the Empire/Soviet Union in the minds of Russians19:20 How Russia's attack on Ukraine has accelerated decolonization23:50 Why Russian imperialists see a weakened Russia as "the end of Russia"26:50 This is Russia's war, not just Putin's war29:00 The Leader and the People in Russian Imperialism32:30 The loss of the Empire34:12 How the Empire is taught and how it may be unlearned37:00 The coming reckoning with Russia's imperialism and colonial history38:30 How the colonial people are dehumanized40:15 Human life has little value in Russian imperialism42:30 It is the natural state of an empire to be at war43:00 "Borders must be drawn with blood"45:00 Controlling land is seen as the greatest value46:25 How Putin uses "the Empire" to stay in power47:34 The contest between the TV and the refrigerator48:12 Trapped behind the Iron Curtain and within the grasp of the Kremlin50:24 Russian defeat could mean another Berlin Wall coming down51:00 Growing post-colonial solidarity between Ukraine and Qazaqstan52:10 The future of Qazaqstan

Dr. Björn Olsen is a Professor of Infection Medicine at the Department of Medical Sciences, Uppsala University in Sweden. He was an active participant in the public policy debate where Sweden chose to disregard the advice and recommendations of the global scientific community and pursue a separate strategy that led to many unnecessary deaths. As a critic of the Swedish strategy, Olsen experienced hostility from the media and the Swedish Public Health Authority, and he reflects on the relationship between science, political power, and public policy debates.

During the Second World War, Chaim Perelman, a leader in the Jewish Belgian Resistance was writing a philosophical treatise on justice. Frustrated, he discovered that his training in analytic philosophy renedered him unable to make any arguments about why his cause was more just than that of the Nazis, because he had been trained to disregard arguments about values, preferences, or the probable. So Perelman began identifying everyday arguments humans use in newspapers and politics to discover how they work and what foundations they build upon, leading to his and Lucie Albrechts-Tyteca's masterpiece The New Rhetoric. Dr. Richard Enos joins us to discuss Perelman's theory of argumentation and how it provides a basis for making rational arguments and decisions about values.

00:00 Defining demagoguery04:00 Why Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt were not demagogues10:30 Case Study: Earl Warren's demagogic argument about Japanese Internment12:20 Threat perception and demagoguery/ "The Flight 93 Election"14:40 Signs and evidence of threats15:45 Demagoguery in the gay marriage debate17:30 Demagoguery as "algae in a pond" allegory18:30 How Trump out-competed other demagogues21:20 Trump as a large Salomon Asch experiment on the nation23:30 How dishonest media give demagogues the cover to flip24:45 Rush Limbaugh and conservative talk radio as a case study in demagogue/demagogic culture29:30 How media revolutions coincide with the rise of demagogues30:45 The solution: we have to stop buying demagoguery31:50 What inspired this book33:00 Lesser and greater demagogues34:10 In-group policing as a parry against demagogues (McCarthyism/Birchers)36:10 The extremism of the current GOP base and the "ends justify any means" argument37:20 The need for leadership and a reckoning to defeat demagoguery39:30 Why "suspending democratic norms" is a one-way street40:35 Rejecting "our" demagogues42:15 Institutional remedies for demagoguery43:20 Two-party systems and us/them rhetoric44:45 How demagogues create us/them in multi-party systems45:15 Gerrymandering, safe seats, and partisan extremism46:05 What can WE do?46:15 1. Make demagoguery less profitable/successful46:52 2. Not argue with those who repeat demagoguery, but engage with them49:18 3. Argue with those who repeat demagoguery, but stick to the issue at hand50:25 4. Actively support democratic deliberation51:00 Don't take your democratic freedoms for granted52:19 Never-Trump Republicans and cross-party coalitions for democratic norms56:00 Democracy is fragile and needs our commitment56:45 Remembering the lessons of WWII and demagoguery1:00:00 "Purifying" our public sphere is not a solution1:00:50 Creating a culture "parry" for the thrust of demagoguery1:01:48 How important should politics be in our lives?1:03:20 Paul Woodruff's democratic values of "harmony" and "reverence"1:04:30 Learning to get along

Dr. Patricia Roberts-Miller, author of "Demagoguery and Democracy," talks about how demagogues arise out of a demagogic culture, the forms of argument we can recognize as demagoguery, their appeal, and why a culture of demagoguery is corrosive to democratic deliberation.

Although from humble origins, Quintilian rose to prominence in Rome as a teacher of rhetoric and became the first imperial endowed chair in rhetoric in Rome. He was a skilled and compassionate educator who tried to help his students become the "vir bonus" or "good man speaking well." Towards the end of his life, he summarized his educational methods and philosophy in the "Institutes of Oratory" and laid the foundation for classical education that would last for centuries.

Cicero gave his life defending the Roman republic from the emerging tyrants and saw rhetoric as tool to build, uphold, and defend a free and just society. In his writings on rhetoric and politics, he describes the virtues and skills needed by someone who would unite wisdom and eloquence to become the ideal orator. Dr. Enos joins us to discuss his life, writings, and legacy.