Language Is Sermonic: Richard M. Weaver on the Nature of Rhetoric

Most of us, at least those who might read this review, are well acquainted with the job of preacher. Preachers can be seen on television and in the local pulpits of any denomination on Sunday morning. Why should we think of preachers in a lecture on rhetoric? It's the easiest question to answer. Language usage is always sermonic. The broader implication is that to use language is to influence others; it's not that only preachers preach, but anyone who uses language is also a preacher, at least some of the time.

The thrust of Weaver's book is a call for more attention paid to rhetoric. This is urgently needed today when our leaders are so bad, bad as moral characters and bad as in incompetent to use the tools and resources at their disposal. True leadership requires persuasion and the reconciliation of those parties in conflict. Please notice how no one I'm aware of is capable of it. And those with power are making the situation even worse.

Why is language sermonic? What we talk about is how we persuade others to see the world as we do. "We are all of us preachers in private and in public...we speak as 'orators' affecting the welfare of others for better or worse." (page 224)

Weaver argues strongly that all language is inherently persuasive. As a rhetoritician, he embraces this, saying that a good rhetor will try to prod people into bettering themselves.

This is the fourth book of Richard Weaver's essays that I've read. I enjoy his thoughts, and his careful style of expressing his ideas. The title of the book, taken from one of the essays, is an example of his poetic writing and his clear understanding of how language works. This was not one of my favorites of his works, but it is still an interesting read.

I  Richard Weaver!

If, as Augustine said, “peace is the tranquility of order,” then for Richard Weaver “meaning is the stability of language.” Weaver, the noted commenter on the Vanderbilt Agrarians, seeks in this collection of essays to unite logos and ethos, dialectic and rhetoric. There is some overlap with his Ethics of Rhetoric, but there are new essays that are worth reading.

Language is sermonic in the sense that it raises man beyond the dialectic. Reason does not tell you what to do (nor does it give you the power). That belongs to rhetoric. The negative converse is also true: decays in language often reflect decays in society (though it is not always clear which comes first). Therefore, as Weaver urges us to see, “speech is the vehicle of order” (Weaver 34). Speech is anchored to ontological referents: truth, being, goodness. When these referents are lost, we get pragmatism.

There is, then, a hierarchy of terms that move us to action (84). This is a proper ordering of goods (side note: the Augustinian parallels are obvious. Therefore, if we will be responsible rhetors, we must use the strongest method. These are the “topics” that Aristotle gave to us: genus, fundamental principles, similitude, cause and effect, circumstance. Arguing by way of genus is the strongest method of argument. It defines terms according to the essence of things. Fundamental principles and similitude are necessary and inevitable, but they are not that strong. Cause and effect is good, but it never transcends the realm of phenomena.

At this point the review could go in a number of directions. Sometimes with Weaver the best thing to do is to give a list of quotes. I might still do that. In the meantime, we will see Weaver’s “strong essentialism” in rhetoric. Weaver, like Adam in the garden, believed that things have essences and names tell us those essences, or in any case, they get very close.

The natural bridge from dialectic to rhetoric is the use of “strong terms” or “god terms.” These control the discourse. As Weaver notes, “A term is a policy of motion,” and “motion is part of the soul’s essence” (73). When we educate a soul, we begin a process of “rightly affecting its motion.” This is still at the moment of dialectic (or logic). Rhetoric now “moves the soul with a movement which cannot be finally justified logically. It can only be valued analogically with reference to some supreme image” (80).

The use of god-terms and essences is what Weaver calls “an aristocracy of notions.” The man whose god-terms revolve around “God, being, truth,” etc., is much more noble than the one whose terms revolve around pleasure, media, and democracy.

Dialectic tells one what the facts and truth are. Rhetoric orders those facts. It is axiological (141). It merges what is the case with what ought to be the case.

Democracy of the Lowest Common Denominator

If Weaver’s vision does not obtain for modern society, then we are doomed to what he elsewhere called “a democracy of matter.” This brings up an uncomfortable point in rhetoric: about what exactly do we want men to be articulate? If we lose “ontological referents” (being, truth), then we are left with advertising, and no one wants that. Weaver’s solution, although one to which he only points, is to be like Adam: connect names and essences (192ff).

“It is very hard after a century of progressivism to get people to admit the possibility of objective Truth, but here again we are face to face with our dilemma: if truth does not exist, there is nothing to teach; if it does exist, how can we conceive of teaching anything else” (195).

Forgot to log this a few weeks ago. As always, Weaver is excellent, full of insights, and prophetic in certain ways. A few of the essays are similar in content, but that’s not a bad thing… we/I need to hear this content over and over again - especially as a preacher/teacher. The final essay is almost a call to arms to fight for the art of rhetoric and return it to its glorious purpose.

“Language, which is thus predicative, is for the same cause sermonic. We are all of us preachers in private and public capacities. We have no sooner uttered words than we have given impulse to other people to look at the world, or some small part of it, in our way. Thus caught up in a great web of inter-communication and inter-influence, we speak as rhetoricians affecting one another for good or ill. That is why I agree with Quintilian that the true orator is the good man, skilled in speaking - good in his formed character and right in his ethical philosophy. When to this he adds fertility in invention and skill in the arts of language, he is entitled to that leadership which tradition accords him.”