A Symposium on Rob Goodman's Words on Fire: Eloquence and Its Conditions

<p dir="ltr"><i>Words on Fire</i> returns to the classical tradition of rhetoric to recover the central place of eloquence in political thought. Political rhetoric generally assumes an asymmetrical relationship between speaker and audience, but the classical tradition also developed resources to render this relationship more equitable. One such resource is the conception of the rhetorical situation as one of vulnerability on the part of both speaker and audience. However, this conception is increasingly threatened by “algorithmic” practices of political rhetoric that shield elite speakers from exposure to risk, as well as by the overcorrecting reaction to this development seen in the demagogic rhetoric of “unfiltered” spontaneity.</p>