According to the Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, an oration is a formal public speech; one delivered on a special occasion. An orator is a public speaker; one who delivers an oration and is distinguished for his skill, eloquence, and power as a public speaker. Based on this definition of a orator, I completely agree with the Greeks that the individual must be morally good to be an orator.
An orator is someone with great influence, power, and skills over people. The orator has the ability to manipulate and influence the crowd into any beliefs and action. With this great power comes great responsibility and the orator must know how to correctly use these powerful abilities. If the individual is immoral, the audience is in great danger of false information and can be lured into a deathly trap. An example of this occurrence is, Adolf Hitler. He was once a great orator to the people of Germany. He knew he could affect people with pathos, ethos, and logos. He understood that his abilities of public speech can allow him to persuade Germany to do what he wants. Eventually, he was responsible for the killing of thousands of Jewish people and led Germany into a spiral downfall. The people of Germany at the time did not know any better; they trusted Hitler to be truthful and moral; Hitler took advantage of that and continued to sway Germany in the wrong direction. Following the example of Hitler, the orator must be an individual of pure and morally good so that the audience is influenced by a strongly ethical person. I consider an orator a public leader which means that the individual must have all the good characteristics of a leader.
There is a strong connection between goodness, truth, and public communication. Being good and truthful is a characteristic of good morals. The use of ethos is dependent on source credibility. Therefore, if a public speaker is depending on ethos, the individual must have goodness and truth in him other wise, the audience will not be influenced. There is the other argument that a good public speaker is someone who can influence and manipulate his audience with pathos even when the individual is lying. It is true that sometimes I fall for pathos speakers but eventually the truth always reveal itself, and once it does, I and other listeners will never ever believe that specific orator again. Therefore, to maintain credibility, I suggest to orators that they maintain goodness and truth in their words.
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Hi EventsDreamer,
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I would like to thank you for your comments about my ex-boss Joe. Although he has a Ph.D., he is one of the most humble kind of guy who is good looking, has a brilliant mind, cares about the other guy, has a sense of humor and yet is such an awesome leader.
On another note, I would like to share my thoughts about what you said in your blog concerning question #2. I completely agree with you, that the orator with good morals has great influence, power and skills over people. S/he has the ability to manipulate and influence the crowd into beliefs and action. You gave the example of Hitler, who was just one of those types of people with less than good morals that actually influenced people in a negative way. Unfortunately his followers paid the penalty of death. An example in today’s world would be the gangs that haunt the streets in every city in the world. Their leaders are not morally good, but they sure can influence their followers into all types of mischief.
I strongly agree that an orator should be morally good, although there are many indivudals in public communication who are not. The degree of freedom in public communication allows even those who lack a foundation of goodness to be effective public communicators. These individuals can still establish a common ground with a specific audience and their words, though not good, are embraced by many. Paris' thoughts on Hitler are a perfect example that I first thought of when responding to this question. Ahh- if only all that were heard and followed were wholesome!
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