The New Rhetoric

It is difficult to see how anyone can claim full competence at anything without familiarity with this work. –Quarterly Journal of Speech

[The New Rhetoric @NewRhetoric]

A sure way of setting value on a thing is to put it forward as something difficult or rare.

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Even the multitude appreciates that which stands out, that which is rare and difficult to attain.

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High estimation of the unique is the basis of Gracian's maxims for courtiers who should appear unfathomable and mysterious.

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The value of what is unique can be expressed by opposing it to the usual, the ordinary, the vulgar.

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The unique is original, stands out from other things and for this reason it is remarkable and pleasing.

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Quintilian advised orators not to charge since most things can seem without importance by the very fact that a price is set upon them.

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Rebel against the fungible and mechanical, against that which can be universalized.

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To one person a certain animal is just one specimen of a species; to another the same animal is a unique being.

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The value of an encounter with another originates in the fact that the meeting is "unique of its kind" (Marcel).

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To consider people as interchangeable, to fail to see what makes the particular quality of their personality, is to lower them.

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Preference granted to the probable over the improbable, or to the easy over the difficult, are both arguments relating to quantity.

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If everyone were just there could be no use for courage, whereas all might be courageous, and still justice would be of no use.

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An argument from quantity, the superiority of that which is accepted by the greater number, forms the basis of democracy and common sense.

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The general validity of something good can also be defined as something whose use cannot be made superfluous by any other good thing.

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Rousseau is fond of this kind of reasoning.

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That which is more desirable is that which is more useful at every season; e.g., justice rather than courage: for justice is always useful.

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A quantitative argument of durability justifies value attached to truth as that which is eternal in contrast to opinions that are unstable.

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Even when Plato contrasts truth with opinion it is by means of an argument of quantity, for he holds it to be something commanding of all.

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"The whole is *better* than a part" seems to be a translation of preference taken from the axiom "the whole is greater than a part."

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Where books do not reach, the newspaper enters. Where the newspaper does not reach, the pamphlet circulates.