Translator: Morgane Quilfen Reviewer: Claire Ghyselen "I am not one of those who believe that we can suppress the suffering in this world, that suffering is a divine law; but I am one of those who thinks and asserts that poverty can be annihilated. Poverty is a disease of society, just as leprosy was a disease of the human body; we can see poverty disappear just as leprosy disappeared. Poverty: do you want to know the extent to which it can reach, the extent to which it has reached?
There are in Paris, streets, houses, cesspits, where families, entire families, live chaotically together, men, women, children, having nothing for beds, nothing for bedding, I almost said for clothing, than grubby heaps of fermenting rags, where creatures bury themselves alive to escape the winter cold. This is a fact. Do you want some more?
Recently, an unfortunate literary man died of starvation, died of starvation, and it was established after his death that he had not eaten for six days. Well, I say that these are things that should not be; I say that society must do all it can, show all its solicitude, all its understanding, all its resolve, so that such things do not come about" I say that such events, in a civilized country, engage the conscience of the whole of society; that I feel, I who speaks, complicit and part of it, and that these are not just wrongs against humanity, but that these are crimes against God! This is why I would like this assembly to be of but one soul to take steps toward this great goal: the abolition of poverty!
" These few words were uttered on July 9th, 1849, at the French National Legislative Assembly, by a young representative called Victor Hugo. Well, you might agree with me that this is an address that is both moving and convincing. Well, this is precisely what interests me.
There is a connection between emotion and conviction. It is because the words of Victor Hugo have the power to move us that they achieve the power to convince us. This connection has been known for a long time.
Already 2,500 years ago, Aristotle considered that pathos was an essential element of what he called rhetoric. Today, this connection between emotion and conviction is validated by cognitive and behavioral sciences. But there is a problem, that of manipulation.
Because if we can be lead to accept that by which we have been touched, it means that our emotions can manipulate us. This is what comes about when a speaker moves us skillfully with a mendacious discourse, a discourse that does not correspond to actual world reality. I'll give you an example.
In August 2002, the Vice President of the United States of America, Mister Dick Cheney, frightens the entire world by stating that: "There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. " The fear we felt then was real. It had been caused by a speech, but that speech was based on erroneous facts.
A few years later, the US administration admitted to lying: Iraq did not possess any weapon of mass destruction, and Dick Cheney had been fully aware of it. However, is every use of emotions in discourse going to be manipulatory? Well, no.
Because we are not computers. The social world is not an Excel spreadsheet. To make decisions, we need our mental powers, of course, but we also need our feelings, our emotions.
And this explains why Victor Hugo chose a speech overflowing with pathos to talk about poverty in front of his fellow representatives, representatives who, for the most part, had only ever known opulence. For them, poverty was a theoretical concept. If Victor Hugo wanted to stand a chance of influencing their vote, he first had to change their way of looking at the world, and in order to do that, he needed to address their emotions.
If I am telling you all this, it's because for more than 10 years I've been studying the art of argumentation, and I have been teaching it to all citizens, from political science students to highschoolers, from private sector employees to activists, how not to let themselves get manipulated, but also to defend their thinking, their point of view, efficiently, for sure, but also ethically. So, what does an expert in rhetoric say about emotion in discourse? Well, you see, classically, there are three methods that provide for the creation of emotion in discourse, and we can find them all in Victor Hugo's speech.
Remember, Victor Hugo started by associating poverty with leprosy, with a disease of society. It was not without design. In rhetoric, it is called a work of metaphorization: the use of an image, of a comparison, to convey a message.
In this case, this comparison allows Victor Hugo to create a very specific emotion: disgust, disgust of poverty, just as we had a disgust of leprosy. This disgust provokes within us a desire to take action, a desire to eradicate poverty, just as we had the desire to eradicate leprosy. I was telling you that it was a very classic tool.
Let's teleport ourselves to 2002 for another example. In 2002, the Earth Summit took place in Johannesburg, the Earth Summit that was one of the first big conferences on global warming. From the platform in Johannesburg, Jacques Chirac, president of France, will put forward an image that will stick in people's minds: "Our house is burning, and we are looking the other way.
" It was a comparison. It was made to stir up emotions, in this case, surprise at first, and then anger, the desire to take action. But back to Victor Hugo.
Later in his speech, you will remember, Victor Hugo spoke at length describing all the things that families could do to escape the cold of winter as best they could. This part of his speech is also not without design. This description constitutes one of the means of stirring up emotion in an audience.
In this case, Victor Hugo's working of emotion is very interesting: he seeks to induce sadness, sadness that within us leads to shame, a shame that leads to anger, and it is this anger that prompts us into action. I am going to give you another example, a more disturbing one, this one. In 1974, in the French parliament, Simone Veil was making the case for legalizing abortion.
Several representatives were actively opposing her. Among these representatives is Monsieur Pierre Bas. Pierre Bas, speaking from the speaker's platform, did not hesitate to describe the bins in which the little bodies of aborted children would pile up.
"The bins in which the little bodies of these aborted children will pile up. " Here we have a description being used to create an image that shocks, to stir up an emotion of disgust, and incite against voting in the law. To return again to Victor Hugo, to the third stage of his speech, that narrative, that account, of a literary man dead of starvation because he could not buy food.
Once again, it is not without design. Narration is the third classical method to bring out emotions. In contemporary communication, we would call it storytelling.
In Victor Hugo's speech, we again find the same working up of emotions as earlier: sadness, shame, anger, the leading to action. One last example to show you what a classic technique it is. It was used quite notably by Robert Badinter in his fight against the death penalty.
In 1977, Robert Badinter - he was a lawyer then - was defending the murderer Patrick Henry. His sole endeavor in court is to try to save him from capital punishment. In his closing speech, he turns directly toward the members of the jury and explains to them what will happen if they condemn his client to death.
He tells them: "Time will pass, let me tell you, we will abolish the death penalty, and you will be on your own with your verdict for ever, and your children will know that you once condemned a young man to death. " Here, yet again, this narration is to stir up emotion, in this case, fear and shame. Metaphorization, description, narration, these are the three classical tools of discourse that allow us to stir up emotion in an audience.
This shows us that emotions are not a totally mysterious entity, they can be worked, fashioned, and used in the noblest of ways, or in the most dubious of ways. Apart from that, what we have just seen regarding emotion is a variation of a broader observation: rhetoric is a technique, it can be learned, it can be taught, and I advocate that it be disseminated as widely and as soon as possible, probably as soon as middle school, because we all need it. Whether it is in our professional lives or in our personal lives, we need strength of conviction and not let ourselves be manipulated, because yes, indeed, rhetoric is a form of power.
The only way to make sure this power will be used equitably is to ensure it is imparted to us all. Thank you.
