Looking at Western, Indian and Chinese classical rhetorics, we can see both similarities and differences

B3.  Briefly compare the political frameworks in which Western and Chinese rhetoric have developed.  Define a relationship between the avenues of political expression open to a society and the development of rhetoric.  Use examples from the readings to illustrate your claims about the relationship.

     Western and Chinese rhetoric developed in two divergently different political frameworks.  Western rhetoric developed in ancient Athens, a democratic city-state.  Chinese rhetoric developed during a time of social and political strife in ancient china and a need for unification.  According to Xing Lu in Rhetoric in Ancient China fifth to third Century B.C.E., Chinese rhetoric develop during the time of the Warring States, it emerged during the centuries of confusing and chaos (6). However, before the Warring States period literacy was an important feature in China.  During Zhou dynasty there was “increased literacy and the production of written text, various forms of oral communication, including persuasive discourse in political and ritualistic settings […] Awareness of the power and impact of language thus increased” (6).

     The Zhou dynasty was weakened by attacks from rulers of several regional states and eventually lost power.  This loss of power was seen as revocation of the Mandate from Heaven, which is what gave an emperor authority to rule.  China was divided and hostility raged between the different states, and “Persuasive encounters between political consultants and the ruler were at the center of rhetorical activity” (6).  Confucianism, Daoism, Legalism and others schools of thought worked to bring political and social stability to China during the period of the warring states. The Warring States period forced people to reflect about on the nature of society and roles of people within societyinflatable arch.  This conflict caused a poly-vocal development of rhetoric and political expression. 

     Soon, China became unified in the Qin dynasty and remained so during the Han dynasty. China came under centralized control.  Lu laments that “Chinese society moved from idealism to pragmatism, from freedom of expression to centralized and mechanistic means of control, utilitarian appeals became increasing prevalent” (7).  Expression became limited to the pragmatic in both oral communication and written communication.

            Legalism and Confucianism became the main schools of thought because these schools of thought trained bureaucrats needed to run a centralized Chinese state.  Lu writes legalism “approached language, persuasion, and argumentation with a focus on strengthening centralized political power and offered acute inside into human psychology in persuasion” (8).  Confucianism taught morality, which includes the character of the speaker and ethics.  The purpose of speech was to control the people.  It became an ideological state apparatus used to form subjects and shape consciousness.  Lu states “The direct straightforward pattern of communication previously perceived and practiced had become indirect and evasive, with its purpose more oriented toward manipulation than moral perfection” (7).     

    With a centralized environment criticism of such a regime would be difficult in the public sphere, this type of centralized domination of thought still exist in China today. To political expression might take the form of a revolt, which is what happen in 1989 in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square when a mass of students gathered to protest the martial law.  The Chinese government sent the military to confront the students and many students where killed and injured.  After this incident, I think one would resort to subterranean methods to of political expression.  A person could develop a website to argue one’s case which would develop cyber rhetoric.  The centralized government has shut down many websites based in china and arrested many website administrators for political expression.    

  The development of rhetoric is not stifled by limited political expression.  There may be official forms of thought accepted in institutions used for socialization, but the need to argue one’s point of view will never be silenced.  Rhetoric will develop and change because people develop and change.  It is the human need to communicate thought to others, to persuade others to agree, to attack arguments that are offensive, to think and to speak.  Even though, the Qin and the Han dynasties favored Legalism and Confucianism over the multiple schools of thoughts in ancient china does not mean they cease to exist.  We are still investigating and learning about these forms.