What follows is one way to organize the books on our bibliography. You don't have to read all of these books, of course. I indicate which are suggested by highlighting them. Once you find a subject that intrigues you, you might want to read the other books in that pile and search for others not listed here. In addition to books there are relevant videos and documentaries, blogs, and discussion boards. I offer a couple of suggestions below, but you should cast a wider net.
First, a bit of terminology:
The sub-title of this class, the dark side of persuasion, assumes that there are two kinds of rhetoric, one good (ideal) and the other bad (dark). Is this an accurate assumption? Dichotomizing is a rhetorical procedure and therefore the results should be questioned. One of the books in our bibliography, Pimpology, asserts that, "There are only two categories of people: pimps and hoes. You either give orders or you take them." Really? What about I just walk away?
The common view of rhetoric By which I mean the view taken by people who haven't encountered the idea of sophisticated skepticism as I explain it in ENGL 8170. is that it is systematic linguistic distortion and emotional manipulation in the service of a malevolent ambition, to rob a person or people of their reason and compel them to vote or act against their best interests, to subordinate themselves to an organization or leader that will use them to increase and sustain its own power and then abandon them when they are no longer useful. This description fits any rhetorical situation from a Tinder date gone terribly wrong to the fall of a democracy and the rise of a tyranny. This view of rhetoric descends directly from Plato's The Gorgias, where Socrates explains how dialectic (disciplined thinking) is the antidote to sophistry which uses rhetoric (undisciplined thinking) to flatter and cajole people into making poor life-choices, specifically self-indulgence and the pursuit of unjustified power over others. Rhetoric, bad; reality, good if unpleasant.
We have seven entries in our bibliography that in different ways exemplify this view of rhetoric as malevolent deception. Each of these books would teach us that there are people and organizations using a set of rhetorical techniques in the service of their own empowerment at our expense, and we must learn how to use justice and reason to see their words for the lies they are, thus freeing ourselves from them.
Thus the purpose of rhetorical analysis is to see the reality hidden by malignant rhetors. The rhetoric being dispelled in each of these cases is clearly a dark rhetoric, one that needs light cast on it, because each is clearly designed to compel agreement without consent.
In a subsequent dialogue, Phaedrus, Plato offers a less absolutely negative evaluation of rhetoric. If the persuader knows what is best, then he is justified in using rhetoric, deceptive though it is, because the audience is being deceived for its own good: the rhetoric of a spoon full of sugar. From this perspective, the value of a rhetoric is determined by the value of the goals it has for the target audience, and that value can only be determined by a sound epistemology, repeatable method of thinking that leads to accurate and predictable results. In Plato's case, dialectic reveals the truth to the philosopher. Once the philosopher knows the truth, then they are authorized to use rhetoric if the audience can't or won't be persuaded by dialectical reasoning.
This is the rhetoric of "white lies" or paternalism. We have an interesting variation on this rhetoric in Nudge, which the authors call "Libertarian Paternalism."
Nearly a thousand years after Plato, St. Augustine, who trained as a rhetorician but converted to Christianity and abandoned oratory in favor of homiletics, preached that the truth upon which good rhetoric can be based is revealed to the priest though scripture and the priest's job is to lead his flock in the direction indicated by God, while the flock's task is to listen and obey. Augustine never suggests that you bend scripture to suit your purposes, but he does assume that the audience is entirely dependent on your word on God's word and so you are in control of the message.
Assuming that your audience can't understand or handle the "truth" and therefore you must tell them compelling stories for their own good can lead some high minded and learned people to think that the general audience is beneath them, that if they can't just tell them what to think there is no reason to think about them any more. This is a fundamental problem of academic discourse. It can see only two options, condescension or dismissal. This is the impulse to "take the high road" and it amounts to an abdication of power. Dark rhetors often have no idea what they are doing but they have absolute confidence in what they are doing. Doubt, the need for evidence, alternative perspectives does not dampen their enthusiasm for their personal beliefs and arrogance keeps them from caring about what other people think or what other evidence might suggests, while callousness keeps them from caring about what kind of damage they do. People who want to wait until they have incontrovertible evidence before they engage do not typically engage and when they do they are often ineffective because they want to focus on the evidence and the methodology and their audience doesn't care or understand.
The idea of using dark rhetoric to do the right thing is hard for many people to understand let alone embrace and this leaves the field open to the worst kinds of people. While studying dark rhetoric as self-defense makes people who think they are virtuous feel better about it, I think responsibility for the community might be a better motivation or at least a competitive one. Consider "climate denial" as an example. There are many vested interests in continuing to ignore the fact that the ice shelves are melting or deny the possibility of doing anything about it, and many ways to distract the conversation when it does come up. But if the geologists and meteorologists and the other climate scientists don't embrace the role of combatting ignorance and malevolence with the same strategies, they will be left with nothing better than a "We told you so" and the billions of people living in what are currently coastal cities will have to flee in land. It may be too late, but there are other examples for which there might yet be time to get the right things done by saying things considered wrong.
Out of the darkness, light?
If you wander the internet you are bound to come across some "test of psychopathy" that asks you how you would handle a situation to see if you are a psychopath. The fundamental assumption here is that psychos think differently and therefor would handle problems differently from normal people, thus, if you were to come up with a psycho solution, you are a psychopath. The idea is preposterous, and the "test for psychopathy" are just entertainment at best and fishing scams at worst. However, real research does exists and some of it involves interviewing psychos to find out how they think. This is problematic too because they are great liars and experts at figuring out what people want to hear. Nevertheless, given no threat or promise, asking a psycho what they would do in a given scenario might offer interesting results Kevin Dutton ask a diagnosed and incarcerated psychopath what they would do in the following situation:
How to get rid of an unwanted tenant? That was the question for Don and his wife, Fran, who'd just had Fran's elderly mother, Flo, move in with them. Flo had lived in her previous house for forty-seven years, and now that she no longer needed it, Don and Fran had put it on the market. Being in London, in an up-and-coming area, there was quite a bit of interest. But also a bit of a problem: the tenant, who wasn't exactly ecstatic at the prospect of hitting the road.
Don and Fran were pretty much at the end of their tether. They'd already lost out on one potential sale because he couldn't, or wouldn't, pack his bags. Another might prove disastrous. But how to get him out?
"I'm presuming we're not talking violence here," inquires Danny. "Right?"
"Right," I say. "We wouldn't want to end up inside, now would we?" Danny gives me the finger. But the very fact that he asks such a question at all debunks the myth that violence, for psychopaths, is the only club in the bag.
"How about this, then?" rumbles Jamie. "With the old girl up at her in-laws', chances are the geezer's going to be alone in the house, yeah? So you pose as some bloke from the council, turn up at the door, and ask to speak to the owner. He answers and tells you the old dear ain't in. Okay, you say. Not a problem. But have you got a forwarding contact number for her? 'Cuz you need to speak to her urgently.
"By this stage he's getting kind of curious. What's up? he asks, a bit wary, like. Actually, you say, quite a lot. You've just been out front and taken a routine asbestos reading. And guess what? The level's so high it makes Chernobyl look like a health spa. The owner of the property needs to be contacted immediately. A structural survey has to be carried out. And anyone currently living at the address needs to vacate the premises until the council can give the all clear.
"That should do the trick. With a bit of luck, before you can say 'slow, tortuous death from lung cancer,' the wanker will be straight out the door. Course, you could just change the locks when he nips out down the local, I s'pose. That'd be kind of funny. But the problem then is, you've still got all his gear. Which I guess is okay if you're planning on having a garage sale. I mean, you could even make a few quid out of the jerk and cover the cost of the locks ... "Me, though? I'd go the health-and-safety route, personally. Ha, stealth and safety, more like! You'd get shot of the bastard completely that way, I reckon. Plus, of course, he'd think you were doing him a favor." (Kindle # 2643)
A couple of points worth highlighting here. The psycho doesn't choose violence. He chooses deception -- "pose as some bloke from the council". He appeals to the tenant's self-interest. He refers to the tenant using disparaging language -- jerk, wanker, geezer -- dismissing him without knowing anything about him. He doesn't ask why the guy doesn't want to leave; he focuses on the problem like a laser. He uses curiosity as a lever. He considers how to make some money into the bargain. And he concludes with "he'd think you were doing him a favor." No blow back. No anger. Problem solved. Getting a person to think your idea was their idea all along (self-interest) is the hallmark of dark rhetors. If they are really good at their craft, you hand over your money not just willingly but enthusiastically.
The red tape that getting the actual authorities involved protects tenants from predatory landlords and is probably completely warranted given the imbalance of power between the rich and the poor. But devious thinking needn't be the purview of malevolent souls, especially when the rules are typically written with the powerful (rich) in mind. While "Danny" in the anecdote above is a psychopath who clearly did something awful enough to get jailed for life, his solution to this particular problem -- impersonating an authority in order to help an old lady's family repossess what is rightfully theirs -- isn't exactly evil, just dark. The recalcitrant border, if they are that, has to be leveraged out of their position. The options are submission, lawyers, violence, or dark rhetoric.
All of the books on or bibliography are in some way relevant to this crafty way of thinking, but two in particular stand out.
Though very different from those two, and all the rest really, Stacy Abram's Lead from the Outside also shows how one might get a place at the table without waiting for an invitation.
Any rhetoric that seeks to hide or undermine a better way to resolve an issue would be a dark rhetoric. To use rhetoric to argue that carbohydrates, for example, are bad when dietary science disproves the assertion, would be an example of this kind of dark rhetoric.
But here again is the problem of faith. Is dietary science science? Does it provide undeniable facts from which certainly true conclusions can be drawn? Can any science do this? The answer hinges on "undeniable" and if all it takes to render a fact deniable is a persistent loud denier, then any fact can be doubted and other facts, alternative facts, inserted in their stead. A fact, after all, is just an assertion accepted as indisputably true so if there is a dispute, the fact reverts to assertion, even if most people or the people who ought to know, consider it a fact. Thus we have the rhetoric of conspiracy and conspiratorial rhetoric.
These are clearly dark rhetoric exposés. The first shows how conventional wisdom and even common sense are undermined, resulting in belief systems that bewilder most people but so enflame the passions of their adherents that some would die or even kill for them. Witness the 2020 Nashville Bombing The second example shows how corporations use similar techniques (unrestrained skepticism, false controversy, misinformation, shills mascaraing as experts) to shift public opinion away from what would serve its interests toward the interests of the corporation sowing doubt. The third lifts the lid on digital marketing strategies and how the system is rigged in favor of misinformation and dark rhetoric generally. Witness the tobacco industry's attempts to kill cancer research findings.
Whereas those exposés warn us about letting rhetoric be done to us, we also have books that come at deception from the other direction, explaining how one might use rhetoric for one's own ends.
These books take an amoral stance, rhetoric can be used for good or evil and the processes they describe can be used by any one for any purpose.
We have yet another answer to the question is rhetoric good or bad and that is the one that can be traced back to the sophist Gorgias who denied the existence of objective knowledge and asserted that rhetoric was a kind of magic that had the power to make people do anything the magician desired. For a fee, he could show you how to make your own magic. He also compared rhetoric to drugs, thus suggesting that a rhetor is a kind of drug dealer. Given that he seems to have been willing to teach anyone who could pay him how to be a magician or a drug dealer, and he didn't believe people had access to the truth or that if they did they couldn't communicate it anyway, he seems to suggest that rhetoric is free for all, buyer beware, struggle for dominance in the market place kind of thing. The better you are, the more powerful you are and thus the more successful you will be. This perspective on rhetoric suggests it is a means to power that anyone can learn and then use to their own advantage, whatever that advantage might be and regardless of the consequences for either the audience or the magician.
The majority of the books in our bibliography are descendants of the rhetoric-is-magic school. Each of these books promise their readers success in life by creating and exercising power over others. If there is an ethics among these rhetorics, it is that since our worlds are created by people who can impose their will on others, you either learn to impose your will or have someone else's imposed on you: play or be played.
There is a sub genre of the rhetoric as means to power group called Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) that purports to be a kind of language-based behavioral psychology, akin to hypnotism, which you can use on yourself or on others. Since reality is a socially constructed, psycho-linguistic construct, if you know how to manipulate words, you can manipulate people, presumably for their own good, but that's up to you.
The gambit with these rhetoric as source of personal power books is that they can't guarantee that the organization you plan to climb has any real ladder. Pimpology, for example, seems to offer strategies for success but ends up warning that the path of pimping leads inevitably to the jail cell or the crypt. The game is rigged even against the players. The Craft of Power offers similar warnings. Indeed they all do in their own way. Sotto voce: "Here's how to play by the unspoken rules but be careful, others know these rules too, and if you aren't better at it than they are, you will become just another weapon in their arsenal."
I won't go so far as to call these books and those like them scams because many of them have some interesting and possibly useful rhetorical strategies to offer, but they are clearly leveraging the reader's desire to succeed in life, making a promise they can't guarantee to keep, in other words. I wouldn't go so far as to say that these books are "Selling feathers from the angel's wings", to repurpose a sentence from Robert L FitzPatrck, Ponzinomics. I wouldn't go that far because rhetorics create realities. People believe in angels, mistake words for things (race, for example), and construct communities and ways of life around nothing more solid than certain words said in certain ways.
From this perspective, rhetoric is inescapable but there are as many rhetorics as there are ways of being in the world. If you want to change your way of being, change your rhetoric.