Neo-Aristotelian Criticism in September 2005,

Neo-Aristotelian Criticism

In September 2005, Jane Fonda gave the keynote speech, entitled "The New Feminism: Reuniting the Head, the Heart & the Body," at Women & Power, a three-day conference hosted by the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies, an organization oriented towards "focusing on health and wellness, spiritual growth, and self-awareness, as well as V-Day, "a global activist movement to end violence against women and girls ("About Omega," "About V-Day"). Fonda's speech was significant in terms of feminist theory and discourse, because as the title suggests, she was attempting to outline a feminist praxis that might transcend the various "waves" of feminism concerned with "replacing one archy with another" (Fonda 2005). However, the speech is important for the study of rhetoric as well, because the particular context, content, and intention of the speech almost demand that it be approached from a Neo-Aristotelian perspective in order to determine how effectively Fonda used the various tools available in her attempt to call her audience to action so that they might be "an army of love," confronting long-held paradigms of gender and power. Ultimately, while Fonda is successful in her use of ethos, pathos, and symbolic language, the effectiveness of her rhetoric is undermined by what can only be called failed appeals to logos, as she includes two examples of supposed sympathetic power near the end of her speech that undermine the rhetorical force. However, when considered in the context of the Women & Power conference (and especially considering that one of the sponsors was the Omega Institute), these logical failures, though glaring in hindsight, likely did not reduce the rhetorical effect at the time of the original performance.

Before analyzing Fonda's speech in detail, it will be necessary to provide some background information on both Fonda herself, the conference, and its sponsors. As a longtime actor and activist, the connection between the content of Fonda's speech and her personal history is inextricable, and indeed, her time spent in both Vietnam and the acting world play an important part in establishing her credibility during her speech. Formally trained as an actress, and frequently seen agitating and protesting, Fonda is well trained in the delivery of lines, if not public speaking more specifically. As she notes in her speech, she has been active as a self-described feminist for many years, although in her speech she claims that for much of that time, she "thought [she] had it in [her] heart and [her] body," when really her work was nominal at best (Fonda 2005). Nonetheless, Fonda has ample previous experience with both the subject matter of her speech and the medium itself, and she claims to be motivated by a genuinely felt desire to effect a kind of balance that might distribute power more equitably among the sexes (and in turn, among all people regardless of demographic classification). Due to her long history of feminist activism, Fonda likely enjoyed a good reputation with the audience, which would likely would have been extremely receptive to both her and her message.

When attempting to consider Fonda's 2005 speech in context, it almost more important to consider the particular occasion, setting, and audience than Fonda herself, because while Fonda is a well-known public figure who has spent decades addressing audiences both on film and in person, the Women & Power conference represents a somewhat curious combination of ideologies and interests. On the one hand, it was sponsored by V-Day, an organization solely dedicated to stopping violence against women and girls across the world. This takes the form of benefit performances and screenings of plays and documentaries, educational workshops, festivals, community meetings, and conferences such as Women & Power. For the most part, V-Day's involvement in the conference is straightforward, and any influence its involvement might have had on Fonda's speech would be negligible, as one can presume that both would already be arguing for roughly the same ideals: "solidarity, justice, equality, and non-violence" (Kelly 124).

The Omega Institute, on the other hand, feels somewhat arbitrary, as there is not an obvious dovetail between holistic studies and feminism (other than a general desire for wellness overall). The conference actually took place at Omega's headquarters in Rhinebeck, New York, and the centrality of Omega to the conference is important to note here because as will be seen in the subsequent analysis, the weakest portions of Fonda's speech are precisely those which cater to the holistic wellness audience by mentioning two different experiments widely regarded as pseudoscience by the scientific community but which have been embraced by proponents of metaphysical health therapies. As mentioned above, however, it seems entirely reasonable to presume that these logical failures did not reflect poorly on Fonda or her speech in the eyes of the audience, because that audience very likely included a number of people willing to believe in these unverified, alternative therapies. While it remains difficult to ascertain whether or not Fonda included these portions solely for the sake of these audience members and the particular context of the conference, it is worth pointing out that these portions are not integral to the larger point of Fonda's speech.

Neo-Aristotelian criticism is the ideal tool with which to approach Fonda's keynote speech, due to the equal focus Neo-Aristotelian theory places on all of the various elements of a rhetorical performance by applying "the five canons of classical rhetoric": invention, organization, style, delivery, and memory (Foss 30). While the latter two are somewhat less important in an age when few rhetors recite their speeches from memory, Neo-Aristotelian theory remains particularly effective for analyzing speech because it builds on classical studies of rhetoric while remaining flexible enough for widespread application and adaptation. As with Aristotle's original formulation, Neo-Aristotelian theory views the study and analysis of rhetoric as the attempt "to acquire a working knowledge of the instruments of persuasion," and thus each element of the rhetorical artifact is analyzed according to this standard (Hoffman 112). This is the reason for the substantial introduction and contextualization above; as the goal of this essay is to ascertain Fonda's success in persuading her audience, it is necessary to first highlight any variables which might effect that success such as setting, history, and the makeup of the audience.

After addressing the context of the rhetorical artifact under discussion, Neo-Aristotelian criticism proceeds by applying the five canons to the speech, with each canon corresponding to a number of different questions that might be asked of the artifact. The first canon, invention, is perhaps the most well-known in the study of rhetoric, as it involves actual content of the speech, divided between the use of logos, ethos, and pathos. In the case of Fonda's keynote, ethos, meaning an appeal to the rhetor's character and credibility, is visible both in her personal history and reputation with the audience, as well as certain portions of the speech that highlight the most salient points of that history and reputation. Fonda notes that she "brought gender issues into [her] movies roles," and also "helped women make their bodies strong" in her role as a fitness guru, thus establishing some credibility both with audience members associated with V-Day and those more closely aligned with the interests of the Omega Institute (Fonda 2005). After discussing her film career again in the context of the Norwegian healthcare system, Fonda brings up the subject for which she is perhaps most famous aside from her acting career, which is her time spent in Vietnam during the 1970s. While both anecdotes are the basis for a larger point Fonda is making, they serve to subtly establish her credibility and reputation with the audience by reminding them of why she is famous in the first place. These are only two examples of the appearance of ethos in Fonda's speech, because these mentions of her famous career appear throughout the speech, so that her larger argument is peppered with appeals to her status as a celebrity and famous activist. That these mentions of her past undoubtedly affect the audience's reception of her speech is evidenced by the fact that each story, while more or less interesting, is not actually necessary in order for her to make her point. Put another way, the same arguments could be made with any other generally suitable anecdote, but because these anecdotes are being told by Jane Fonda about her life, they are imbued with some extra layer of meaning in the eyes of the audience.

More than anything else, Fonda relies on pathos in order to persuade the audience, meaning that she appeals to their emotions in order to lend her arguments extra weight. She literally begins her speech by stating that:

This has been an emotional three days. I don't think I'm the only one that has been filled with tears. They are tears of joy. When our bodies become tuning forks, vibrating with words spoken by sisters that enter us and hum with truth. Tears of realization not only that we are not alone, but that we are one. Tears of recognition that all of us are on a journey and none of us have arrived at a destination. it's not just me. it's all of us. Tears of relief to know that the path isn't supposed to be straight or easy or even. (Fonda 2005)

By evoking the image of a collective of teary-eyed conference-goers, Fonda immediately establishes an emotional connection with the audience, and the effect is to align the audience's interests with her own. From this point on, one may interpret Fonda's mentions of emotion as attempts to perpetuate this connection and manipulate the emotions of the audience along with her rhetoric. Thus, when Fonda recalls hiding in a foxhole with a Vietnamese girl as American planes dropped bombs all around them, and, after crawling out, crying as she says "I'm so sorry" over and over to her, the goal is to use the power of those emotions in order to tenderize the audience, so that when the Fonda of the anecdote has her epiphanic moment, the audience will share some small part of that emotional experience (Fonda 2005). Not all of Fonda's emotional appeals rely on fear or crying, however, because the second of two anecdotes that make up the bulk of her speech includes meeting a woman who "moved from a place of love," and whose warmness and gentle manner so affected her that "it was palpable, like sinking into a warm tub after a cold winter" (Fonda 2005). Pathos so permeates Fonda's speech that the final lines, like the first, attempt to engage the audience's emotions and ingratiate the speaker with them, so that their interests, and ideally their, beliefs, are aligned. After concluding her speech, Fonda states that "we're going to end this in prayer. We want to go out on a prayerful note," an especially telling statement considering that prayer, by definition, depends upon an emotional connection with a perceived higher power rather than any logical belief in it.

The abundance of pathos in Fonda's speech should lead the reader to believe that it is lacking in logos, or logical arguments. Instead, these arguments almost always come as a kind of conclusion to the emotional appeal, such that the pathos sets up the audience to be as receptive as possible to the argument. For example, Fonda's emotional story about Vietnam is the backdrop for her argument that in many ways, the government sets the standards of behavior and belief for its citizens, so a government that teaches people "to love and to separate good from evil" will produce citizens, like the little Vietnamese girl, who do not automatically hate everyone from another country even if those countries are at war (Fonda 2005). Therefore, while Fonda does make a number of logical arguments, these are a much smaller portion of the speech (in terms of actual space) than the emotional appeals. The logos of the speech is further subjugated to the pathos due to the fact that the majority of Fonda's arguments are examples of inductive reasoning, and so the focus remains on the specific example or anecdote rather than the more general conclusion. Thus, even as Fonda deploys "reflective deliberation, strategic thinking, and emotional maturity" in her appeal to the audience, she does not seem to seeking deliberation or thinking on their part, but rather emotional attachment and goodwill, something that is evidenced by her use of certain external proofs, or ideas taken from elsewhere that support her overall effort (Thompson 258).

In addition to her original ideas, Fonda includes references to a few other works in an effort to bolster her persuasive ability. In her discussion of the government's affects on its citizens behaviors, she mentions Michael Moore's film Bowling for Columbine, which compares the differences between Canadian and American violent crime. While the reference to Moore is brief and effective, Fonda also includes two other external sources that are somewhat problematic, as Fonda presents them as ostensibly reasonable evidence for her claims, but upon even cursory examination, they are nothing more than pseudo scientific nonsense. Firstly, Fonda mentions a scene from the movie What the Bleep do We Know which revolves around the writings of Masaru Emoto. Fonda reiterates Emoto's claim that water molecules arrange themselves differently depending upon certain words being written on their container, or people directing certain thoughts at the water (such as "I love you" or "I hate you"). Emoto and Fonda claim that water molecules will arrange themselves into more beautiful configurations depending on whether or not the words or thoughts are positive. Fonda presents this claim as fact, stating "this is true," but in reality, no scientist has ever been able to replicate Emoto's work, and it is regarded as pseudoscience by the scientific community (Radin, Lund, et. al. 481).

Immediately afterward, Fonda introduces a related claim regarding the effect of transcendental meditation on crime. In 1993, "a group of approximately 4,000 participants in the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi programs of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi assembled in Washington, D.C." In order to test the hypothesis that meditation could reduce crime rates. Fonda breathlessly recounts this event, stating that "they met with the police department in D.C. And they said we're going to meditate and the violent crime rate is going to drop," before claiming that "4,000 people from all over the world meditated for a week. And the violent crime rate dropped 25%" (Fonda 2005). While it took some additional experimentation to disprove Emoto's claims, this statement is simply false. Violent crime did not drop twenty-five percent over that week, and in fact, there was no statistically significant drop in crime over that time period, despite efforts to massage the data to make it appear otherwise (such as excluding ten different murders because they occurred within thirty-six hours of each other) (Hagelin et. al. 200). Fonda explains her decision include both of these falsehoods by saying "what this says is change is so mysterious and we must not lose hope" (Fonda 2005). Objectively, the use of these two easily refutable pieces of pseudoscience should hinder Fonda's rhetorical effectiveness, because she presents them as evidence in a logical argument, but considering the makeup of the audience, and the fact that the conference was sponsored by a holistic wellness organization, the fact that these claims are untrue was likely not known by many in the audience, and furthermore, a good portion of the audience was likely primed to believe in the power of thoughts to effect the formation of water molecules or crime rates in Washington DC.

Fonda's speech is roughly organized chronologically, although she occasionally introduces a new topic seemingly out of the blue. After her tear-filled introduction, Fonda recalls her youth, her time acting, her time in Vietnam, and her return to the United States after living in France, with each of these time periods serving as the anecdotal basis for her larger argument regarding the need to love each other. After these anecdotes, however, Fonda simply moves from topic to topic with little clear structure. First, she notes that she "chaired the campaign for adolescent pregnancy prevention, so [she] can't talk about power without talking about choice" (Fond 2005). After that she talks about the effect of patriarchy on men, a feminist psychologist named Carol Gilligan, a perceived connection between patriarchy and the control of nature, terrorism, and finally the aforementioned instances of magic water and dropping crime rates. Each of these topics are introduced apropos of nothing, with statements like "I want to say something about patriarchy and nature" (Fonda 2005). The result is that Fonda's speech is not so much a coherent whole as a series of vignettes revolving around the same general themes, which would likely detract from her argumentative force if her goal was more clearly defined. Instead, the very loose structure works because her goal is not so much to rouse her audience towards a particular action or belief, but rather simply to encourage them to believe in the power of belief in love and themselves. This is why the examples of the magic water and dropping crime rates, while laughably untrue, do not detract from her argument; instead, they represent the same kind of magical thinking Fonda is asking of her audience.