Rhetoric: The Art of Persuasion

As a novice approaching the "art of rhetoric", I was relieved to find Thomas M. Conley's Rhetoric in the European Tradition, a firm foundation on which to build. My formal exposure to the concept of rhetoric can be summed up with, "That's a rhetorical question"~which implied the answer was so obvious that no response was expected. Hardly a firm foot-hold with which to enter the readings for Week 1.
Conley states in his preface that he sees rhetoric "historically" and he tracks "various perennial responses" of what rhetoric is, or is not; concluding that there is not "a single, unitary art or discipline called 'Rhetoric'" (ix). This statement became manifest as I struggled to grasp the theories laid out by the masters of rhetoric in Patricia F. Matsen's Readings from Classical Rhetoric.
As I read through the combined assignments (nearly 200 pages), I was astounded not by my inability to grasp or maintain the concepts of the various masters and their schools of instruction (Gorgias, Alcidamas, Isocrates, Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle); I was astounded by the intellect displayed five thousand years before our twenty-first century. Who were these people?
As each master stated and defended, by example, his theories of what made his teachings the most successful approach to the art of persusion, the ancient world of Athenian Greece opened before my eyes. Compiled in Matsen's Readings from Classical Rhetoric, was a time capsule of culture, society, and psychology. The Athenians were debating warfare, alliances, economics, ethics, social reform, crime and punishment. Their struggles were as fresh as our daily headlines. Working within a democracy, they too, debated the merits of oppositional actions. The approachs to winning over converts, became their own topics of great debate as masters and students evolved their own approaches.
In this format it is impossible to discuss in detail the theories and techniques presented over the centuries. Based on the readings of the texts, rhetoric is "the faculty of discovering the possible means of persuasion in reference to any subject whatever" (120). However, rhetoric was, as any other art, held to measureable standards. It was the quest to achieve these standards that led to the development of the various schools of rhetoric. Despite their competitive bid for students, on the virtues of the art itself they seem to be in general agreement on the following points: rhetoric can be used to persuade for good or evil; rhetoric develops the mind as gymnastics develops the body; rhetoric demands logical reasoning; rhetoric is more than substance and style-first and foremost is the character of the speaker which gives greater weight to the argument; rhetoric serves the highest good of the state and her populace; rhetoric, through a series of time-honored ancient premises, is able to establish what is good and evil.
As we struggle in our own age to find a common ground between the quest to sway public opinion, even as divergent as the Christian beliefs of James Dobson and Al Sharpton, compromise is an achievement of successful rhetoric.