216. Guy Doza: The Language of Evil

Speaker A: Inspiration, success stories, expert advice, strategies, new ideas and amazing conversations. Everything you need to become a great speaker. This is Oscar Santolaia and welcome to Time to Shine. Hello and thank you for joining a new episode of Time to Shine. I have recently heard a new book, very interesting book about rhetoric that definitely has called my attention. So, yes, we talk about rhetoric today and our special guest today is Guy Doza. Uh, he is a speechwriter training and public affairs consultant. He started his career in political research before branching out into corporate speech writing. He now works independently for a range of international clients whom he writes on a variety of subjects. Guy is a two time TEDx speaker and has lectured on rhetoric at several of the world's leading universities. He has published two books with Camberry Press. Hello, Guy.

Speaker B: Hello, Oscar. Thank you so much for having me on your wonderful podcast. Time to Shine.

Speaker A: My pleasure. Really, um, really happy to have you now in person. Actually, we're, we're having this interview in person here in Helsinki. You're visiting us and. Yeah, fantastic.

Speaker B: Yeah. And it's a pleasure to be in Helsinki. Even in the rain.

Speaker A: Even in the rain. Sometimes happens, I guess, often. Uh, fantastic. We'd like to hear first, what was your journey to become speaker and speech writer?

Speaker B: Oh, my journey to become speaker and speech writer. Um, I think that ever since a young age, I was very interested in the power of the spoken word. It's a way in which you can really connect with other people on an emotional level and, and really create some sort of change in the world. Persuasion. Because ultimately public speaking is the most powerful tool for persuasion. So ever since I was young, I was very interested in that. Perhaps the reason I was so interested in public speaking is because I wasn't very good at writing. Every time I would write at school, I'd have lots of spelling mistakes, I had dyslexia, lots of spelling mistakes. I couldn't quite understand the grammar. And then I realized that with spoken language, I can connect. I can connect, uh, in a way that the spelling, punctuation and grammar didn't matter. And I found that quite empowering. So since a young age, I was always very interested in how the spoken word works. And when I was at university, I did, uh, ancient history at Royal Holloway, which is part of the University of London. And in my second year I had a module on logic and rhetoric. And I was absolutely fascinated to know that this spoken language that I was so obsessed with since a young age actually had rules and patterns that when you apply them, you can then speak in a much more effective way. But the great thing about logic and rhetoric is that it's not only only for the spoken language, but also for the written language. So through studying that one module as an undergraduate, I found that I was really developing my communication skills across the board, but also public speaking. I then did a postgraduate research degree in rhetoric, where I was looking at the application of rhetoric in modern political discourse. So to be more specific, I was looking at political speeches. And I was asking in my research, how does this conform to the rules of Aristotle, Quintilian and Cicero? And then I decided I need to make a career out of this somehow. I need to find some sort of work. So I started going to events in the Houses of Parliament in the uk, in London. So I went to the House of Lords, the House of Commons, to free events that anyone could go to. And I started networking, trying to meet people and telling everyone what my research was about, what I was interested in. And eventually I got a little bit of political experience. And then I tried to translate that as much as possible into speech writing, but also doing some political research. And after that, I went around telling everyone that I was a speechwriter, because I was. And, um, networking as much as possible. I got a couple of other contracts in the corporate world, and it sort of just snowballed from there over the years. I love writing speeches for other people, but I also love giving them myself. And I've been practicing my public speaking ever since a young age. I think that in order to be a good speechwriter, you need to also practice the art of public speaking. Because when you're speaking in front of an audience, you understand just how complicated and dynamic the relationship between a speaker and an audience is. And if you don't understand that, I don't think it's possible to write effectively for someone else because there's so much that you have to think about. M so I was always going to this, uh, one public speaking group called Toastmasters, just to practice as much as possible. And actually we were talking about our mutual friend, uh, Brian Jenner. He was the one who told me to go to Toastmasters. Um, and I met Brian Jenner through one of his conferences at the European Speechwriters Network. I went when I was a student because if you want to join an industry, you have to find a community first. And it's very interesting because community and communication have the same prefix, which is all about bringing together. So I went to the European Speechwriters Network and I was very, very much inspired. And the speechwriting career just came from that. But then so did the public speaking. And then I got invited to, uh, give more talks either about rhetoric or about the work that I was doing. And eventually I was asked to do a TEDx talk at, uh, TEDx, Cambridge University. So I gave a TEDx talk, and obviously it was gonna be about rhetoric. And I wanted it to be something that was engaging but also making a slightly serious note. So I thought, I'm gonna call it Defence against the Dark Arts. Cause I'm a big Harry Potter fan. I love the concept of Defense against the Dark Arts. But also this links very much into rhetoric, because rhetoric is seen as a dark art. In fact, even I mentioned this in the TEDx speech. Even in King Lear, there's a scene where Cordelia says, if for I want that glib and oily art to speak and purpose not. And of course she's talking about rhetoric. She calls it glib and oily. And the idea that someone can use their language in a disingenuous way. Now, I don't see rhetoric as being a glib and oily art. I see it as being something incredibly powerful that can be glib and oily depending on how it's used, but can also be used for very, very good purposes. And this is something that has always been part of my work. It's how do you find, how do you define whether rhetoric is a good thing or a bad thing? And actually it's not binary. It's so much more complicated than that. But I found that throughout my career, most of the people I encounter will think of rhetoric with negative connotations. So I thought, well, actually, I want to challenge that a little bit. So I wrote my first book, which is how to Apologize for Killing a Cat. And I tried to show that rhetoric could be fun, could be playful. But then after that, everyone was like, well, you always tell us rhetoric can be dangerous, so prove it. And that's where the second book came in the Language of Evil.

Speaker A: Super, super interesting. And in that discovery earlier, when you were a child, you mentioned that you were a bit struggling with, um, the regular way of learning the language. It starts usually in the writing, so you discover your own way. So changing the playing with the words, in the end, we can communicate, just change the order of the word, the way, the way it works. And so, so interesting that then that you discover that, that egoric CIS rhetoric can be used for both spoken language and the written language. You went to the spoken language mostly, but now you're writing a book.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So you.

Speaker B: Now I'm A dyslexic author. Can you believe it? Such a thing exists.

Speaker A: Congratulations for that.

Speaker B: So thank you so much.

Speaker A: So you. Wow. And this is your second book, so. Yeah.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: So you have somehow, um, you have tamed the writing. Uh, so. Excellent. So let's go into that. Your newest book has been released already, uh, early this year, 2025. It's called the Language of Evil. So tell us, you have already. Tell us a bit of the why, but tell us a little bit more your motivation, why you really decide to invest time. Because I'm also author two books. You need to make that decision. Commit, uh, to writing a new book. Tell us your main motivations.

Speaker B: I was talking earlier about this idea of rhetoric as people see it as being a very negative thing. And I think that if I'm constantly going around warning people that rhetoric can be abused and that we shouldn't abuse it, it's nice to sometimes provide the evidence for that. So in my first book, how to Apologize for Killing a Cat, there was a chapter on rhetoric in the time of crisis. And part of that actually looked at war rhetoric and how rhetoric was used to manipulate people in a more negative sense in a crisis. And my publisher told me that people responded very well to that chapter and said, perhaps you could write an entire book about this. And I thought, well, that sounds really interesting. And I thought maybe this is my opportunity to show people the dark side of rhetoric that I always warn them against. So I thought to myself, I'll write about the rhetoric of tyrants and dictators, but I'm going to look to see if I can find any common themes and patterns. So the book is more focused at the history market. So it's also linguistics and rhetoric, but it's also more history focused. And I think ever since I was little, my dream was to be a historian. So this was my way of, like, you know, manifesting that dream. And what the book does is it starts with Julius Caesar and it goes all the way through to Saddam Hussein. And it stops at different parts of the world, different time periods, looking at speakers of different religions, different ethnicities, different genders, different everything. And one of the things that was really, really fascinating is that it doesn't matter where you go, it doesn't matter what time period, it doesn't matter the religion, ethnicity, or gender of the speaker. The most villainous people of that time, the tyrants and the dictators, have always been saying variations of the same things in the same way. And rhetoric. And again, this goes back to the whole joke about defense against the dark art. But also it's not a joke, it's very serious. Because rhetoric is really dangerous. And it's most effective and most dangerous when it's. When it's being used against an audience who don't understand how it works. So I think that people need to learn rhetoric. I think it needs to be part of the education system. I think it should be taught in schools and universities a lot more than it is now globally. Because if we don't learn about it, uh, we are so much more susceptible to the rhetorical advances of people who are going to try and exploit us and manipulate us and change our way of thinking, our way of voting, who it is that we love, who it is that we hate. And it's so obvious when you see it happening after you study it that it's actually quite terrifying. Quite terrifying.

Speaker A: Yeah, it is, it is. Uh, then we see the, um, we see the, um, predictions of the elections of some country that is elections are coming and say, oh, how it's possible that, yeah, one of these dictators, not dictators yet, maybe manipulators that are coming, they already convince a large part of population's, uh, Congress. It's really, it's really powerful.

Speaker B: It's incredibly powerful.

Speaker A: It is, it is. Um, so let's hear, um, what are these techniques? If you tell us the main of these techniques or patterns that, uh, you have found among researching several of these people in history. Tell us. Yeah, a few of those.

Speaker B: So in rhetoric, it's generally agreed that there are three main branches of persuasion. There are more than three, but there are three that are considered the main ones, and they're ethos, logos and pathos. And ethos is this idea of characterization. It's how you present character. Lots of people will say ethos is credibility, but it's more complicated than credibility is character. And a, uh, lot of people throughout history have used their character to create a cult following around them, to get popular support from the masses. So this. They're basically demagogues. They want to be loved and they want to be popular, and they project that image. So I'll give you an example, uh, in the funeral oration that Julius Caesar gave for his Aunt Julia, and again, the guy's talking, his aunt has just died and he's speaking at her funeral. And he makes a point of saying that on my father's side, I'm descended from kings, and from my mother's side, I'm descended from gods. So he literally told his audience, oh, yeah, we're Gods in front of everyone who's mourning his aunt's funeral, because he wanted to create this cult status around him. And he wanted to be worshipped as the highest level of nobility, but also of divinity. And this idea of giving yourself divine status is seen absolutely everywhere. If you look at Mobutu in Zaire, uh, now Congo, he went around with a magic stick, a stick that gave him magical, mystical powers. And you're like, that's not that long ago, Mobutu. Yet we still have this idea of embedding the divine in order to project this ethos. So, for example, in Zaya, if you watch the news, the news would always start with a picture of Mobuto's face zooming in from the clouds in the sky. So he's almost like this, this character from the sky, this God. And he was presenting himself as having these divine qualities and this divine ethos because he thought, that's what I need in order to control the people, in the same way that that's what Julius Caesar thought I need in order to control the people. But you can also see, uh, you know, less deity related. But even Saddam Hussein wanted to be loved by the people, but also feared by the people. So one of the things that Saddam Hussein would do to create his ethos was his character is he would have propaganda films made of him walking into an Iraqi household. He would walk into the household, he would greet everyone, he'd be really gracious. He would then open their fridge and see that the fridge was empty. He would then say, this is unacceptable. And he would go and he would go shopping and he would fill their fridge with food. And then the propaganda films would end with this very happy family with an abundance of food in their fridge. And obviously, these propaganda films were then circulated all over Iraq. So everyone thought, wow, we're so lucky to have this leader. So having a personality cult around a political leader is something that's universal. And it doesn't matter where you go, you'll always find it. You'll always find it. Uh, and even now, today, there's some political leaders who, they want to be loved and they want to be adored. And we get the impression that they want to be adored more than they want to be right or just. And of course, there's a balance that any leader has to get. Yeah, we want to be popular, we want to have popular policies, but also we want to have the right policies, and you have to have that balance. And quite a lot of these figures and the speeches that I looked at are people who focused on the wrong side of that balance. And obviously it comes across in their speeches. They talk about themselves as if they're gods. They invoke gods. So for example, the more Saddam Hussein was losing the war, the more he started talking about Allah and invoking religion, uh, to inspire people to carry on fighting. Because the only ethos that's greater than that of the dictator is that of the divine. And they often call on that. Um, another example, uh, which is not necessarily religious, but we have Napoleon gave so many speeches. He gave three types of speeches. Most of his speeches fall into one of these three categories. And they're speeches that he gave to his soldiers. One of them is soldiers, you have done well, you deserve lots of glory. The second one is soldiers, you have done terribly. You don't deserve to call yourself French. And the third one is soldiers. You're so lucky to have me as your emperor. I am wonderful. And so many of his speeches were focusing on how wonderful he is as an individual. But because he needed that support from his soldiers, they needed to see him as being this undefeatable, um, deity like champion in order for him to carry on being successful. So that cult following was incredibly important. And if I give you another example of another warlord, uh, we have Chinggis Khan in Mongolia. And obviously his power structure is very different. He, uh, was in a power structure where you had chieftains whose support you needed. And if you look at the kind of speeches that he gave, you'd think he'd give war speeches. He gives loving speeches to his friends, to his colleagues. And he says to them, oh, my father and your father have been friends. And you and I have been friends since childhood. I'm so lucky to have you in my army. And he would flatter. There's this rhetorical feature called confrobatio. He would flatter people in order, uh, to get them to like him so that he could then use their armies. So I think that's probably the most powerful one is ethos. But then also we've got this idea of pathos and, you know, emotive language in order to manipulate the people. So you'll always find some sort of element of pathos. Um, and a good example of that that I have from the book is actually Queen Ranavalun I of Madagascar. So she was the Queen of Madagascar and she hated Christianity. She didn't particularly like white people. She didn't like anything that wasn't Malagasy. So if it wasn't from the island of Madagascar.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: She didn't like it. Um, and what she would often do is she would give edicts or speeches where she talks about the traditions of Madagascar and say, aren't, um, these important to you? Didn't you grow up with these stories? This is being destroyed by the white Christian invaders. And she would give these speeches in order to pull on the heartstrings of, um. So pathos is incredibly powerful in manipulating people. So we've got the idea of creating a cult figure around one person. We also have the idea of twisting the audience's emotions. And another one which is really powerful is this idea of a mysterious enemy, a hidden other hidden, uh, in our midst that we have to constantly be on the lookout for. Because if you can create a common enemy amongst your audience, they automatically find themselves uniting with a common identity against this villainous other. And uh, again I mentioned Saddam Hussein earlier, but he gave some speeches where he was very much vilifying this sort of aggressive Western imperialist. He used all this language that ironically could be applied to him but against the Americans in order to try and create this unified enemy against the Iraqi people. And you tend to find that a lot of people invoke that. Um, another one was Eva Peron, I think it was, who said that, uh, sometimes the enemy can be hidden behind a smile or a handshake. And she was saying the enemy is hidden here in this audience amongst you. And you always have to be on the lookout. And then people are always on edge. People are always on edge. But people also are empowered to try and find these people. And the ultimate example is probably the Nazis and the way that they othered the Jews and used the Jews with all of uh, these libelous claims. Blood libel is a very long standing anti Semitic trope, but it's been used a lot by tyrants and dictators. Not so much in ancient history, but also in ancient history, throughout all of history, in order to other the Jews or any other minority group, in order to scapegoat all of their problems. And then that creates a unified identity. Um, and one of the things that's really interesting is that if you look at the Nazi approach to propaganda, they literally said in their diaries and their writings, they said the easiest way to win an audience is to have one common enemy and just make that point again and again and again. Like they said, this is what we're going to do. And then they did it. And uh, on the note of Nazi rhetoric, one of the things that's very interesting is, um, if you look at Hitler's approach to public speaking, he literally Says that something along the lines of the knights of the pen are fools if they think that a goose quill will ever change the mind of people. The only way you can move the masses is with the magic power of the spoken word. So he literally said, we're going to give lots of speeches. And I think in his career he gave over 1,500 speeches. And all of his cronies, Goebbels, they gave speeches and that's the way that they really indoctrinated the people. And the speeches were filled with hate. And Hitler's another example of this personality cult like figure, uh, that was also constantly drawing on this idea of the occult and these magic powers and these secret weapons. So all of these tropes that we find in the language of evil we can find very much in the Nazis, but also very, very well documented in the Nazis because they weren't trying to hide it. They were proud of the fact that they could do this. I mean, one of the things that Josef, ah Goebbels said after his total, uh, in Krieg speech, which is the total war speech, is he said the audience were eating out of my hand. If I wanted them to jump off of the roof of the building and fall to their death, they would have done it. So he literally boasted about the command that he had over his audience. And I think that's terrifying because that total war speech, the Totalenkrieg speech, was given to 14,000 German people who were teachers, uh, they were cobblers, they were tailors, they were butchers. They were specifically selected because they represented the general working people. And they were thought. If you listen to the audio recording, you can't hear what he's saying because the applause is so loud. And in the transcript it says the minister cannot be heard because of the roaring applause of the audience. They were feral. They were feral. And he managed to create that by using the emotional tidal waves that he used, by using this idea of vilifying the other, but also promoting this sort of supremacist ideology and this cult figure, um, status that was given to Hitler.

Speaker A: Wow. Indefinitely. Impressive. More reasons to read more your book. See the details. Super. Uh, interesting. You mentioned you started with ethos and Actually I haven't, I haven't thought too much ethos as, um, a rhetorical power. But it's part of that, definitely. Then you mentioned pathos. That is, uh, commonly said that it's powerful also for convincing people. And then you mentioned this common enemy use the common enemy.

Speaker B: So this is in retro, call it argumentum ad hominems. It's like an argument against the person.

Speaker A: All right, well, there are so many. You already show us so many, so many examples. Some I never heard and some are, yeah, the variety of, um, geographies and also the times. I mean, some are very recent, just couple of decades ago. Super, super recent. So it's very impressive that, ah, sounds like, um, these formulas keep working and will continue working and they'll carry on

Speaker B: working until people realize how they work and then stand up to them. And one of the things that's very interesting is if you want to think about the language of evil and you want to think about othering, and you want to think about these false dichotomy, binary opposites that audiences are presented with that radicalize them. We have so much of that today because we can take the most toxic parts of rhetoric. We can really amplify, um, them on social media without any context whatsoever. And also for an audience that's used to processing large amounts of information really quickly, we don't have the time to apply our critical thinking skills. One, I think there's a problem that people don't have the same critical thinking skills that they have had or would have had in the past. And two, people are very selective about how they apply their critical thinking skills. They like sensationalist arguments, they like sensationalist rhetoric and populist rhetoric. And we get so much of that thrown at us through the media and specifically social media, that all it's done is it's created sort of like, you know, this amplification, this megaphone for the most toxic elements of rhetoric and has spread to all areas of society in a way that I think is really polarized and broken down, the art of debate and discourse. Because now you find that it's actually much harder to get two people with different, uh, views and opinions to talk to each other. Because a lot of people, especially young people, will say, well, if you don't think within these set of values that I have been told to think about, you are the enemy, and therefore I refuse to talk to you. Um, and we're having more and more and more of this type of discussion and discourse, um, from all ends of the political spectrum. It's not one specifically.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, definitely. Another, uh, thing is about the, um. Tell us about the logic, if you could give one example, how, because it's more about the words, how what is what is said and what is, um, what is the. The logic that the audience, um, how to say, sorry, producer, you hear something, you heard A phrase. And, uh, you might think this is not, um, this is not rational, but it's logic. So the audience will make a logic and make a conclusion out of that. So you can tell us a few examples of that, how it's been used by the manipulators.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, absolutely. Um, so logos or logic is most powerful when it's presented in the form of a logical fallacy. So speakers will always use logical fallacy. So they'll say things that sound like a logical argument, but if you actually break them down, they don't make sense. But I will also say that when it comes to persuasion, that emotions, pathos is the most powerful thing. It's like a tidal wave that just overpowers as any sort of reasoning or logic. But logic also has its role to play. So the example, um, that I can think of, of logic from the book is when, uh, Adolf Hitler was giving a speech and he tried to use statistics to prove that Germany needs to get rid of its Jews. It basically said that Germany was overpopulated. And he talks about the number of people per square kilometer. And he says, how is it possible that these countries, like America, that have all this space, you think Germany with. I can't remember what the exact number was. I can see if I can find it. Um, yes, he talks about Germany having 135 inhabitants to the square kilometer. And he literally says, and this is the translation, how is Germany supposed to have room for them? Referring to the Jewish people. And he uses the fact that there are 135 inhabitants per square kilometer as an argument for not, uh, having Jews in Germany. This is, of course, when the whole genocide against the Jewish people was still being kept a secret. So he was more talking about excluding people. But you think, okay, what does that argument actually mean? 135 people per square kilometer. That means nothing. No one understands what that means. No one can actually picture what a square kilometer is or what 135 people in a square kilometer is. And for context, at the same time that he was speaking in New York, the population per square kilometer was 10,549 people. So how is 135 people dense compared to 10,549? Like, the statistic itself doesn't make sense, but out of context, it presents a logical fallacy, and that is a use of logos. So he was using a statistic out of context in order to get his people to basically hate Jews because they think, you know what, everything that's wrong with my life is overcrowded. I Can't find a job. Um, I don't have enough money. Whatever problem it is that people had and whatever it is they were angry about, they could then blame it on Jewish people. And that's what Hitler wanted to do. And he did that through this statistic, which is a good example of logos. But then, you know, I've been talking about ethos a lot, but ethos is almost always a use of logos as well. When Julius Caesar said that he's descended from gods, what he's basically saying is he's presenting his audience with what's called an enthymeme. So an enthymeme is when you have a logical syllogism. So you have a logical argument, but you have implied premises. So if he says, I'm descended from gods, the implied premise, the implied conclusion is, therefore I am right to lead. You know, because there's an implied premise that people who are divine are better. I am divine. And then the implied conclusion is, therefore I am right to lead. And this is used again and again and again. And if I were to think of like, you know, modern ex, uh, you know, Donald Trump often will talk about how much money he's made. He'll say, oh, I did this in Atlanta, and I made this much money. I made this much money. That's the kind of leadership we need. Now, of course, saying I made this much money works on the premises that successful people make money. I'm successful, therefore I'll be a good president. And that's a logical argument that worked really, really well with lots of voters. But if you were to dissect that logically, you could say, okay, well, maybe one. If we do agree with his premise, and we do agree that he made lots of money in this, that doesn't necessarily mean that he has the skills needed to be an effective president of a superpower, because actually, maybe it's more than just being able to make money, but to a lot of his supporters, the fact that he made a lot of money in Atlanta with this one decision. And I can't remember the exact wording of the speech, but I remember listening to it, thinking to myself, well, this is a logical fallacy, but it's super effective. Super, super effective. And it's also ethos.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: Because they interlink. It's very multilayered and multifaceted.

Speaker A: Yeah, indeed. It's combined. That's true. The logic, the logical fallacy with the ethos combined. Well, that's also very powerful. Um, yeah, you mentioned the logical fallacies and the use of statistics. Right. When someone hears statistics, one tends to believe that it's already true. It's the truth. Right. So that's why it's so easy to manipulate just by bringing some statistics.

Speaker B: Statistics, yeah, they're incredibly manipulative. But also there's, uh, there's a cause, causality argument around statistics that we sometimes have to ignore. For example, I remember, um, when he was, uh, the mayor of London, Boris Johnson. And of course this was a joke, but he said, oh, since I've become mayor of London, the average life expectancy in London has gone up by two years. Now, of course, the age expectancy's got that for many, many reasons. It's not because he was the mayor, but he was happy to use that. Just making a little bit of a joke. But you get lots of people who use the same logical fallacy, not in a humorous way. Um, and a lot of the othering, a lot of the blaming other people, that's also the same cause. Causality, logical fallacy. That's straw man.

Speaker A: Yes. Okay, now we talk about this, um, logical fallacies. You also mentioned, um, without context, right? Because you can hear one statistics. And you might think, okay, is this true? Is it not true? But most people will just react, believe or. Yeah, if they are convinced. So then this person will just believe. Okay, I have statistic, I believe. But the context is they only believe

Speaker B: it if they like the speaker. So there's a very good quote by Francis Bacon, who said, people prefer to believe what they prefer to be true. If there's someone that we like and they give us a statistic that we prefer to believe, we're not going to scrutinize it. If someone we don't like gives us a statistic, then we use our critical thinking and we try and scrutinize it and we try and find out why it's wrong. But the problem is that when you're in an echo chamber with a popular speaker and an audience of people who are supportive and they'll share a statistic, people won't criticize it. And I think that one of the ways that we break out of this dangerous, uh, way of thinking is that we have to criticise everything. If we find ourselves passionately agreeing with someone. Let's take a moment, try and turn the emotions down and ask ourselves, why do we agree with them? What have they actually said? And why am I responding in such a supportive way? And the thing that's really scary is that when we do that, we realize sometimes that we're actually being Taken on the journey of being exploited by rhetoric. Yeah.

Speaker A: Yes, that's correct. Yeah. So you already explained a bit. But, um, what else you can tell us? If we want to like anybody, me or anybody who's listening to this, and anybody who is, um, in general, how can we detect that we are trying to be manipulated? What? But we see some.

Speaker B: I think the first thing is to recognize when you are supporting something a bit too enthusiastically and ask yourself, why am I so supportive of this? Let me take a step back. Let me analyze what was actually said. Or try and always, uh, play. It's called devil's advocate. Try and always think what's the other side of the argument and try and think it through. Don't find yourself just agreeing with something. Because we feel good when we're in a room of people who all agree with us. We like it when people agree. If you're giving a speech and you can see the audience nodding, the speaker feels better about themselves. Like, we like it when people agree with us. But I think we need to start challenging ourselves internally. But what else can we do? I think it's really important to learn rhetoric. Uh, I think there's lots of books about rhetoric. I've got two of them. Uh, I'd be delighted if your listeners went and read them. But learn what rhetoric is. Learn how it works. And one of the things that's fascinating with rhetoric is that when you learn these logical fallacies and these rhetorical techniques and these patterns of repetition that are used to overcome reasoning, you see them everywhere. You see them absolutely everywhere. You will listen to a radio advert, and you'll see them. You'll see a billboard and you'll see them. You'll hear political slogans. You'll listen to speeches, you'll listen to celebrity songs. And then you realize all of this is leading my thinking to this route. And if you're aware that it's happening, it's much easier to apply critical thinking and actually ask yourself, why is this? And how do I stop myself from this? But then there's also the problem of what do you do if you know something is wrong, but then everyone else is following it? And how do you challenge that? And that's another reason that it's good to know the rhetoric, because then you can explain it to other people using these technical terms so you can label the specific techniques that are being used and then explain why they're effective. And often when people realize that the reason they think something is because a very prescriptive art form has been Applied. They're not happy about it because we want to feel like we're independent beings and we have our own independent thought. And then they start criticizing it and using their critical thinking. Does that answer the question?

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Definitely.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Yes. But that's interesting, what you said, that. Try to. I don't know what word to use, but try to think. Okay, what you are believing. Um, this cause or this person. Right. Try to. Yeah.

Speaker B: I think it's really important to know your value system. You know, we've spoken about ethos a lot, but actually an ethos is character. But ethos is really difficult. It's really difficult to know what your values are, but you have to think about it, because we live in a world where there are values, and values are very fundamental things that we have. And then our opinions are informed by our values. But we live in a society where lots of people have opinions without relating them to their fundamental values. So, for example, you'll have people who will hold opinions, but actually, if you look at those opinions and you scrutinize them, you realize that you can't have both of those opinions. Those are conflicting opinions. But that's because they haven't thought about what their value system is. And it's very popular at the moment to pick up opinions without thinking about values. We'll hear our friends say opinions. We'll hear our celebrities, our peers, our teachers, our professors, our children. They'll share opinions, and we think, okay, that sounds popular. I'll take that opinion on. But we take opinions and we parrot the same arguments, we regurgitate the same arguments without understanding how that links to our values. And it's very difficult to know what your values are. And the example I give people is that if you go to the Temple of Apollo in Delphi, this is one of the most sacred sites for the ancient Greeks. At the entrance of the Apollo were the what were carved three of the main Delphic maxims. And the first one is know thyself, so know who you are. That is one of the greatest philosophical conundrums that humanity has ever faced. To know who we are or know who you as an individual are, what are your values? And if that was an easy question to answer, the ancient Greeks would not have carved it into stone on their most sacred. On one of their most sacred sites. It's really hard to know what our values are. And I think that sometimes if we try and reflect within. This is ironic because I'm supposed to be talking about rhetoric, which is this very prescriptive thing. And then it becomes very philosophical and maybe even mind growth or I don't know what. But when we start thinking about what our values are and who we are and who we want to be, we then sometimes realize, you know what? I don't have to take that opinion. I don't have to say this because I've been pressured into saying it. And then we can stand our ground and be truer to ourselves. And what we tend to find is we then communicate in a much more meaningful way. It's no longer, I'll say some opinions, you'll say some opinions. Our opinions don't match. I'm going to cancel you, which is a lot of the conversations we see happening today. It's, uh, a, here are my values. Oh, wow. Here's someone with an opinion. I don't understand. Let me think how that relates to my values. So I think knowing who you are, know thyself is such an important part of communication, but also of being.

Speaker A: Yes, yes. And now if I, um. If one person is, um, not necessarily like, running, um, for president or something. Not necessarily, but someone who, uh, has an opponent, has an opponent in some community and would like to counteract this opponent who is manipulating, is clearly manipulating someone. How the opponent can counteract that.

Speaker B: I think we have to be very careful if we're going to have such a blunt distinction between persuading and manipulating, because all persuasion is manipulation, and all manipulation is persuasion to an extent. But if we can see someone who's blatantly using logical falsehoods, we need to think, how can we address that in a way that's not. Call it out in a way that's good for me, but call it out in a way that's good for the audience whose support I need to win. So the hardest thing is, how can I challenge that in a way that will win over the people who support the opponent, not your supporters? Because your supporters already think it's rubbish. You have to win them. Um, I don't know if this is a good example or not, but I remember there was this, uh, a while ago, I was having a conversation with some communicators about, oh, Donald Trump says that he wants to make Canada the 51st state. Uh, was it, I think, 51st day a year? And they're saying, oh, how do you trial that rhetoric? It's so crazy. How do you combat it? And I say you have to combat it on its own level. Tell the Trump supporters, why should Canada be the 51st state? It should be the 52nd state. The 51st state should obviously be Mexico. Mexico should be first. And then all the Trump supporters will be like, we didn't think about that. Yeah, but maybe we should take Mexico first and then Canada. And then what you're doing is you're basically out trumping Trump. Your supporters will realize that you're basically ridiculing his argument. His supporters will then start criticizing him on his own low level, which is, why does he all of a sudden want to annex Canada? Or why does he want. I don't know. And you tend to find that, that way you can engage with it, because it's so bonkers, this idea of annexed in Canada. It's just on a whole other, um, logical level. And in order to have an agreement, you need to have some sort of logical connection. But if your arguments are so logically disconnected, there's no way you can win over his voters. And I think that something like that is a way where you can ridicule an argument. This is a rhetorical technique called reductio ad absurdum. So reductio ad absurdum is when you take someone else's logic and you apply it to an extreme to expose how silly it really is. So that can be really good when you're working with someone who presents arguments like that. But then also, sometimes, if you can just identify the technique that they're using and call it out by name, the audience become aware that it's being used. Um, but again, it depends entirely on what it is that the opponent is saying and also on who the audience is, because every message has to be tailored specifically to that audience. And if I've got the same message and I've got two wildly different audiences, the way that I approach it will be different. The logical fallacies that I choose to embed into my language, the rhetorical features and patterns of repetition, the words that I use, even the sentence length will change based on the audience that I'm speaking to. And the most valuable thing that any communicator, uh, or speaker can know is their audience, because ultimately, that's the person you need to win over. And sometimes we love talking to our own supporters who will nod and agree with us, but they're not the people we need to win over. Um, I do lots of work for, let's, uh, say, gender equality. Gender equality is something that I feel very passionately about. Um, and it's very easy to stand in a room full of people who support gender equality and talk about how important it is. And it's also very Easy to vilify the misogynist of the world. But actually, that doesn't necessarily, um, bring about the change that we want to see. I know lots of people disagree with me on this, but I think that we need to start a discourse with these young boys who are watching, uh, toxic Andrew Tate videos, and then give them a route in which they can come to our line of thinking. And I think that just vilifying and othering them and calling them names, classifying them as, um, misogynist, even though they are, uh, there's certain settings where that's appropriate, and certain settings when that's not appropriate. And I think we have to be really careful not to find ourselves just shouting into an echo chamber of agreement. And I think that's when you're tackling against a political opponent or someone who has a different ideology. You have to think, how can I break out of my own echo chamber? How can I talk to the kind of people who don't normally listen to what I have to say? And how can I talk to them in their language in a way that will win them over?

Speaker A: Yeah, indeed. I see commonly what you have said, that people somehow talks with their own follower, the one who already convinced and just, um. Yeah, that's not. But I can see just in this few minutes, you told me so many ideas that can be used to counteract someone who is really using rhetoric as the dark arts.

Speaker B: And, of course, before you counteract, the first thing you need to do is you need to solidify your own understanding of rhetoric, Understand what rhetoric is, what rhetorical patterns are, how schemes and tropes are used in language. Um, and that's ultimately why I wrote my first book. My first book was all about taking this mysterious art of rhetoric, which was historically, it was locked in the caves of academia and politics, and the public don't really have much engagement to it. So I wanted to write this to be a popular, accessible nonfiction book that anyone could pick up and understand how rhetoric works. And one of the things that, for me, it's been a true mark of success in that book is that I've had lots of expert rhetoricians read the book. Speechwriters, uh, for world leaders, some of the top CAS in the world, but also school children, have come up to me and say, oh, I read your book, and I found it really interesting. And I used this technique in my English essay, and I got a good score. So for me, that was the ultimate mark of success, the fact that this has become a tool book, which is used by practicing Professionals on the highest level, but also by young school children, some as young as 11, 12 years old. And it's also made it onto some reading lists at universities, which is really exciting for me.

Speaker A: Oh, that's excellent. Excellent for doing this important job. Could you now share with us what is your favorite quotation?

Speaker B: And this is really bad. My favorite quotation changes every time. But we've been talking a lot about ethos, so I'm going to give you a quote that I like and that use a lot that is linked to ethos. And it was actually a quote that was given by, uh, Augustus, who was proconsul, uh, and tribune. And I say that rather than emperor because it's important. He was the proconsul and he was the tribune. Those were two positions in ancient Rome. And he was accused of being too powerful, of being like an emperor. And he said, I have no more power than any one man, merely more authority. And what he's saying is there have been many people in the past who have been pro consul and tribune, and you haven't been scared of those people. You're not scared of me because of my power. You're scared of me because of my authority. And I think that really helps us understand when we're talking about ethos, the relationship between power and authority. We'll all have a certain power. If you're in a company and you're the CEO, you're powerful in the sense that you can make the executive decisions, and you have all the rights and powers of a CEO, but your authority comes from your ethos. So the quote again, I think, was, I have no more power than any one man, merely more authority. And I think that is a really good quote for understanding ethos and how we conduct the interactions with people around us. How is it that you gain authority? How is it that we exert power? What do we do if we have power, but we want to win authority as well? What do we do if we don't have power and we want to gain some authority? How do we give authority to other people? Um, I think these are very important questions that we have to ask when we communicate. And again, it doesn't matter if you're talking with your friends in a pub. It doesn't matter if you're talking with your family or if you're at work. And it doesn't matter if you're senior or if you're junior. These ideas of power and authority underpin everything to do with communications. And that, again, links into this huge concept of ethos. I'VE been talking about ethos a lot because I think that ethos is one of those ones that people simply say, oh, ethos is your credibility, and then they don't think about it any further. And again, if there's one thing I want to challenge the listeners is that ethos and all of these other rhetorical features are so much more complicated than we can possibly comprehend. We'll never fully understand them, but what we can do is develop our understanding of them. And as we do that, we find that we have a better understanding of our place in the world and the communities and the societies that we're in, and then we can engage with them in a much more meaningful way and if needed, a much more persuasive way.

Speaker A: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And for emphasizing ethos in this conversation, it's a great quote never heard before, but it really fits what we are discussing today. Could you now recommend us one book that has been particularly inspiring, influential for you?

Speaker B: One book? Oh, uh, well, obviously my books. Uh, one book that I like. So actually, I think I really like Sam, um, Leith's book. You talking to me? I thought that was a really good book, a really good breakdown of rhetorical features. Um, but then I think it's also sometimes really good to go back to the classics to read a bit of Aristotle, to read a bit of Cicero, um, uh, to look at some of the original text, because ultimately, a lot of these features, ethos, logos, argumentum ad hominem compurbatio, these are all things that we've spoken about today. These are all terms that have existed throughout all of human language. But actually, it was Cicero, Aristotle, and a little bit Quintilian who gave them the labels that we use today. And I think it's sometimes nice to go back and also if you look at a speech in a classical context in ancient history. And again, so this is the history nerd in me coming out, that if you look at speeches in their classical historical context, it gives you such a good mirror for reflection onto modern society, because everything is different, so we can't relate to the context. You know, when Quintilian tells us how low our toga should hang, when we're waving our arms to gesticulate, that's not relevant to us in the modern world. So what we do is instead of focusing on the wrong things, we focus purely on the rhetorical elements. Um, and I think it's always good to go back to basics. Always good to go back to the original source of things. And again, rhetoric does not originate in ancient Roman, ancient Greeks. It predates that. We have lots of rhetoric in Hebrew texts way before, um, but they were the ones who gave us the meta language and the terms that we use today. So for that purpose, I think it's valuable. Uh, and why are these rhetorical features so effective today? Maybe there's something ingrained in the human psychology, or perhaps they're just so ingrained in language. But if it is to do, if it is a cultural thing rather than the biological thing, my question is, how is it possible that you find them across all cultures? How is it possible? The queen in Madagascar in the 1800s, an emperor in China in the 1100s, uh, the ancients in Europe, modern day, anywhere, like we're all doing the same thing. So that to me suggests that there's something core about human psychology and the human condition. But then that's also supported especially in the Western world with this classical culture that has built up our style of communication. So we respond really well. And obviously some rhetorical features are universal. Some of them don't translate as well. Apologies, for example, uh, in many parts of the world, an apology is seen as a sign of strength. In other parts of the world, it's seen as a sign of weakness. M. If you apologize, you are weak. That is it. And there are certain communities where if you say that you're sorry for something that you did, it is not acceptable. Whereas, um, in Western communities, uh, and again, even within the Western world, it varies. If you say that you're sorry for something and you acknowledge responsibility, it's normally seen as a sign of a strong leader. So that's an example of how the rhetoric of apology changes and doesn't add up in different parts of the world. And equally ethos doesn't necessarily the same. So for example, in the Western world, um, I come from the uk, England. We like it when our politicians say to us, I'm just like you. I went to a school like yours. I worked really hard. Um, I understand your struggles and I'm going to represent you. People like that in other parts of the world, people do not like that. They want a leader who will stand up and say, I'm better than you. I come from a better family than you. My parents paid for me to go to a better school than you. And that's why I should lead. And the public will be, oh, thank goodness, someone who's better than us because they can't fathom the idea of someone like themselves leading because it's not an egalitarian society. So even the concept of ethos changes based on where you're writing. And, you know, I've written all over the world, um, in parts of Asia, in the United States, all over Europe. Um, and the way that I write has to change for every speaker. Ah, in the context in which they're speaking. If they're speaking within democratic structure, it's different to if they're speaking within a corporate structure. If it's an academic setting, it's going to be different than if it's in the general public, political setting, for example.

Speaker A: Exactly. Finally, could you now share with us on exercise something practical that you would recommend us to do it regularly? A routine to shine.

Speaker B: A routine to shine. Um, we've been talking a lot about ethos, knowing ourselves and public speaking. I'd say give speeches. Give plenty of speeches. Try. And whether that's at work, if there's an opportunity to, even if it's to do a welcome talk, uh, if someone's visiting your industry or whether it's just going to a public speaking group like Toastmasters, or practice your public speaking, ask yourself what worked. Ask yourself what didn't. Reflect on why it worked, reflect on why it didn't, and then try it again and try and tweak the variables until you really understand how communication works. Because if we can do it ourselves, we can understand how the people around us do it. And then I think that's the first step that society can take towards restarting healthy debate and discourse, which, as I mentioned, I think is slowly dying away.

Speaker A: Oh, yes, unfortunately. But excellent. Thank you for that. Thank you for all this very insightful conversation we had.

Speaker B: Thank you for having me.

Speaker A: My pleasure. And let us know how people can find you on the net. Get in touch with you. What are the best ways for that?

Speaker B: Yes, you can find me on LinkedIn guideozer. I also have a website called, uh, cambridgespeechwriter.com but if you just type Guy Dozer into Google, I think there's only one of me, so I should come up and, uh, yeah, if you've listened, you're interested, uh, feel free to reach out on LinkedIn. Um, and I'd love to hear from your listeners.

Speaker A: Fantastic. Again, thanks a lot, guys, for this conversation and all the best.

Speaker B: Thank you. It's been a pleasure.

Speaker A: Thank you for joining us today. If you enjoyed this show, do me a favor, go to Apple Podcast or your favorite app and leave us a rate and review. This helps me so more people will find the show. And, and if you work in the tech industry, please Visit my website, rockthetechstage.com until next time.