ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the circumstance behind rhetoric as an area of conceptualization, highlighting the implications of the oral tradition in the development of rhetoric, and exploring the major institutions of Greek culture. It explores the lessons garnered from the Greek experience to the contemporary political environment of the United States. The chapter illustrates the centrality of rhetoric in Greek life. In Classical Athens, rhetoric can be understood as a system of communication that has the power to alter and shape an audience’s way of thinking or acting. During the classical period of rhetoric, which corresponds to the so—called “Golden Age” of Greece, Athens became the standard against which Greek culture was measured. Artistic expression serves as a form of “rhetoric,” a strategic extension of the human desire to find or create order and meaning in human existence. Rhetoric, which involves the free exchange of ideas, thrives in the threshold of a “free” society.
