Always With These Late Nights

Always with these late nights. I never get any sleep.


So topic of the evening (or morning, it is 2 am): Ethos

Ethos is essentially defined as character. A person's character is their essence, that which governs their actions, and subsequently, their lives and the lives of those around them. It's what makes a person make the decisions that they do, their moral compass and code of conduct. Morality shapes a person's life; without it, daily activity has no direction and is meaningless.

So why discuss Ethos? I'm sure you weren't wondering that question. I'm sure you were wondering, wes, why are you discussing anything, we don't want to read this! Well if you don't want to read, then go away. :)

So why discuss Ethos? Because as a speaker, scholar, philosopher, writer, and person, Ethos is the most important. Sadly, it is often the most overlooked; however, Ethos is what defines just about everything.

I'm speaking (writing) now of the Ethos of the Greek Philosophers, that stands in contrast to Logos and Pathos, the minds of Logic and Emotion. Ethos stands as the mind of credibility. What is interesting is that Ethos seems to not fit with the other two. However, judgments made on a person's Ethos are done almost immediately and without thought. To display poor Ethos is to alienate your audience from yourself and risk no longer being able to appeal to them. This is regarded as failure in public speaking, writing, and teaching.

So the goal of Ethos is to preserve one's credibility; to make one appear knowledgeable. Man (and Woman), being mortal, cannot perceive what the senses to not react to, and therefore, is incapable of adequately casting judgment upon any person. However, judgment is required for day to day survival, so some sort of judging in necessary. A person must judge others based on what they can perceive.

To preserve one's credibility, one must appear knowledgeable and trustworthy to peers. If the goal is to seem intellectual, then a large vocabulary is in order. If the goal is to seem down to earth, then a casual sentence structure and easy to comprehend speaking style is necessary. If the goal is to appear as a total jerk, profanity and race/sexism are effective. No matter the goal, however, the perception can be left up to the person.


So, at what point does preservation of appearances become unhealthy?

Because it definitely does.

I love to appear as "scholarly." However, especially in the beginning of classes, I will let this get in the way of being social, or even being generally kind. I am too busy looking smart and dignified to associate with the rest of the class. I hate this, but in order to appear scholarly and intelligent, I often feel the pressure to abstain from social interaction.

I feel like Ethos is the art of self-labeling. By preserving Ethos, we can make ourselves unapproachable or socially kind; lofty or idiotic. Whatever suits our purposes. I see why Plato would find Ethos the most important - nobody but a fool listens to someone who they don't believe. So we create our boxes for other people to see, and live in them. So long as we stay in the box, we are believable. And we create our own labels often, and then are trapped by them again. Irony (Fe).