Saving Persuasion: A Defense of Rhetoric and Judgment by Bryan Garsten

Harvard University Press, 290pp, £14.95:

When a leader makes a political judgment, for instance whether or not to go to war in Iraq, he or she is not always going to make the right decision. And the cost of each decision can be extremely high. In this book, Bryan Garsten claims that our fear of the uncertainties inherent in political judgment has led us to minimise the degree to which politicians can exercise their decision-making powers. Instead, we prefer to live in a society governed by rigid and often extremely damaging rules, which have their own high costs.

Crucially, and connected to this fear of judgment and its risks, we have an overriding suspicion of rhetoric. We have come to associate this fundamental political tool either with manipulation, a device used by silver-tongued politicians to trick us, or with pandering, whereby sycophantic politicians try to gain the favour of the electorate in order to increase their own influence.

However, in Garsten's view genuine rhetoric is neither of these. Instead, it is that which actually persuades rather than coerces or charms us. When a leader uses genuine rhetoric, we are asked to engage with and confront unfamiliar political issues.

Garsten makes a clear and intelligent argument for the re-embracing of rhetoric. He champions it as a means of getting democratic countries out of the apathetic rut that they find themselves in - unless he's just using clever language to deceive us, that is.
Frances Weaver