Channels, Fall 2016

Towne • Æsop’s Trumpeter, Aristotle’s Orator, and the Technical Communicator Page 96 communicator selects rhetoric—and so the audience should consider both the trumpeter and communicator culpable for their work. Therefore, technical communicators must revive Aristotle’s concept of ethical communication as they intentionally employ rhetoric to persuade their audiences. As they accept their authorship, they must also remember the ethical responsibility they have to assist audience members as they publicly deliberate, despite the distance of their feedback loop. When they learn to persuade their audiences well, they will perpetuate social action. Therefore, they should strive to empower others with their rhetoric—even in the political realm. Perhaps if communicators come to understand that they are powerful assets in their discourses, they will encourage and guide others with their rhetoric. Perhaps they will enter into new discourses and perpetuate just social action. Perhaps they will learn, “Et similia persuadens illa potestas audientis” —the power belongs alike to the hearer and the persuader.