Pretty ambiguous, this question, isn't it? I almost joined in the praises of rhetoric without thinking about this question from a forum participant on LinkedIn – out of the very first reflex. But then a second voice spoke up in me.
As much as the rhetorical means of expression such as our language , the voice and body language always do good and help the better to break through, the same tools also help in some places to exacerbate conflicts, incite people against each other and cause unspeakable atrocities.
It is probably like with many life topics: Ultimately, the Rhetoric the state of mind, the image of man. Education of the heart is thus perhaps the supreme discipline of rhetorical training.
A very interesting question – among other things, because there is no universally valid definition of rhetoric. You could say that rhetoric is a certain type of linguistic expression, perhaps one can even go further and speak of conscious use, but what about unconscious manipulation? Shouldn't we then also ask: What would the world be without language?
Yes, you can do a lot of harm with language, but with the stones we use to build houses you can also kill a person and even art has been used to harm people. So if we reject everything that could also be used against man, our life would be very miserable.
But back to rhetoric: For the sophists, rhetoric was a science of probability. With the means of rhetoric, it is possible to find out what is probably right. Plato sharply criticized this probability, because one should not orient oneself to the probable, but to the truth, but we are able to recognize the truth. Again and again, religious groups say that they know what is true and what is not and demand strict submission to their truth – is that what we want? Rhetoric enables plurality. Several opinions about our world can coexist, sometimes one is sometimes more convincing and thus more likely. For one this is true, for the other this is true. Don't we want respect for diversity of opinion? This also goes hand in hand with the willingness to question one's own worldview, to see it as one of many.
I find this basic attitude much more appealing than the attempt to orient oneself to "one truth".
And the negative effects? Some people use rhetorical devices to, as you say, incite people against each other. We are manipulated and the rhetoric helps those who manipulate us. That is my justification for rhetorical education. If we know the techniques and applications of rhetoric, we can face rhetorical manipulations at eye level. We can recognize and question the weak points, find counterarguments and thus come to a discussion instead of being ripped off.
There are people who have a talent for big speeches. They often use bogus arguments that seem convincing but are not plausible. Do we want to leave the field to these people?
Not me! I want to recognize and test the arguments, I want discussions instead of dogmas and for that I need rhetoric.
"Loudspeakers amplify the voice, but not the arguments."
Hans Kasper