As an aside, to explain Nietzsche and Marx, I will say, being one of them, that this is something that people with wildly unpopular ideas tend to figure out. So as neither to offer too much of an apology for either of them or myself, I will say that it's kind of like the dark arts of rhetoric.

As it concerns Aristotle, he effectively conceptualized a hierarchy of Logos, Ethos, and Pathos, which is how that equilateral triangle diagram is unfathomable to me. As it concerns politics, he also happens to have been completely incorrect. You would think that any old argument could fall apart in so far that it isn't logical as a reasonable person, but have quite obviously made the mistake of assuming that people are, by nature, rational.

I kind of just reject human nature in general, but, for all intensive purposes, would say that people tend to be capricious or tempestuous. Though I've always felt for this to be wildly unfair, I have just discovered why Romanticism has come to be blamed for the tragic climax of Modernity. You learn something new everyday, I guess.

Anyways, that's all of the musings that I have for now.

Oh, there's also the Rogerian theory of argumentation, which also happens to be completely mistaken. To use the sports metaphor, the general idea of beginning with the anticipated objection to your argument, is in accordance with that "the best offense is a good defense", but, when it comes to rhetorical strategy, the best offence is overkill and the only requisite defense is to somehow associate yourself with a veritable ethic, which can almost always be done with an aside or in passing.

As with all of this, though, I'm just talking about what is effective outside of what ought to be. If you have a contentious point of view, you really ought to be able to walk someone through your general reasoning after letting them know that you have taken their perspective into consideration. That rarely works, though. The quickest way to your point tends to be to repeatedly insult them, lay claim to the moral high ground in as chauvinist manner as humanly possible, provide the semblance of depth to what you have to say, and proceed to mercilessly deal the final blows in the beaten way of a rather cruel wit. To my estimation, the aristocracy has always been all too well aware of this.

Things really ought to be otherwise, though. It's all just however it is, though, y'know? I don't know. Someday, things will be different, I guess.

A brief summary:

As, in the case proselytization, the reigning rhetorical strategy seems to be to make as many incendiary statements in as quick of a succession as you can, briefly inextricably tie your weltanschauung to the immanentization of the eschaton, make an excessive enough display of intellectual superiority for it to be paradoxically be banished to near obscurity, and, then, proceed to ascend to the empyrean via a rather high flown exercise in linguistic aesthetics, which, again, does happen to remind me of the aristocracy, how to actually win an argument, to borrow a martial term, seems to be "shock and awe" in the case of a general audience and shock, awe, and further shock in the case of making a public spectacle out of your opponents, which does point to a certain poverty within the general discourse. As I suspect for such realpolitik to have been responsible for the former institution of dueling, it's not as if it doesn't face the certain perils of relative absurdity, but does quite clearly present a challenge to the established theories of argumentation, at least, as it concerns their efficacy, aside from that I think it ought to make us somewhat skeptical of the assumption that human beings are, by nature, rational.

"Oscric: I mean, sir, for his weapon. But in the imputation laid on him by them, in his meed he’s unfellowed.

Hamlet: What’s his weapon?

Osric: Rapier and dagger.

Hamlet: That’s two of his weapons. But well." - William Shakespeare

Anyways, that's all that I wanted to say about any of this. Like I said, maybe things will someday be somehow otherwise? Who knows?

Probably best to dismiss the "Aristotle" of the introductory writing course as sales puffery without substance, an adjective of borrowed but inapplicable meanings.

Aristotle distinguished Rhetoric from logic/dialectic. Rhetoric about argumentation on matters that can either be or not be. Whether better to build ships or a wall, or better to attack at dawn, or not. None of these apodictic, susceptible of proof or demonstration, but rather contingent, subject to best available argument, and on this kind of argument Aristotle had a lot to say, and it doesn't fit any triangle.

And it means that truth is not really part of the equation, because there is no truth, no geometric verity.

It would appear you have not been exposed to good argumentation, but much more likely you haven't recognized it or appreciated it when you have. And there is much sophistry - in the worst sense - taking up available space. To be sure, lies are quick and it's slow to expose them. That being one reason for the liar to be exposed as such, so that his or her lies immediately understood as such. Every time almost any Republican speaks, the reflex should be, "Liar!" And that reinforced until the likes of Ted Cruz, et al, are silenced by their own reputations.

An example of a good and sound speaker? Obama. Where else do you want to go with this?

I appreciate your expansion of Aristotle's theories of rhetoric and agree that Obama was well-spoken, which I did find to be rather refreshing.

I'm basing this mostly off of what I've seen in the general discourse, either in popular debates or online. If you either do or do not have an opponent, the "winning" strategy seems to be to open with an all out attack and follow it with an allusion between yourself and something like a holy figure. If you don't have an opponent, the best conclusion seems to be an exercise in style, and, if you do, it seems to be to just make your continued attack more pointed.

I only surmise that this was perfected among aristocrats, but find for it to hold within the far-Left. Among sets of society not terribly inclined towards sectarianism, I think you would find that people do value good argumentation, but that so much of society is fairly sectarian leads me to suspect that good argumentation isn't generally effective. What I posit is that this is due to that human beings are not, by nature, rational.

A note: The purpose of the exercise in style is to cultivate a public image. As before, I'm not saying that any of this is good; it's just what I've pessimistically noted happens to be effective.

A rather strange anecdote: When I used to suffer the auditory hallucination of my supposed detractors within the intelligence community more or less either insulting me or whomever it was that I was ostensibly associated with, they used to refer to this with the backhanded insult of the "smack talking".

"These little things creep out to patch/ themselves hovels/ there in the marred shadow of your gift", y'know what I mean?

A psychological theory:

I generally understand and use the term "pathology" to refer to something that becomes as if it were true because it is believed to be so. Thomas Pynchon famously formulized this with, "paranoids are not paranoid because they're paranoid, but because they keep putting themselves, fucking idiots, deliberately into paranoid situations", which I can attest to, as, operating under the assumption that the intelligence community had been attempting to "incite a global clandestine civil so as to be given the legal and extra-juridical rationalizations and justifications for the establishment of a global crypto-Fascist totalitarian regime that bore only the semblance of liberal democracy", in the general course of my political life, I have produced a situation to where it is fairly likely that I am actually being monitored by some form of security service or another, if not multiple ones.

Anyways, I've also noticed that the general conduct of the far-Left does happen to be exceptionally elitist, which is how they don't really act in a manner that differs too much from the ruling class that they claim to despise, if not somehow worse. Freidrich Nietzche has that famous quote, "Whoever battles monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster himself. And when you look long into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you." In thinking about the far-Left, I wonder if this can't be likened to something like "self-fulfilling antipathy". I don't happen to ascribe to the simplified variant of horseshoe theory, but have kind of noticed that, when people rail against something or another too directly for an extensive period of time, they do kind of become like it.

Take "lifestyle anarchism" for example. Originally, it was kind of an anarchistic countercultural movement in opposition to what they perceived as the selfish, materialistic, and vain culture of their time. Their original attitudes may have been somewhat suspect, as those attributes are often ascribed to women, but that isn't terribly relevant to the point I am making. Contemporary Punk culture does tend to be populated by egotistic libertines, less than scrupulous when it comes to generating a profit, and entirely fixated upon aesthetic trends. They do all of these things under the spurious guise of satire that don't seem to make them markedly distinct from the cultural hegemony in the 1970s, and, in some ways, granted the excuse of Dada-inspired parody, are almost significantly less amicable.

Anytime I try to explain this, I feel like some guy in Seattle who is still lamenting the glory days of Starbucks, but I do really think that it is this sort of thing that does happen often enough to be indicative of some basic facet of the human psyche, particularly as it concerns our means to cope with conflict.

No one ever seems to know what I'm talking about when I try to explain this, but that the Situationist International effectively became a living caricature of a spy ring, I think, at least, ought to explain it very well. By identifying the Spectacle as the entire political foray, they, at least, identified the problem, though.

Seeing that I think that the problem with politics is that everyone is just in some form of cult or another, it's not like I'm entirely lacking in the beaten way of irony, but I will say that I do, at least, try.

That's all that I suppose that I'll add to this. If you haven't noticed, I've taken to just adding editing my postscripts to the comments so as not to just move my threads to the top of The Philosophy Forum. It's a bit absurd for me to just keep talking to myself, but, as it is a clear courtesy, it doesn't seem like there's good reason to hold it against me. It's not like you have to read the whole comment or anything.

A final point of clarification:

I do get that the Situationist International was an art troupe that was run like an intelligence operation began in subversive jest. What I can never seem to get across about them, though, is that they became somehow otherwise. If you decide to actually learn about them, and, as I do consider for them to have been a great art troupe and to have greatly contributed to critical theory or whatever, as you read some of their exchanges, consider Guy Debord's habit of expelling people from the organization, and are willing to consider them with the minimal requisite skepticism for genuine critical thought, you will find that I do happen to be correct.