The face in dialogue, part II: Invitational rhetoric, direct moral suasion, and the asymmetry of dialogue

Abstract

In recent years, several scholars have criticized the rhetorical tradition and its focus upon persuasion, whereas others have defended traditional persuasion as an ethically viable mode of communicative practice. This essay seeks a dialectical synthesis of these views through a preliminary synthesis of the philosophies of Buber and Levinas. An examination of Levinas's critique of Buber on the question of whether the interhuman relationship is marked by reciprocity or asymmetry will yield a hybrid notion of dialogue, which is both reciprocal and asymmetric and which claims that neither “invitational rhetoric” nor “direct moral suasion” alone can adequately fulfill the mandate of ethics. This essay then clarifies this notion of asymmetric dialogue through an extension of the previous installment of this project (see Murray, 2003). Specifically, it demonstrates how the rhetorics of disruption and supplication parallel invitational rhetoric and direct moral suasion and illustrates how those rhetorics function symbiotically within an overarching, asymmetric dialogue.