The Dao of Rhetoric

4. Sunzi and the Rhetoric of Parsimony

CHAPTER 4 Sunzi and the Rhetoric of Parsimony A common thread in the rhetorics of Laozi and Zhuangzi is the notion that communication should not be designed to impose one’s ideas on others but to induce the audience to engage key ideas in novel ways that promote self-persuasion. Furthermore, these approaches recommend that conflict be kept to a minimum because it can be unproductive and moves interactants into pointless disputes for the sake of being deemed correct rather than moving toward the unified Dao. They challenge deeply held values and beliefs in the West and offer intriguing ways to rethink basic communication principles and practices. The rhetorics of Laozi and Zhuangzi, while valuable, may not offer comprehensive perspectives on rhetoric because their approaches are suited for dialogic encounters where rhetorical interactants are amicable, open minded, and willing to interact solely for the purpose of enlightenment . They place a great deal of value on harmonious, indirect methods of self-persuasion. These qualities and assumptions are not always present in many typical rhetorical interactions. In fact, the focus for a great deal of rhetoric in Western culture is persuasive communication designed to explicitly address a conflict between the beliefs, attitudes, and/or behaviors of the interactants in order to demonstrate the superiority of one view over another. Foss and Griffin (1995) note, “as far back as the Western discipline of rhetoric has been explored, rhetoric has been defined as the conscious intent to change others” (p. 2). While the utility of Laozi and Zhuangzi is not readily apparent in those far too common situations where overt conflict is unavoidable, Sunzi, in the monumental work attributed to him, Art of War, 1 offers an accessible and rich account of strategy from which one may reasonably 53 infer a comprehensive and insightful treatment of persuasive communication . This analysis will demonstrate that the underlying strategic principle in Art of War is parsimony: the use of extreme economy in the expenditure of resources. The principle of parsimony, as explicated in Art of War, can add to our understanding of Daoist rhetoric and inform contemporary rhetorical theory and practice. Sunzi’s Art of War is considered to be a masterpiece of military strategy . Its ideas are considered unsurpassed “in comprehensiveness and depth of understanding. They might well be termed the concentrated essence of wisdom on the conduct of war” (Hart, 1963, p. v). Sawyer (1994) notes, “in every sphere, Sun-tzu’s Art of War predominates, eclipsing all the other military strategy books combined” (p. 16). Ames (1993) agrees, calling the book “the world’s foremost classic on military strategy” (p. 35). Griffith (1963) notes that the text “has had a profound influence throughout Chinese history and on Japanese military thought; it is the source of Mao Tse-tung’s strategic theories and of the tactical doctrine of the Chinese armies” (p. xi). Art of War is also applicable to Western views of rhetoric for two reasons . First, its subject matter, warfare, is analogous to contentious persuasion —“the battle for hearts and minds.” While rhetoric is less extreme than war, both subjects presuppose conflict. Second, Art of War is, essentially , a philosophical manual on strategy. Huang (1993) declares it “the most brilliant and widely applied strategic book ever written” (p. 15), lauding “its sweeping grasp of strategy’s comprehensive truths” and the “inspiring prose” that “sophisticatedly forges these versatile principles into an uncomplicated but perfectly tangible system” (p. 20). Ames (1993) notes, “almost every one of the early Chinese philosophers took warfare to be an area of sustained philosophical reflection.” Chinese military texts, therefore, are considered to be “applied philosophy ” (p. 7). Rhetoric in ancient China, on the other hand, was not studied as a separate discipline but “as a part of political and moral philosophy” (Kennedy, 1998, p. 166). It was common for ideas about rhetoric to be “embedded in texts which do not treat rhetoric as an explicit topic of discussion .” In fact, “ancient Chinese rhetorical theories, with the exception of those expounded by the Later Mohists, are embedded in works of ethics, epistemology, and statecraft” (Lu, 1998, pp. 2–3). War and rhetoric can both be seen, from the classical Chinese view, as applications of philosophy . The political context helps account for the fact that warfare received explicit treatment, while rhetoric did not. Nonetheless, principles of military strategy can be used as a source of metaphors for rhetoric because warfare and rhetoric are both philosophically based arts. 54
THE DAO OF RHETORIC...