To communicate then is to persuade others to accept one s beliefs. See W. K. C. Guthrie and G. B. Kerferd . Individuals may avoid them or the powers that be may seek to limit them. But to the extent that change may be inevitable in the world of human affairs, travel and education may have to be tolerated or even encouraged to ensure that at least a minority in the culture is temperamentally equipped to deal with cultural difference or change. Rhetoricians, however, despairing of truth s availability yet acknowledging the necessity of getting on with public business, turn reluctantly to persuasion and belief.
Some rhetoricians ignore the risks inherent in their teaching.
Gleefully turning critical thought to intellectual arrogance, they urge a careless rejection of merely human institutions, refusing to acknowledge the alternative as anarchy. Others recognize the risks. Gravely shouldering responsibility for what they teach, they exhibit a careful respect for such unstable but still admirable constructions, insisting on the ethical character of all human endeavor. Among the latter was Isocrates who first articulated the citizen-orator model informing the education of leaders in the classical world. What began with Isocrates and continued with Cicero was revived in the Renaissance and eventually adopted as the heart of education.