He organizes the New York hospital systems with labels like “Surge and Flex.” Pleading with other states and the federal government to step up and help, he offers to drive trucks across the country to return loaned equipment. He labels social distancing “Matilda’s Rule,” after his mother (the state’s former First Lady) and talks to his younger brother Chris by video as he fights COVID-19. Governor Cuomo shows New Yorkers that he understands them and believes in them. One poll shows that 87% of New Yorkers trust him in this crisis. He has the seal of New York behind him, but what gives him credibility in these times are the explanations of his actions and the responsibility he takes for them, building trust with New Yorkers and beyond. We know that the position of governor alone cannot convey ethos. Linda Peek Schacht Tuesday, January 10, 2017 Unlike Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men, Cuomo believes the American people can handle the truth. He begins with logos-with the sobering facts, sugarcoating nothing. His father Mario, who famously compared campaigning to poetry and governing to prose, would be proud at this son’s combination of the two.Ĭuomo’s daily briefings are a case study in transparency and truth to build trust.
Andrew Cuomo has captured the American imagination by following Aristotle. He does not have the White House Seal but his daily briefings are watched by millions of Americans. But Aristotle may be making a comeback, thanks to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and some courageous reporters and experts in the White House briefings. Ellul’s title, too, sounds eerily familiar: Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes. McLuhan was famous for “the medium is the message,” the theory that technology trumps content. The difference between Aristotle and McLuhan/Ellul is playing out daily on national television. We are close to being in that world today, made particularly dangerous in the time of COVID-19.
In the mid-20 th century two philosophers, Jacques Ellul in France and Marshall McLuhan in Canada, predicted that we would someday live not in a world with propaganda but in a world that was itself propaganda-made up of only misinformation, disinformation, and lies, a world where technology amplified the ability for power to create truth. And ethos builds trust through the credibility of the speaker.īut Aristotle could not consider technology and its impact on the ability of leaders to elevate pathos above logos. Pathos touches the heart with language, stories and symbols.
Logos reaches the mind with fact and reason. Students of rhetoric learn the basics of successful persuasion from Aristotle.
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