Is Rhetoric Dead? A Rhetorical Question

Is rhetoric dead? Early reports indicate that the ancient art of persuading people with language rather than simply shouting at them until somebody leaves died last week after a lengthy illness. It was approximately 2,400 years old.

The official cause of death was listed as complications from social media disease, chronic political exposure, and the public’s inability to distinguish a trope from a meme.

“Rhetoric had been declining for years,” said Dr. Martin Kessler, 58, a communications professor who still owns a laser pointer. “Toward the end, it could barely get through a complete sentence without somebody demanding a link.”

According to family members Ethos, Pathos, and Logos, Rhetoric’s condition deteriorated sharply with the rise of online debate, where persuasion gradually gave way to posting screenshots of headlines, questioning strangers’ intelligence, and announcing “This” beneath something somebody else wrote.

Nuance, an unemployed mediator who owns seven pairs of reading glasses, attempted to visit Rhetoric but was denied entry after hospital security could not determine whose side she was on. Irony did visit, although several people  mistook him for coincidence.

Rhetoric will be buried in a private ceremony. Among the expected speakers are Antithesis, Hypophora, Litotes, and Tricolon.

Tricolon has already released the title of his eulogy: “We came. We spoke. Nobody listened.”

Read more life-changing dispatches from a culture officially in decline by clicking here.