A Networked Rhetorical Theory of Parrhesia: Putting It All Together

Parrhesia can be identified and understood as occurring within particular rhetorical situations and utilizing specific types of rhetorical appeals characteristic of parrhesiastic action. Identifying the exigence, audience, and constraints present when parrhesia arises, then discerning how kairos, ethos, pathos, and identification interact alongside a range of audience responses, can serve as an analytic tool for understanding parrhesiastic moments. Additionally, parrhesia typically entails blunt or disruptive delivery and is often aided by circulation, distribution, and collaboration, which leads to its networked effects over time. A rhetorical networked theory of parrhesia is important because of its relationship to the truth claims at the center of parrhesiastic action and its ability to disrupt social domains in ways that shake up the status quo, allowing for change. Analyzing parrhesia from both a “zoomed in” analysis of the parrhesiastic moment itself and a “zoomed out” perspective that takes the networked effects of that moment into account facilitates understanding a more complete picture of how disruptive resistance can reshape power over time.