Quote: "The speaker's role very often may best be described as Paternalistic, in the the rhetor adopts a let me help you, let me enlighten you type, let me show you the way approach." (Gearheart)
Question: How can this idea of breaking away from rhetoric as persuasion become problematic? What if the rhetor has factual knowledge which they feel the need to make people aware of who otherwise would be completely ignorant towards the issue?
I'm not sure rhetoric or persuasion could ever exist without one another. If you take this "paternal/teacher" role, are you not also attempting to persuade your student? One could argue that persuasion and teaching are separate entities but with teaching comes opinions and tendencies no matter how hard the instructor tries to stay neutral. In this way, separating persuasion would be great morally but is rather unrealistic.
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