Blog 5

I thought that part of Ch. 6 in ARCS was really interesting when they mentioned that now we tend to think that character/personality is stable and can't be constructed but that Greeks thought character was established by moral practices that they engaged in frequently.  This helped explain ethos to me because I had always thought it was the weakest of the big three rhetorical qualities.  Part of this could be because we are part of a written society, and it's harder to judge a writer.  Obviously there are ways through citation, voice and general writing style (such as avoiding spelling and grammar mistakes), but ethos becomes much more important when it comes to spoken rhetoric.  There are certain professions in the United States which are supposed to establish ethos such as teachers, athletes, doctors and politicians.  I think this is why people in those professions are treated much more seriously when we feel they're breached whatever unwritten moral code we follow.  Ethos is also a very difficult aspect to really understand because everyone has slightly different moral values.  Even many Christians don't follow the morals in the bible exactly, so ethos is the most flexible between ethos, logos and pathos.  Logos deals with facts that are hard to dispute, and some people are skilled at pathos and for whatever reason are very convincing.  Ethos on the other hand is up to more individual scrutiny.