Logos, Pathos, Ethos: Synergy of Reason and Passion as a Catalyst for Insurgent Mobilization and Breakout

The birth of revolution is a dangerous and dynamic endeavor.  More interestingly though is how insurgent movements attempt to persuade average citizens to risk their lives in such an endeavor against a state power, attempting to grow in numbers and strength until such point the insurgency is a potent threat against the state.   However, insurgent movements face a dilemma achieving this goal.  While many average citizens may agree rationally with the insurgency because of their frustration with the state, many times the benefits of joining the insurgent cause are not worth the possible loss of their own lives.[1]  Because of this cost-benefit analysis dilemma, effective insurgencies will generate appeals to the populace and actions that are not only rationally based, but equally, if not more, emotionally based to overcome this problem.[2]  Using the framework of the concepts of logos, pathos, and ethos[3] with examples from current events, history, and modern marketing practices, effective insurgencies methodically synergize and calculate the use of reason, passion/emotion, and credibility to influence, persuade, and manipulate the populace to actively join and/or support their cause.  Continuing along this line, it is possible to create a qualitative, abstract mathematical model showing that to the degree an insurgency is effective at synergizing logos, pathos, and ethos in its messages and actions on the populace, the state, and its own members, it can have a catalytic effect on insurgent mobilization and eventual breakout against the state.

While most insurgencies fail, the successful ones are able to mobilize people in overcoming their natural, logical fears of opposing a sitting regime through the effective manipulation of perceptions.  The use of propaganda and persuasion (which includes the use of words and actions to instigate behavioral change) is quintessential to this effort.  Effective propaganda and persuasion utilizes rational, emotional, and credible appeals.[4]  For the purpose of this paper, a simple framework to use in conveying this concept is Aristotle’s concept of Logos (appeals using reason/logic), Pathos (appeals using emotion), and Ethos (appeals using the credibility of the speaker).  The ability to manipulate and persuade is a function of the effective and synergistic use of all three.[5]  The intent of this paper is not to analyze Aristotle’s concept of rhetoric, but use it as a framework to convey that the calculating and effective use of logos, pathos, and ethos together in words and actions by an insurgency can have tremendous positive effects on insurgent growth and power.

In order for individuals or groups to join or support an insurgency, they should know what the insurgency stands for.  The use of reason, or logos, is highly suitable for this explanation.  In its purest form, logos is the use of information (objective and/or subjective) and reason without emotion to convey an argument.  Insurgencies use many different techniques in conveying its ideology to the populace using reason and logic.  For example, the Taliban incorporate things such as “night letters” posted in villages and hold shura councils with village leaders to convey information or threats.  In addition, the Taliban use audio cassettes and the internet websites stating their intent and espousing their goals.[6]  Similarly, Mao Tse-Tung used propaganda teams to generate weekly wall newspapers for placement in the villages called the “Current Affairs Bulletin,” which consisted of educational material and information about the status of the struggle and the Red Army.[7]  Better known is Mao’s use of formal, systematic education and indoctrination programs that encompassed locals as well as newly recruited insurgents used to teach them the goals of the revolution and drive the populace toward that end state.[8]

However, reason alone may not be enough to persuade an individual that the benefits of joining an insurgency outweigh the potential overwhelming costs.  The use of pathos, or emotional appeal, helps overcome this hurdle.  Civilian marketing and advertising agencies use pathos everyday to persuade individuals and groups to purchase items they logically know they do not need, generating billions of dollars in profits for the companies these agencies represent.  Marc Gobé explains it is important to “understand the formidable and undefined emotional power that ultimately sways everybody’s decision making.”[9]  Relating to insurgency, Chalmers Johnson, is his book Revolutionary Change, states a revolutionary ideology “will supply intellectually and emotionally satisfying explanations of what is wrong with the old order.”[10] In a related manner, Ted Gurr in his book Why Men Rebel relates that an insurgency must generate “aggression-releasing cues” to move a group to violence since just being “discontent alone is not enough.”[11]  This implies the need for an emotional draw to bring individuals to action even when they are disenfranchised and logically believe in the cause.  Additionally, the use of pathos is critically important in persuading the uneducated toward an insurgent ideology that may be too complex for the average individual to understand.[12]  An insurgency can also use pathos to enflame anger from the state to incite repression to help move the populace closer to its agenda.[13]  Adolf Hitler, outlining his persuasion and propaganda principles in Mein Kampf which were ultimately followed by Joseph Goebbels, gave preeminence to pathos.[14]  Even today, authors such as Malcolm Gladwell in his book The Tipping Point, suggest pathos is so strong, its effectual use can be highly contagious and even viral.[15]  There are many examples of the successful use of pathos by an insurgency in the Chinese Revolution and modern day Afghanistan.

The propaganda of Mao Tse-Tung shows an adept use of pathos.  Mao realized the value of subtlety and indirectly communicating a message through emotionally-connected mediums, which over time would make the populace more open to direct, logos oriented forms.  One technique Mao incorporated was the use of symbols.  Mao believed, just as modern advertisers do today, that the representative nature of symbols evokes an emotional response.[16]  Mao also believed “the slogan [would] mobilize the people, who [would] then have to do the work to attain the objective that excited them in the first place.”[17]  This indicates Mao realized the power of emotional appeals.  Using this concept to further sow the seeds of revolution, Mao incorporated the use of art, poetry, music, dance, plays,[18] and operas at the local village level along with many other types of mediums to generate an emotional connection with the populace and his recruits.[19]  He would continue these techniques later in the Cultural Revolution on a national scale.[20]

In the same manner, the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan/Pakistan are also very proficient in the use and understanding of the power of pathos.  The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point has devoted an entire project to images and visual motifs used by insurgents in Afghanistan and other Islamic extremist organizations around the world.[21]  These visual motifs serve the same purpose to evoke emotion in a similar manner as Mao’s techniques. It breaks down the use of colors and specific symbols, and what emotions these are meant to evoke. The Taliban also incorporate the use of timeliness with these motifs (especially if they are graphic images tied to an event) to further increase and capitalize on the emotional response.[22] They also use poetry, songs, and chants along with various forms of graphic imagery.[23]  Given the religious nature of their ideology, the Taliban have even used such techniques as providing ornate, colorful, and official-looking martyr certificates to the families of suicide bombers or slain fighters as a means to capitalize on the emotions generated by the loss.[24]  Tying in with pathos and logos, effective insurgencies also work on increasing their credibility with the populace.

Effective insurgencies also incorporate the use of ethos as means of persuading the populace.  An easy way an insurgency can increase its credibility is by actions themselves.  Actions could include such things as a successful attack against a government target or food provided for a local village that has been ignored by the government.  Mao believed “action would provide its own justification,” and he showed it by creating local shadow governments and organizations so that the local population could tangibly see the work and results of the insurgency and its ideology.[25] As part of this, physical presence of insurgents or presence of insurgent propaganda (marking territory) is important to reinforce this concept so the populace is reminded of the action and who was responsible.[26]  Essentially, it can be a reminder of the insurgency’s success or the failure of the government, which may also increase the ethos of the insurgency.

Ethos is also directly related to logos and pathos in many ways.  To the degree an insurgency is effective at logos and pathos, it will build ethos.  This increase in ethos will enable more responsiveness to an insurgency’s logos and pathos lines of persuasions on subsequent interactions with the populace.  If successfully persuading more individuals to join, the insurgency can conduct more and/or larger operations, potentially increasing the strength of it logos, pathos, and ethos persuasion.  This concept brings out the importance of the synergy of logos, pathos, and ethos.

Successful synergy of logos, pathos, and ethos can be a catalyst for insurgent growth.  Therefore, the key to success is careful planning of a comprehensive program that creatively links logos, pathos, and ethos into a unified endeavor.  An insurgency that carefully studies the populace and methodically crafts how every word, picture, and action will link together and its effect on the populace will have success.  Robert Gurr suggests the greater number, density, and creativity of media forms will assist in generating popular violence.[27]  The Chinese Revolution is an excellent example of such synergy.

Mao Tse-Tung’s calculated and comprehensive synergy of logos, pathos, and ethos shows how their creative use can mobilize a population against a state.  He purposefully ensured the elements of his education program were reflected in the symbols, arts, music, etc. and vice versa.  Simultaneously, he ensured actions taken reinforced teachings and desired emotions. Mao referred to this as “putting into the mold” as part of shaping the whole man toward revolutionary goals.[28]   In addition to combining logos, pathos, and ethos on a large-scale, Mao also ensured synergy of all three on the small scale as well.  For example, after capturing a government soldier (in very selected cases), Mao would ensure one of his most intelligent insurgents would question/interrogate the soldier.  Using exceptional logic, the insurgent would debate the soldier about the government (logos).  Over time, the soldier would realize he was unable to argue, feeling guilty and humiliated about the actions he had taken (pathos).  This in turn generated credibility (ethos) for the insurgent and reinforced the insurgency’s logos and pathos.  Eventually, the soldier would be released, generating gratitude for the insurgency (additional pathos).  This converted soldier would tell others of what had happened (a great platform of ethos for the insurgency), thus increasing the overall level of logos, pathos, and ethos of the insurgency, helping recruit more people to Mao’s cause.[29]  As this example demonstrates, calculated, successful synergy can breed success, which in turn can breed more success.

From this concept, to the degree an insurgency is able to carefully plan, synergize, and execute a persuasion/propaganda program using the aspects of logos, pathos, and ethos, the program can have a catalytic effect on increasing insurgent mobilization and growth.  The purpose of an insurgency persuasion program is to instruct or explain to the populace about the insurgency as well as shape, reinforce, or change the behavior of the populace in line with insurgent goals.[30]  The insurgency conducts persuasion through the use of media, whether conventional or unconventional, and actions such as the types discussed earlier for the purpose mentioned above. In this process, the insurgency will target the population to affect its cost benefit calculations relating to supporting the insurgency or the government.  A comprehensive, synergized persuasion program will contain all three elements of logos, pathos, and ethos and have elements that address all facets of the populace’s cost benefit calculation.  It is possible to build an abstract, qualitative model of this concept.

Figure 1 shows a rough, qualitative, abstract mathematical model adapted from Dr. Gordon McCormick’s model of conditional mobilization.[31]

 

FIGURE 1. Persuasion as a Catalyst on the Expected Value of Supporting the Insurgency.

This qualitative mathematical model shows to the degree an insurgency is successful at its elements of persuasion P (which is a function of the synergy of logos, pathos, and ethos) across the cost-benefit expectations of the populace, the insurgency can increase the expected value of the population supporting and joining the insurgency.  An insurgency can increase the expected benefits of supporting the insurgency while lowering the associated costs, while also potentially lowering the benefits of supporting the government while increasing the costs.  Essentially, all things being equal, if each element of persuasion is successful, the net effect is a positive increase in expected value in supporting the insurgency, or an increase in expected value of supporting the government if insurgent propaganda is unsuccessful.  The reason each cost and benefit has its own persuasion variable associated with it corresponds to the concept a successful persuasion program will be running multiple targets, medias, and themes at the same time. For instance, some may be coercive, while others may be unifying depending on the target and the goal.  The model also allows that some portions of the persuasion program may fail where others succeed.

The model in Figure 1 also suggests how an insurgency may overcome the “rational paradox” during the initial growth of an insurgency as they attempt to influence individuals to join, even though the initial costs seem to greatly outweigh the benefits.[32]  To the degree an insurgency is successful and remains successful at its persuasion program, it can conceivably increase its growth/support base rapidly, and lower the insurrection point, thus creating stable, steady growth.[33]  Studied, planned, and executed effectively, an insurgency’s creative use of synergistic persuasion could turn the idea of revolution into reality.

However, history shows most insurgencies are not carefully planned and executed.  In fact, most insurgencies end in failure.  The few that have been successful have common themes.  One of those themes is mastery of the manipulation and persuasion of the populace toward its cause.  Successful revolutionaries such as Mao Tse-Tung have shown the use and synergy of logic, emotion, and credibility through multiple forms of media and action can have tremendous effect.  Even today, groups such as the Taliban and even modern day marketing incorporate these tactics with great benefit.  The successful mastery, planning, and synergy of the use of logos, pathos and ethos by an insurgency can greatly increase the population’s willingness to support with an almost catalytic effect on their cost-benefit calculation.  Only by respecting, understanding, and ultimately using the power of this synergy as well, can a government work to retain the support of the populace over an insurgency.

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[1] Gordon H. McCormick and Frank Giordano, “Things Come Together: Symbolic Violence and Guerrilla Mobilisation,” Third World Quarterly 28, no. 2 (2007), 295, http://pdfserve.informaworld.com.libproxy.nps.edu/787733_793890206_771167049.pdf (accessed August 26, 2010).

[2] Jacques Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes [Propagandes], trans. Konrad Kellen and Jean Lerner (New York: Vintage Books, 1973), 11.

[3] Garth Jowett and Victoria O’Donnell, Propaganda and Persuasion, 4th ed. (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 2006), 40.

[4] Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes, 4.

[5] Ken O’Quinn, “The Elements of Persuasion: Three Principles that Will Strengthen any Appeal,” Public Relations Tactics 16, no. 2 (2009), 20, http://content.ebscohost.com/pdf9/pdf/2009/PTA/01Feb09/36665244.pdf (accessed September 1, 2010).

[6] Oleg Svet, “Fighting for a Narrative: A Campaign Assessment of the US-Led Coalition’s Psychological and Information Operations in Afghanistan,” Small Wars Journal (September 12, 2010), 2, http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/journal/docs-temp/537-svet.pdf (accessed September 12, 2010).

[7] Mao Tse-tung and Stuart R. Schram, Mao’s Road to Power: Revolutionary Writings 1912-1949 (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1992), 218.

[8] Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes, 304.

[9] Marc Gobé, Emotional Branding: The New Paradigm for Connecting Brands to People (New York: Allworth Press, 2009), 108.

[10] Chalmers A. Johnson, Revolutionary Change, 2nd ed. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1982), 86.

[11] Ted Robert Gurr, Why Men Rebel, 1st Princeton Paperback ed. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1971), 199.

[12] Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes, 79, 108-109.

[13] Gurr, Why Men Rebel, 213.

[14] Jowett and O’Donnell, Propaganda and Persuasion, 230.

[15] Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, 1st Back Bay Paperback ed. (New York: Back Bay Books/Little, Brown, and Company, 2002), 85.

[16] Gobé, Emotional Branding: The New Paradigm for Connecting Brands to People, 126.

[17] Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes, 305.

[18] Sandra Eminov, “Folklore and Nationalism in Modern China,” Journal of the Folklore Institute 12, no. 2/3 (1975), 268-269, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3813929 (accessed September 1, 2010).

[19] Mao and Schram, Mao’s Road to Power: Revolutionary Writings 1912-1949, 217-224.

[20] B. Mittler, “Popular Propaganda? Art and Culture in Revolutionary China,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 152, no. 4 (Dec, 2008), 478, http://libproxy.nps.edu/login?url=http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1723042581&Fmt=7&clientId=11969&RQT=309&VName=PQD (accessed August 23, 2010).

[21] Combating Terrorism Center, The Islamic Imagery Project: Visual Motifs in Jihadi Internet Propaganda (West Point, NY: Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, 2006), 132, http://www.ctc.usma.edu/pdf/CTC%20–%20Islamic%20Imagery%20Project.pdf (accessed August 26, 2010).

[22] Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes, 43-44.

[23] Svet, “Fighting for a Narrative: A Campaign Assessment of the US-Led Coalition’s Psychological and Information Operations in Afghanistan,” 2.

[24] “Martyr Certificate by Taliban,” The Pak Factor, http://www.pakfactor.com/martyr-certificate-by-taliban.html (accessed September 12, 2010).

[25] Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes, 306.

[26] Mao and Schram, Mao’s Road to Power: Revolutionary Writings 1912-1949, 293.

[27] Gurr, Why Men Rebel, 224.

[28] Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes, 79.

[29] Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes, 312.

[30] Jowett and O’Donnell, Propaganda and Persuasion, 29.

[31] McCormick and Giordano, Things Come Together: Symbolic Violence and Guerrilla Mobilisation, 301-302.

[32] McCormick and Giordano, Things Come Together: Symbolic Violence and Guerrilla Mobilisation, 296.

[33] McCormick and Giordano, Things Come Together: Symbolic Violence and Guerrilla Mobilisation, 304.