Cicero argues that while oratory has widespread appeal and influence, achieving high quality oratory requires both natural talent and rigorous training. He acknowledges that oratory draws from everyday human experiences but challenges are producing great orators is high given the vast complexity of the subject matter. Cicero's position is that oratory, while accessible to many, requires mastery of fundamental principles like law and human nature to be truly effective.

1. CICERO ON SYSTEMS & SOCIAL DESIGN
October 30, 2013
DFA Design Speaker Series
Case Western Reserve University
Kipum (Kip) Lee
Interaction/service designer,
instructor & PhD candidate

2. DISCIPLINE VERSUS NATURAL TALENT
CICERO TO HIS BROTHER: “... I hold that
eloquence is dependent upon the trained
skill of highly educated men, while you
consider that it must be separated from
the refinements of learning and made to
depend on a sort of natural talent and on
practice.”

3. THE APPEAL OF ORATORY & ART OF ELOQUENCE
“For as soon as our world-empire had been
established, and an enduring peace had
assured us leisure, there was hardly a
youth, athirst for fame, who did not deem
it his duty to strive with might and main
after eloquence.”

4. AT THE LEVEL OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE
“... the subject of the other arts are
derived as a rule from hidden and remote
sources, while the whole art of oratory
lies open to the view, and is concerned
in some measure with the common practice,
custom, and speech of mankind,

5. TIED TO HUMAN EXPERIENCE
so that, whereas in all other arts that
is most excellent which is farthest
removed from the understanding and mental
capacity of the untrained, in oratory the
very cardinal sin is to depart from the
language of everyday life, and the usage
approved by the sense of the community.”

6. RARITY OF GREAT ORATORS & CHALLENGE OF SUBJECT MATTER
“And considering all this, who would
not rightly marvel that, in all the
long record of ages, times, and states,
so small a number of orators is to be
found? ... what else could anyone think
to be the cause, unless it be the really
incredible vastness and difficulty of the
subject?”

7. THESIS: WIDE APPLICATION OF ORATORY
CRASSUS: “... for my assertion is this:
that the wise control of the complete
orator is that which chiefly upholds not
only his own dignity, but the safety of
countless individuals and of the entire
State ... a source of service to your
friends, and profitable members of the
Republic.”

8. THESIS CHALLENGED: LIMITED APPLICATION
SCAEVOLA: “Crassus, I do not think you
should make professions so extensive
and so numerous. What you are able to
guarantee is a thing great enough,
namely, that in the courts whatever case
you present should appear to be the
better and more plausible,

9. THESIS CHALLENGED: CULT OF PERSONALITY
SCAEVOLA: that in assemblies and in the
Senate your oratory should have most
weight in carrying the vote ... If you
can achieve anything more than this,
therein you will seem to me not an orator
but a Crassus, who is making use of some
talent that is peculiarly his own and not
common to orators in general.”

10. “A WAY” CONSISTING OF FUNDAMENTALS
CRASSUS: “... without a mastery of
ordinances, customs and general law,
without a knowledge of human nature and
character, he cannot engage even in these
restricted activities. But to a man who
has learned these things, can there be
anything lacking that belongs to the
knowledge of the highest matters?”

11. POSSIBLE TO GRASP SUBJECT BETTER THAN EXPERTS
CRASSUS: “Therefore whatever the theme,
from whatever art or whatever branch
of knowledge it be taken, the orator,
just as if he had got up the case for a
client, will state it better and more
gracefully than the actual discoverer and
the specialist.”

12. SUMMARY: DESIGN IS ...
Accessible: (all) have the capacity to
design at the level of human experience
Difficult: while many are enthusiastic
about it, high quality products are rare
Powerful: wide in reach, no determined
subject matter, in some sense can be
mastered by non-masters

13. SAFE AGUA PERU’S “THE GIRADORA”
http://www.designmattersatartcenter.org/projects/

14. MILITARY AND MOB HABITS
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2011/02/25/protesters-storm-green-zone-as-11-killed-in-iraqi-day-of-rage/

15. WOMEN IN ORCHESTRAS
http://central.colostate.edu/event/music-csu-concert-orchestra-with-csu-womens-chorus/

16. THANKS!
KML61@case.edu
http://placesofdesign.com
@kipum