Second Logic - "2L" / "Rhetors"

"Ritor"(2nd Logic). 

To say that the "rhetorician" is a great lover of conversation is to say nothing. Communication is the air and bread of the 2nd Logic. The size of this need can be seen on the example of Fidel Castro, for whom it costs nothing to give a 15-hour interview. However, apparently, this is not the limit - Castro himself confessed that he met people even more talkative than him. 

Moreover, this talkativeness of the "rhetorician" exists as if by itself, as a passion, as a disease, outside of personal and public interests. And sometimes in spite of them. 

Abandoning the affairs of the vast empire, all day long Emperor Tiberius wandered through the schools of grammarians, asking wild, from the point of view of his social position, questions: "Who was Hecuba's mother? What was Achilles' name among the girls? What songs did the sirens sing?" No better than Tiberius sometimes wasted precious government time Stalin. He loved, for example, calling on the carpet some literary roach, for hours to devote criticism of the novel paralyzed from fear roach, comparing some of the great writers with others, comparing the different manners of writing, etc. 

These curiosities could be considered a mere bliss of adored tyrants, except for the fact that both Tiberius and Stalin had the 2nd Logic. This circumstance puts everything in its place. Being carriers of a psychotype in which Logic is the Second Function, i.e. not only a powerful function but also a processional one, both tyrants, contrary to their own and state interests, simply could not go against their nature and threw everything they could get their hands on, up to near-literary gossip, into the insatiable womb of the 2nd Logic processionalism. 

To pay tribute, the "rhetorician" would be utterly unbearable if his wordiness often did not reach the heights of the true art of communication. The secret of this art is in the ability and desire not just to speak out, but, above all, to involve the interlocutor in the conversation, to make an intellectual feast together. 

The techniques by which such involvement in a conversation is achieved are simple and fail-safe. First, unlike a "dogmatist," a "rhetorician" never begins a conversation with a statement, but always with a question. He begins with a question even when the subject is known to him thoroughly. One of the owners of a powerful 2nd Logic, which is only switched off at night, once explained to me: "If I ask you a question, it doesn't mean that I don't know the answer. It just makes me more comfortable to talk to you. 

The second way: pretend to be a fool and begin communication with a phrase like the famous Socratic: "I only know that I know nothing. It is hard to imagine who would refuse to swallow such a bait - an opportunity to teach a fool. And then it was a matter of technique: one word at a time, the conversation began to roll, and lo and behold - for an interesting conversation and the day passed. 

It does not follow from this that only direct, open, equal dialogue conditions the full realization of the 2nd Logic. It is enough to have an echo. Especially in a situation when she is compelled by the force of circumstances to a monologue. Take, for instance, a speech from a rostrum. In this case, it seems that the speaker is condemned to a monologue, which means that the 2nd Logic is deliberately put in an uncomfortable position for her. This, however, is only an appearance. There is still communication; there is contact, only not on the linguistic but on the energetic level. This is how writer Garcia Marquez describes the rally version of Fidel Castro's 2nd Logic: "In the first minutes his voice is barely audible and intermittent. It is as if the speaker is moving blindly in a fog, using every flash of light to grope the terrain heel by heel, stumbles, but gets up and... completely overwhelms the audience. From that moment on, there is an electric circuit between him and the audience, which excites both sides, turning them into a kind of dialectical accomplices, and in this unbearable tension his ecstasy." 

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Another admirable and precious quality inherent in all "rhetors" without exception is a healthy cynicism. The 2nd Logic believes in neither God, nor devil, nor party programs, nor scientific doctrines - nothing. Everything axiomatic, dogmatic, falling into the millstones of the "rhetorical" brain's hemispheres, quickly loses its absoluteness and becomes a simple object of intellectual manipulation. For the "rhetorician" there are no prohibitions, no frameworks, no rules holding back the free play of thought. Everything is subject to the judgment of the 2nd Logic, but this judgment is merciful and rarely gives a final verdict (except for sheer stupidity). The verdict is the result, the end of the process, which the 2nd Logic cherishes so dearly. This is why the cynicism of her statements is devoid of aggressive, categorical notes; it is the cynicism of a nonpartisan, free-thinking person. 

The "rhetorician" also has little regard for his own statements, which are not even statements, but only hypotheses, convenient for the moment. To refute today what was said yesterday is the normal state of a "rhetorician. We don't have to go far to find an example: Lenin. During his life he said so much to the contrary that Leninists still cannot decide which of his statements should be considered directive. A great polemicist, Lenin managed every time to make an extremely convincing point that directly contradicted the one he had recently defended with equal brilliance. In general, the ability of the 2nd Logic to shed its dilapidated intellectual skin with the ease of a snake is an enormous gift that makes an invincible polemicist, a Proteus of thought, multi-faced and elusive, out of a "rhetorician. 

It is impossible not to admire the breadth of interests of the 2nd Logic. It is interested in almost everything that happens in the world, from global problems to the smallest ones. The memory of the "rhetorician", which is bulky and well holds universal concepts and insignificant facts, like a stingy store room, keeps everything that comes in its way, matches its interests as well. And there is a reason for this omnivorousness of the memory of the 2nd Logic. God only knows what can begin a conversation dear to the heart of "rhetorician", what will serve as a starting point: a trifle or a super-idea. The main thing is to participate, and full participation requires a voluminous memory devoid of conceit. 

However, unlike the "dogmatist", the 2nd Logic is not at all embarrassed by the complete absence of information, when it fearlessly enters a conversation. It is true, it enters without the risk of being punished, because it is protected by the flexibility and freedom of mind, which are dear regardless of the degree of awareness of the interlocutors, as well as by the inevitably questionable form of entering the conversation. 

The 2nd Logic is also unrivaled as a commentator, an interpreter of other people's ideas. To illustrate this point, one can describe Mikhail Bakunin, a young man who was fascinated by Hegelian dialectics at the time: "Bakunin had a great ability to develop the most abstract concepts with a clarity that made them accessible to everyone, without losing any of their idealistic depth... Bakunin could talk for hours, argue tirelessly from evening to morning, without losing any dialectical thread of conversation or the passionate force of conviction. And he was always ready to explain, to explain, to repeat without the slightest dogmatism." 

As much as the "rhetorician" loves joint intellectual feasts, at the same time he is flawless in the art of rebuking, shutting up his opponent. Let me give examples from the life of tyrants we already know. About Stalin, they said that when Orjenikidze, learning about the search, carried out in his apartment NKVD, called his despot, and expressed his indignation, he heard in response: they say that the NKVD - an organization that can search and Stalin. Silent scene. One day a delegation of Trojans came to Emperor Tiberius and, with great delay, offered their condolences on the death of their son. Tiberius' reaction was instantaneous, he responded by expressing his condolences to them on the death of the best of the Trojans, Hector. A silent scene. 

Regardless of the speed and accuracy of the 2nd Logic's witticisms, it should be noted as a general characteristic feature - a great speed of the processes going on in her brain. Necessary information is instantly extracted from the recesses of memory, it is instantly and semi-verbally assimilated, variants are calculated and hypotheses are born. There is an impression that the impulse runs faster along the neurons of the "rhetorician" than in other people. Watching the work of the 2nd Logic closely, you involuntarily feel like an arithmometer standing next to a computer. 

Perhaps the only disadvantage of the 2nd Logic, which is an extension of its advantages, is that the thinking of the "rhetorician" gravitates toward tactics rather than strategy. The 2nd Logic does not aspire to something long-term, large-scale, finished; it is more interested in a momentary, close-to-the-point intellectual game. This peculiarity of the 2nd logic was very well described by the example of Lenin, by the SR Viktor Chernov: "Above all, he is a master swordsman, while a swordsman needs very little foresight and no complicated ideas at all. In fact, he does not need to think too much: he must concentrate on his opponent's every movement and control his own reactions with the speed of innate instinct in order to respond without the slightest hesitation to his enemy's every move. 

Lenin's intellect was sharp but not broad, resourceful but not creative. A master of evaluating any political situation, he instantly mastered it, quickly assessed all its new twists and turns, and displayed remarkable political acumen. This perfect and quick-witted political acumen stands in stark contrast to the utterly unfounded and fantastic nature of all the historical forecasts he made for any length of time - any program that encompassed something more than today and tomorrow." 

As a tactician rather than a strategist of thought, the "rhetorician" does not seek the ultimate truth, after which, of course, his quick, agile mind should simply fall away. One confession of Lessing is characteristic in this sense. He wrote: "The value of man is determined not by the possession of truth, real or imaginary, but by the honest labor used to reach the truth.... If God, concluding in his right hand the truth and in his left hand the eternal pursuit of the truth, but with the fact that I will go astray without end, said to me, "Choose!" I would humbly cling to His left hand, saying, "Father, give! The pure truth - it is for You alone." 

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"Rhetor" is not a big fan of putting his views in writing. And that's understandable. His passion is live communication, not a battle with a dead sheet of paper. He leaves it to others to take notes for themselves, as Socrates did when he agreed to Plato's writing. But what disgusts the 2nd Logic even more from office work is the impossibility of limiting himself to some framework, of finding the beginning and the end of thought. Thinking for the "rhetorician" is first of all a process, a movement, a flow, and the attempt to tear something out of it is no more fruitful than the attempt to cut a piece of the river. Therefore, if he sits down at the table, he does so with great reluctance, for any particular reason, and his manuscript looks like something without beginning and end, a fragment of a boundless, endless opus. 

The only time 2nd Logic willingly turns to paper is during times of forced loneliness. It is when she is condemned to silence that she turns to such a surrogate as paper, and usually keeps a diary. But he who thinks that it is a diary in the ordinary sense of the word, as a secret attorney of innermost thoughts, is greatly mistaken. It is nothing of the sort. It is a ship's journal of thought, expressly intended for outsiders to read. An acquaintance of mine, after long absences, would not just give, but force his wife to read his journal-journal. 

Another notable and amusing character trait of the 2nd Logic is her passion for making notes in books, especially library books. Reading with a pencil, she lavishes the pages with dashes, exclamation and question marks, "nb", etc. Usually the phenomenon of a passion for scribbling in books can be explained in two ways: either by a lack of culture, or by a desire to more firmly imprint the most important places in the memory. But in reality, the origins of this passion are different. Scribbling in books is a typical form of communication for the 2nd Logic, a message to all future anonymous book owners, an attempt to exchange opinions by correspondence.