Jobs and Quintilian
Steve Jobs gave the commencement
address for the graduation class of 2005 at Stanford University. During his speech,
he shared three stories from his life to congratulate the students for their success
and motivate them on their future endeavors. Of the three stories he shared,
the first, which Jobs said was “about connecting the dots” (2005), most closely
represented a citizen-orator according to Quintilian’s system of rhetorical
education. More specifically, Steve Jobs’ first story was delivered with the
same steps Quintilian taught his students to think of judicial speeches.
I can’t think of many better ways a
billionaire can capture a graduating classes’ attention than to start out a
speech with how they dropped out of college. Jobs opened the story with,” I
dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as
a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop
out?” (2005). This is an example of what Quintilian called the exordium,
or an attention-grabbing introduction. Additionally, he ended the phrase with a
definite question, one of the two kinds of questions rhetoric addressed for
Quintilian.
Following his story’s introduction,
Jobs began to lay out the facts for the audience as to why he dropped out. He
spoke about how his biological mom never went to college and that his
biological dad never graduated high school. Later in life, while he was
attending college, Jobs spoke about how expensive his tuition was for his
adopted parents, but he didn’t even know what profession he wanted to pursue. Jobs
ended up dropping out of Reed College, but he said, “looking back it was one of
the best decisions I ever made” (2005). Quintilian described this as the narration,
or the statement of the facts essential to the nature of the subject (Herrick,
2018, p. 122).
Jobs supports his claim that dropping
out was the best decision he ever made by speaking about how it had all led to
him starting the Mackintosh company. Quintilian called this confirmatio,
which was designed to offer evidence supporting the claims in the previous
section (Herrick, 2018, p. 122). Considering that it’s practically general knowledge
that Steve Jobs is filthy rich, is also an example of Quintilian’s second
source of proof.
Continuing on, Jobs spoke about
some calligraphy classes he “dropped in” on. After dropping out of all other
classes, he sought out the ones that interested him. He said that although he found
learning about the different typefaces fascinating, “None of this had even a
hope of any practical application in my life” (Jobs, 2005). He then spoke about
how 10 years later, he was designing the first Macintosh computer in which
beautiful typography was included. He answered his own counterargument in this
section, which Quintilian called, confutio or refutation (Herrick, 2005,
p. 122).
Jobs wraps
up this story by circling back to the beginning with “connecting the dots”
(2005). He explains that if he had never dropped out of college, and dropped in
on the calligraphy class, he may have never been part of designing the first Macintosh
personal computer. Jobs implies that the beginning of success in his life was catalyzed
by him dropping out of school and that it wasn’t apparent to him looking to the
future, only to the past. Quintilian’s term for this section where the orator demonstrated
the full strength of the case the peroratio or conclusion (Herrick,
2018, p. 122). Steve Jobs’ commencement address to Stanford’s graduating class
of 2005 displayed many aspects of Quintilian’s system of a citizen-orator. His
first story of “connecting the dots” most closely displayed the five parts of a
judicial speech.
References
Herrick, J. A. (2018). The
History and Theory of Rhetoric: An Introduction (6th ed.). Routledge.
Stanford. (2008, March 8). Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement Address [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc&t=3s
Comments
Post a Comment