Towards a compassionate rhetoric: a Buddhist & feminist exploration of substance abuse

Abstract

This essay is a proposal for compassionate rhetoric, and an inquiry into compassion as a rhetorical way of being. Compassionate rhetoric is best understood as a set of human behaviors that one develops and practices to construct and reflect one’s transient identity with the world through action, even if the action is ‘not-doing.’ Founded on both feminist and Buddhist schools of thought, compassionate rhetoric consists of the following practices: (1) cultivating the beginner’s mind; (2) recognizing the similarities in our differences; and (3) the acceptance of contradiction. Inspired by Sonja K. Foss and Cindy L. Griffin’s “Beyond Persuasion: A Proposal for an Invitational Rhetoric,” compassionate rhetoric relies on their explication of invitational rhetoric as the foundational rhetorical theory for compassionate communication.