Conversations and Community

Conversations and Community

From SAMVAD (Together In Conversation) by Sunil Rao

November 9, 2025 · 7 min

About this episode

This episode discusses the power of rhetoric and the importance of attention in communication.

Namaste, Welcome to SAM-VAD (Together In Conversation). Last week, I shared an excerpt titled – ‘ The Power of Words – Rhetoric and Reality ’ from the book titled ‘ The Axemaker’s Gift ’ – Technology’s capture and control of our minds and Culture by James Burke and Robert Ornstein. In this episode we drew attention to the fact about Rhetoric, the art of presenting an argument so as to convince the listener, this according to Plato could make “small things seem large and large things seem small by some power of language and new things seem old fashioned and vice versa.”. Another aspect that was highlighted in Georgias writing was, when we communicate, we never exchange the thing but only the word for it, which is always other than the thing itself. So, every word introduces falsification of the thing it refers to, and this means that one can never reproduce reality and that any claim to be able to do so is a deception . Now, SAM-VAD (Together In Conversation) to the ones paying heed, is where we try to draw your attention to things that matter and the importance of your attention, because , ‘Our life’s experience would ultimately amount to whatever we had paid…

People in this episode

Host: Sunil Rao

Topics covered

  • Rhetoric
  • Communication
  • Attention
  • Reality
  • Language
  • Self-awareness

Keywords

  • Rhetoric
  • Attention
  • Communication
  • Reality
  • Language
  • Philosophy
  • Self-improvement

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: The Axemaker’s Gift

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