Kristi Karrenbrock

Communication Criticism

November 26th, 2012

Final Paper: Cain’s Call for Quiet in a Loud World

On February 1, 2002, Marti Olsen Laney published a book, The Introverted

Advantage: How to Thrive in an Extrovert World, and jump-started a new thought. This

how-to read sent the world rethinking the common myths about introverts in a profound

way. In response to the introverts’ dilemma of success in a dominantly extroverted world

where partners, kids, colleagues and friends collide, Dr. Laney took a confident approach.

Reviews of the book were not shy with praise, but did critique that Laney took an almost

dishonest, one-sided angle. Almost a decade later, historians have made it clear that our

generation is part of a great shift. They say our “culture of character” has now shifted

towards a “culture of personality” and our values have, thus, followed suit. The relevance

of this idea has led me to explore if our culture has misplaced assumptions about this new

“culture of personality”.

Susan Cain led a TED talk (Technology, Entertainment and Design) in the year of

2012 that gave new grounds for Laney’s ideas. This talk was made for the purpose of

promoting and giving a response to her book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World

that Can’t Stop Talking that was published January 24, 2012. TED talk is a global

conference that is owned by the private non-profit Sapling Foundation whose tagline is

“ideas worth spreading”. The conference’s mission is to be the ripple effect for new

innovations that are globally relevant to the working force. In the past, there have been

featured speakers such as Jill Bolte Taylor, Jane Goodall, Al Gore and even Bill Gates

speaking on a variety of subjects such as climate change, chimpanzees, the newest iPhone

app, or even the lost art of letter-writing. Her twenty-minute speech acquired its first

million viewers quicker than any TED talk ever given. This is the artifact I want to

analyze along with the ripple effect her unveiling talk had on a veiled world.

I propose to examine the speech she gave at the TED talk conference—mainly

viewed by the online audience once screened—with a strict neo-Aristotelian form of

criticism. In light of the fact that her speech was delivered orally, this form of analysis

best fits the artifact. Neo-Aristotelian is the first formal method of rhetorical criticism

developed in the communication field. Neo-Aristotelian’s strength in criticism—in

comparison to others—is highlighted in the concrete rubric that it provides so that

rhetoric can be efficiently and comparatively analyzed. Consequentially, I seek to answer

the question: Did Susan Cain use all of the available means of persuasion to receive the

desired reaction from her audience? My projected answer resonates and concludes

affirmatively. Through the application five cannons of rhetoric, I will uncover that the

rhetor’s attitudes, communication skills and motivation were effective in moving the

audience towards her purpose for speaking on this particular issue. In particular, her

credibility as a rhetor, or ethos, was a prevailing and dominant feature that made this

successful. In addition, invention, organization, style, memory and delivery play key

roles in her over-all success as a rhetor in a rhetorical situation.

This talk has always been one of extreme relevance because America is a highly

relational and verbal culture. High value is placed on those who can represent themselves

well, especially in the settings of job interviews and resume construction, with the right

type of personality and with the right people. Preferences on how people spend their time

and communicate with others, specifically recent graduates and young adults looking for

jobs, are in want of being validated by employers. Children in schools today are forced

into group settings that are geared toward the stimulation of the extrovert, leaving

introverts feeling out of place and viewed in a negative light.

Susan Cain delivers this message of introversion in order to promote her book,

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking, one that fits into the

genre of psychology and self-help novels. The rhetor began a seven-year project during

which Susan, an honors graduate of Harvard Law and Princeton School, left her duties as

a lawyer and negotiations consultant to lead a quiet life at home so she could research and

craft her anticipated work. Other accredited authors closely connected to this topic, like

Malcolm Galdwell and Naomi Wolf, describe her as “a definer of a new and valuable

paradigm” (Cain, Lavin Agency). While writing the book, the author spent one of the

years working on her rhetorical abilities. She took speech classes and learned

fundamental skills that would help her when the book was finished. Cain, a self-

acclaimed introvert, found it humorous that she would be spending a year on the stage,

confidently promoting her book across the United States in school, conferences,

workplaces, radio, and televisions stations. She labeled herself as the oxymoronic

specimen: “The Public Introvert” (Cain, NYtimes.com). As one who has personal ties

with the subject matter, Susan Cain’s own hurt and struggle to make sense of her

“quietness” and “homebody tendencies” is the driving factor for wanting to shed light on

her topic.

How was the book received? The anecdotal and scholarly research of Cain’s did

not go unnoticed by her readers. Washington Times editor, Windsor Mann, took into

account the book’s reception and found himself—as well as others—taking into that the

book was informative for the depraved and stigmatized introvert (Mann, Washington

Times). He believed the effectiveness was surrounded in the book’s ample amount of

studies shown in favor of her argument, a plethora of stories—that sometimes were

pointless because they “make points that don’t require stories”—and a good stock of

ironically self-helpful tips. According to USA Today, The book never made a #1 best-

selling title, but was reviewed as #26 out of 150 titles. (Cain, USA Today)

Where the book was actually promoted, TED talk’s global stage, was a platform

that has streamed nearly 900 TED talk episodes online. Cain’s TED talk pertaining to the

topic of introverts broke a record with 3 million views online. 1,500 attended her actual

TED talk conference in February.

The methodology, neo-Aristotelian criticism, being used is one that I believe will

take the rhetor, situation/rhetorical context and audience’s response into account in a

profound way that seeks to answer whether or not the rhetor used all of the available

means of persuasion to obtain the desired response from her audience.

Herbert A. Wilchens was the scholar that made the distinct difference between

literary and rhetorical criticism. He contributed to the credibility of the Neo-Aristotelian

method by listing topics that should be covered in the study of a speech. Personality of

the speaker, public character, audience, reception, major ideas and motives were

categories he placed emphasis on while evaluating speeches. This form of analysis

examines whether or not the speaker receives the desired response from his/her audience

using all of the available means of persuasion. It is a strict rubric that works best as a

guideline to make sure the rhetor is being as efficient with their resources to receive the

intended reaction—that eventually, motivates action—from the audience. Understanding

the context, Neo-Aristotelian criticism affirms, gives the audience a better understanding

of why the rhetor chose particular strategies in the given artifact. Usually, the rhetor’s

own background and historical context plays a huge rule in what means they use to

communicate and reveal their viewpoint and underlying message.

Neo-Aristotelian criticism’s simplified structure of analysis is to 1) reconstruct the

context 2) apply the canons and 3) assess the effects. Aristotle’s Rhetoric is keen on

believing that this form of criticism is key to understanding the merit of the rhetor, but

the resounding negative critiques on this method are that they do not necessarily answer

the question of how the message was received (Aristotle Rhetoric II. 1378a 30-32). In

retrospect, it has been successful in evaluating the means the rhetor used. In addition, the

criticism is, at times, based solely on the potential to provoke emotion, not the actuality.

In her work, Rhetorical Criticism: Exploration and Practice, Sonja K. Foss emphasizes

the factors that must be taken into account that determined the rhetor’s purpose for the

rhetorical occasion (Foss 25). What elements do we need to pay attention to of historical

value? What social and cultural attitudes make this topic relevant to its audience? Some

additional lines of inquiry should be attentive to the process of reasoning the rhetor uses

—whether deductive or inductive—to effectively communicate her message.

“When I was nine years old, I went off to the summer camp for the first time. My

mother packed me a suitcase full of books, which to me, seemed like a perfectly natural

thing to do” (Cain, Lavin Agency). Susan Cain starts off a flashback narrative for her

audience in hopes of portraying one of her most noteworthy features: her introversion.

The artifact going under analysis, The Power of Introverts, a TED talk broadcasted

worldwide February 2012, speaks into a unique setting, “the culture of personality”, in a

way that is relevant to its audience members. Cain point out, “One out of every two or

three people you know is an introvert” (Cain, TEDtalk) Because of this, many people can

relate to her message.

Cain rhetorically approaches a world that does not appreciate introverts and says

this “is our loss and the world’s loss” (Cain, TEDtalk). Because of the way our

institutions—schools, workplaces, and homes—are set up in modern Western culture,

people tend not to attribute the same level of importance to introverts as they do to

extroverts. The implications and effects of the rise of the “Extrovert Ideal”—as Laney

described in his book published in 2002—inhibit innovation and progress. Cain speaks

into a world that is not designed for introverts and advocates a culture that values

personality over character. Cain likens this issue today to the dawning of the feminist

movement and compares the introvert’s injustice of “untapped talent” to that of women

whose voices were prohibited by the social norm (Cain, Quiet 25) Deborah Bigelow,

author of Introvert Life: Why Your Inner Life is Your Hidden Strength, would agree with

the idea that we live in a society where extroversion is placed on the high ladder of value

above the introvert. Why? Because solitude and reflection are not seen as valuable as

extroverted traits such as vivaciousness, initiative, social energy and obvious humor.

Neo-Aristotelian criticism makes it clear that elaborating on the five canons—

invention, organization, style, memory and delivery—are key to better answering the

underlying question. The location and creation of ideas for Susan Cain’s speech lie

heavily in the ethos of her invention. The rhetor builds her credibility as someone who

can speak correctly and significantly into this issue by relating the “bias” of her struggle.

She explains how as a little girl she was awakened to a world where books and quiet

nights at the dinner table did not exist. “R-O-W-D-I-E! THAT IS THE WAY WE SPELL

ROWDIE! LET US GET ROWDIE!” was the camp cheer for the week. The rhetor was

uncomfortable and felt misplaced. “Why are you so mellow?” one of the fellow campers

asked. This was the moment where Susan felt as if her introverted self was “not the right

way to go”. She felt the world begging for her conformity to become the popularly

acclaimed “appropriate” personality type for the world we live in: extroversion. She

grabs her audience because she speaks from endless amounts of personal experience. All

of the “self-negating” choices she made gave into the cultural idea that the “man of

action” was more valued than the “man of contemplation”, as many Western societies

have favored in the past. One would assume that it would be difficult for a self-

proclaimed introvert to speak in front of many on this subject, but Susan Cain tackles it

with eloquence and clarity.

In her TED talk, Cain creates a theme trying to dispel the myth that extroverts are

more creative, inclined to leadership and talented than introverts. She highlights, “There’s

zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas” (Cain, TEDtalk).

The artifact begins with a story from one childhood memory of hers at summer camp.

When she was forced to keep her books in her suitcase and be “more outgoing”, she

became aware of a world that did not appreciate quietness or environments that

stimulated contemplation. Cain defines introversion as “a temperamental inner-

directedness first identified as a core personality trait by Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist,

in 1921” (Capobianco, Psychological Perspectives). Because we live in a world that is

dominated by the “New Groupthink”, the idea that great ideas come from places

characterized by a gregarious nature, introverts are more likely to be underrated and

overlooked. She asserts, “Extroversion is an enormously appealing personality style, but

we’ve turned it into an oppressive standard to which most of us feel we must conform”

(Cain, TEDtalk) Cain especially highlights how important it is for kids to feel at home in

their natural tendencies, whether it is extroversion or introversion. “Whenever you try to

pass as something you’re not, you lose a part of yourself along the way. You especially

lose a sense of how to spend your time” (Cain, TEDtalk). The three main areas this

problem can be seen are in the workplace, the classroom, and at home. She condemns the

perceptions that introverts are “anti-social”. She believes this is simply another way of

being social.

Her logic is bathed in research and academically acclaimed statistics. “Introverts

are said to be more knowledgeable and acquire better grades” (Cain, TEDtalk). In her

book, she elaborates on the seven years of research that went into this project and thus,

prompts and supports the claims she makes about the success and brilliance of an

introverted life well lived. Her thesis was developed by mainly facts, personal examples,

and an ample amount of quotes from experts that support her process of reasoning. Cain

commonly references historic figures to draw in the audience. She frequently uses

famous people who would identify themselves as introverts (such as Ghandi, Mother

Teresa, Rosa Parks, Abraham Lincoln) as powerful examples of people who significantly

impacted our world to prove her point. They can be seen as symbols of success for the

introvert ideal, people who serve as leading models for those questioning their preferred

area of stimulation. Cain uses statistics to highlight the introvert’s strengths. She claims

those who are more contemplative and less reactionary achieve higher intellectual

standards. She poignantly asserts that she is not looking for introvert domination, but

rather, an acknowledgment that introverts, as well as extroverts, can lead.

Her pathos is one to be admired and esteemed, but it does not hold the weight of

her rhetorical approach. By use of parallel lives and experiences of the common introvert,

she is a catalyst for emotions and absorbs the attitudes of the audience. Her patterns of

empathizing with introverts who are stripped from “the air they breathe” when constantly

forced to be something they are not tugs at the audience’s heartstrings. In her talk, she

mentions how important the value of solitude “used to be” and uses nostalgia and

memory to convict the audience of “how we have now forgotten” the transcendent power

it used to once hold (Cain, TEDtalk). The emotional appeal to our childhood longings and

need for acceptance is a powerful tool she uses as well. She carries a bag with her

throughout the talk that is representative of the “things she carries” and, at the end, opens

them up to relate to the audience in a way that calls us to remember the things we used to

carry, but have now dropped and conformed because of social norms. Her relationship

with her grandfather, who was a strong example of an introvert, impacted the way she felt

about herself via his leadership in the church and surrounding community. Using her own

family member as an icon for her purpose of persuasion is a fascinating tool. She calls us

to recall who (in our own lives) have emotionally and intellectually made impacts on our

beings. Her emotional appeal connects the audience with their own backgrounds and has

the potential to nostalgically recall the past.

The organizational structure, or arrangement of the speech was fashioned a

problem-solution model. For the audience, it was a stellar choice for the rhetor to enact in

front of such a professional audience. The viewers of the TED talk are rhetorically

situated as experts of every major field of thinking in the 21st century. At times, those

attracted to the TED talk conferences have been negatively seen as “elitist” by the

average viewer, but are taking big step to fill in the gaps and open its doors to a larger,

more diverse audience—hence, the online distribution. Susan Cain’s audience consisted

of communications professors, CEOs of large companies, psychologists, counselors and

others that would benefit from this information. Her model of presenting the problem—

an introverts lack of acceptance and appreciation in an extrovert world—was then

situated and made manifest in her solution—call to action for introverts to start fulfilling

their potential. She uses factual information and personal evidence as the foundation for

her claim. Her familiarity with the sub-disciplines of evolutionary biology and elements

of personality psychology promote her ideas with force and urgency. She ends her

argument with a call to action. She calls for us to 1) stop the group work that fuels an

environment that does not tend to introverted needs 2) go to the “wilderness” or into our

heads more often—pulling away from the tendency to speak before we think and 3) be

liberated to show the world “the things you carry”. Cain claims that this prompting to be

at home within yourself is necessary if the world is ever to benefit from the creativity and

meaning that introverts bring to the world. Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist, affirms that

introversion represents a “periodic re-collection or recognition of the primordial

unconscious structure upon which the conscious ‘I’ rests” (Braden & Smith). This

contribution of contemplation and reflection are assets, not liabilities, to the workplace.

The artifact’s presentation by the rhetor is very thoughtful and easy to listen to.

The approach of a TED talk has been historically 1) easy for the average person to

understand 2) informative and 3) entertaining. Susan Cain’s style and language of the

speech is ordinary, robust and at times, stately. The artifact’s style is simple because she

speaks to the average person by elaborating on everyday concepts—such as group

dynamics, personality types, the expectations of the workplace, acceptance—that have

been misconstrued for a long time. She does not use many figures of speech, but rather, is

very keen on images that shed light on her artifact. Going to the “wilderness”, finding

your “space”, or seeing institutions as a “battlefield”, are common images and scenes that

she invites the audience to take part of. Her pattern of using words like “restriction” and

“suffocation” in relating to the introverts disposition in such a loud world, creates varying

effects on the audience. First, her style can evoke the audience to feel convicted for the

ways they have contributed to “the madness”. And secondly, it evokes them to act in a

way that changes their usual approach to personality types. It calls them to also recall and

challenge the findings Briggs and Johnson found in their Handbook of Personality

Psychology. To affirm that extroverts and introverts have their niches in various

vocations, but that there is more than meets the eye. Briggs writes, “Those high in

extraversion are often described as having a very positive outlook on life as well as being

friendly… and are associated with leadership behavior”. The “madness” Cain requires us

to stop starts with the extinction of assuming that introverts can never lead. Her ordinary

language invites us to challenge our ideals, without feeling verbally attacked.

Memory plays a key role in the success of Cain’s talk. TED talks require a certain

mastery of the subject matter that must be exemplified in the speaker. Cain’s actual

memorization of the speech, as she explains at the beginning of her talk, took years of

practice because of her fear of public speaking. Her control of the materials and mode of

presentation were simple—being one prop used: a bag—and self-evident to the audience.

Often times in Neo-Aristotelian criticism, delivery and memory coincide with one

another. Where one is lacking, the other follows suit. Because Cain’s memory was so

masterfully managed, her over-all manner of presentation was successful. Her light-

hearted jokes about personality stereotypes, personal examples of frustration with the

extrovert ideal and explanation of her seven years of research is effortless and engaging.

In retrospect, her mode of presentation was presented as memory, with some

extemporaneous dialogue. This is self-evident in her conversational way of speaking

throughout the TED talk and balances the line of 1) rehearsal and 2) impromptu.

In conclusion, it is helpful to be reminded that the point of rhetoric is to acquire

more wisdom and gain more discernment for the purpose of better understanding our

world. To create more discerning consumers, interpreters and producers of messages is to

contribute to the quality of our lives. Cain speaks directly and honestly about how our

world has previously understood the role of introverts and extroverts in this artifact,

which was restrictive and unjustly biased. Her contribution was one of strong emphasis

on the power of your own personal story as a rhetor and how evaluating the structure and

function of our own systems can lead to innovative ideas and suggestions. Through the

extensive analysis, the factors—both internal and external—that led Susan Cain to be

motivated to appeal to this particular audience have become more evident. Her own

struggle with 1) her own introverted self in an extroverted world 2) influence from

historic leaders and 3) drive to see a world more to be themselves in all areas of life

(education, vocation, family, etc.) have all contributed to this speech’s exclusive concerns

and obvious signs of effectiveness.

Neo-Aristotelian criticism has revealed something keen about human discourse.

There is an effective way—such as Susan Cain’s speech concerning personality types—

that a speaker can relay a specific message and get the desired response in a certain

situation. This artifact presented itself as innovative for 1) the power of story 2) the

power of commonality in experience and lifestyle and 3) the power of the voices of

historic figures from our past. Susan Cain represents these three factors effortlessly and in

a way that is engaging for the average viewer. In light of the fact that Susan Cain’s TED

talk was a video streamed on the internet, finding if the rhetor received the desired

response from the audience is much more difficult. Fortunately, we live in a socialized

“media world” that is familiar with live feedback/commentary and second nature to our

Internet use. Anything posted will be commented on, whether it is Facebook, Twitter or

Tumblr. This TED Talk’s feedback was no different. The artifact, as of now, has received

3,264,335 views. This number was acquired from the TED.com link. However, across all

platforms (Youtube, downloads, etc.), total views typically double that number.

In light of communication criticism, her speech has been seen as purposefully

increasing the quality of our existence by giving the audience new lens to gaze into this

issue. Contrary to popular belief, introverts are not awkward, shy geeks that hide in their

rooms while the world remains a pulsating activity. There is a place for the mindful and

heartfelt introvert. When that space is threatened, the world—on a more dramatic scale—

suffers.