Katz- The Ethic of Expediency

Carlisle Sargent | 3/26/2014

Title: The Ethic of Expediency: Classical Rhetoric, Technology, and the Holocaust

Author: Steven B. Katz

Overview: Katz’s article begins with a rhetorical analysis of a memo written by a Nazi official named Just during the Holocaust. The document, which acts as a jumping-off point for Katz’s argument, describes the need for certain structural and technical changes to be implemented for vehicles used for mobile extermination practices. Once Katz analyzes the document and identifies the obvious problems with its overall message (as well as its utter success as a technical document), he explores his concept of “the ethic of expediency”—including its meanings and consequences for modern Western society.

“In most deliberative rhetoric, the focus is on expediency, on technical criteria as a means to an end” (257). Katz is arguing that within Just’s document, as well as most technical document, the goal is to attain a technical goal at all costs. This creates an ethos of “objectivity, logic, and narrow focus”, and this ethos is exactly what writers and professional adopt from organizations they represent. In the case of the document Katz presents us, the writer simply adopted the ethos of the Nazi party to complete a job he was assigned. Katz argues that the ethic of expediency was used throughout the Holocaust as an “adequate moral basis for making decisions”, and that the same basis is used today.

“Ethos...is an essential link between deliberation and action” (259). Katz argues that technical writing almost always leads to an action of some kind. Indeed, while the Aristotelian concept of logos acts as “the consideration of the means necessary to act”, pathos and ethos are the motivation to act. According to Katz, epistemology leads to ethics, which easily could lead to an ethic of expediency.

This tension between rhetoric and ethics is evident in Aristotle’s Rhetoric, which Katz goes on to say “gives us a practical ethic for technical writing and deliberative discourse, an ethic based almost entirely on expediency” (261). From here, Katz discusses Aristotle’s philosophy on the ultimate goals of rhetoric in more detail, which are somewhat morphed when looking at our Western culture’s shift from a “polis”-centered existence to a more individualistic society. Katz argues that this evolution of Western culture and emphasis on deliberative discourse, capitalism, and individualism are all reasons that led (in part) to the Holocaust.

“Hitler understood—all too well—that his political program for world war and mass extermination would not be accepted without a moral foundation” (263). Katz writes that in Hitler’s speeches, conversations, and writings, the ethic of expediency was directly employed. Hitler knew that he would not be able to use violence until he convinced his people of the moral purpose of “a means to an end”. Expediency became the basis of “virtue” by two means: politics and technology. In political terms, Hitler argued for the practicality of overtaking Europe and allowing the Aryan race to rise to their full potential, which involved removing the impediment of lesser races. In technological terms, progress (scientific findings, new technologies) became its own reason to act. Katz argues that Hitler believed (and convinced the German people) that if an action was technologically correct (the Just memo) then it is morally right (mass extinction of innocent people). Katz goes on to argue that “technology is the embodiment of pure expediency” (266).

“We must always look at rhetoric in the context of historical, political, social, and economic conditions which govern the nature and use of rhetoric in culture” (269). Katz argues that expediency cannot be given free reign, and indeed, that modern society is still very much affected by the problematic view that technology (and therefore expediency) is infallible.