Antony and Brutus Coercion

Antony and Brutus Coercion

Brutus and Marc Antony’s Coercion

In Coercion, Douglas Rushkoff explains how easily people are easily coerced. For example, Rushkoff states that people are convinced by car salesman to pay more for a car than they wanted to. In Julius Caesar, Marc Antony asks to speak at the funeral of his dear friend, Julius Caesar, after one of the murderers, Brutus, speaks. Brutus convinces the Romans that Caesar would be a tyrant if he did not murder him, while Antony convinces the Romans that Caesar is not ambitious and there would never be another ruler like Caesar. The art of public speaking is important in the past and present.

Rushkoff explains that “they” coerce humans to think a certain way on a topic. He also asks, “Who are ‘they,’and why do we listen to them?” He states that each person has a different “they”, and defines “they” as those who seem to decide how lives are to be run and control fate and futures. He states that the best manipulation occurs when the exploitation is not detected. He disapproves of coercion because it takes advantage of susceptible human minds. Marc Antony, as well as Brutus, uses the undetected technique of coercion on the Romans. Brutus speaks first to the Romans and tells them that he and others have murdered Julius Caesar, but it is for the good of the country. Brutus claims that his reasoning behind the mutiny is that he loved Rome more than he loved Caesar. Brutus asks the Romans if they would rather be enslaved with Caesar living, or free with Caesar dead. Brutus kills Caesar because he was too ambitious. Now in Brutus’s speech, he has coerced the Romans into believing that the murder of Caesar is just. He asks the Romans whom he has offended by loving Rome more than any other, and he does not receive a response. In Brutus’s short speech, he convinces the people that Caesar was a tyrant and that he does Rome a favor by betraying Caesar.

Just as Brutus used passive coercion, Marc Antony also speaks to the Romans with the same technique. Antony gets on the pulpit and starts to speak of the Romans as people just like him, he does not place himself above the Romans, unlike Brutus. Antony begins his speech by agreeing with Brutus, which he had promised Brutus he would do.