Phaedrus is a dialogue between the main characters Phaedrus and Socretes all about language and rhetoric which is perfect for our class! Plato was so intelligent, his level of thinking in 370 BC is even hard for me to grasp, imagine what he could've done if he had the resources we have today with the internet and the language as it has evolved currently.
He talked about how when words are spoken they cannot be taken back. It reminded me of the discussion we had Wednesday in class about Chris Kluwe. He, and other celebrities, can delete their offensive tweets but they will still always be out there. People so easily screenshot celebrities tweets and even create fake tweets. I'm sure Plato would have a lot to say about the destruction of language through technology if he was still around.
The way this dialogue was structured reminded me so much of my Philosophy 101 class and all the philosophical dialogues we had to read. Specifically the dialogue by John Perry called A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality. It was about a woman on her death bed having a conversation with one of her friends about life after death. The friend claimed because we all have identities, there must be an afterlife. It was a very interesting argument, not sure if I bought the friend's reasoning though.
I remember reading that story in my Philosophy class too! I also agree about what you said concerning Kluwe’s tweets as well as how that demonstrates further what Plato was talking about when he described the destruction of language. Although I personally don’t have a twitter, I do find the idea of restricting oneself to about 140 words, and yet still being able to write a career-ending tweet, rather fascinating. I think the size limit and the speed, as well as the potential consequences of something so small as a tweet, says a lot about our culture today. Messages today are fast and have (due to their extensive availability to everyone) far greater power to cause damage/influence people’s thinking. Perhaps Plato foresaw the dangers of writing and misuse of rhetoric and was trying to point it out to his readers?
ReplyDeleteKatie-
ReplyDeleteYour connection to our class discussion about Kluwe's tweets is very interesting in regard to Plato and the Phaedrus. As tweets can be retweeted, screenshoted, and erased they are almost palimpsest-like. It would be interesting to figure out if a medium such as twitter would be considered base, neutral or noble writing. It also makes me wonder what Socrates' character would say about mediums like twitter, as he was so critical about writing so long ago. Also your connection to John Perry's dialogue is interesting. It stands to reason that many writers have pulled from Plato's ancient ideas, and it is monumental that we are still discussing them today.
I read Phaedrus in my classical rhetoric class, and after reading it a second time, I agree with your post and love your connection to a discussion we had in class. Only 140 characters can be posted, however, like Emily said, something as small as a tweet says a lot about our culture today. Look at celebrities. Anything they say can be retweeted, screenshoted and posted elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy your connection with Chris Kluwe and the Phaedrus. It is interesting to see how Plato wrote down his work, but did not believe that the art of writing would be beneficial to humans. If we connect his work to social media today, perhaps Plato did "predict" the future somehow. Writing has it flaws and when we use social media facets such as Twitter is not only changes the meaning we gather from writing on the internet, but has also eliminated the means to even have face to face interactions anymore.
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