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CAT 1: Media Seductions
The Beginning: Plato and Aristotle
Elizabeth Losh
http://losh.ucsd.edu
The Writing Studio
Is Open!
Lia Friedman
CAT Librarian
The Thesis of the Week
Plato cautioned that the “new media” of ancient Athens
might corrupt the young with harmful images, erase
traditional forms of memory, foster deception, and encourage
blasphemous behavior among those who would copy the
basest forms of representation. Aristotle argued against
Plato’s theory of mimesis or imitation to assert instead that
media experiences could trigger a positive catharsis that
would purge the audience of negative emotions. Thus, for
Aristotle, new media teaches rather than tempts.
Although the Age of Sensibility introduced some new ideas
about media reception, our cultural conversation about
videogames in the United States shows that we have not
moved far from the basic terms of debate that go back to
Classical Athens.
Themes Thus Far
Violence and Representation
Gender, Race, and Class + Age
New Genres and New Media
Culture, Art, and Technology
Viewing the Past for the School of Athens
Polis
Literate Culture
Oikos
Oral-Formulaic Culture
Bread as a Technology
What does bread signify?
What does it take to make bread?
What does bread make possible?
Writing as a Technology
Bronze Age Mycenaean Greece ca. 1600 BCE –
1100 BCE
Linear B ca. 1375−1200 BCE
Collapse ca. 1200-1150 BCE
Homer ca. 850 BCE
Earliest Inscriptions in
the Ancient Greek alphabet
770-750 BCE
Money as a Technology
600 BCE coins made in Asia Minor from precious
metals for trade
500 BCE city-states minting their own coins
Athenian silver drachma
How did philosophers in the School of Athens see
their own proximity to oral-formulaic culture?
Socrates 469 BCE-399 BCE
Plato 424/423 BCE-348/347 BCE
Aristotle 384 BCE-322 BCE
Alexander 356-323 BCE
The Phaedrus
Writing and Rhetoric
“We should, then, as we were proposing
just now, discuss the theory of good (or
bad) speaking and writing.”
[259e]
Recurring characters:
From Republic II Thrasymachus: “Justice is
nothing but the advantage of the strong”
on the Ring of Gyges
From Symposium
Eryximachus and Euripedes
Phaedrus 258b
The Desire for Posterity
“Then if this speech is approved,
the writer leaves the theater in
great delight; but if it is not
recorded and he is not granted
the privilege of speech-writing
and is not considered worthy to
be an author, he is grieved, and
his friends with him.”
“making fun of our discourse” [264e]
“A bronze maiden am I; and I
am placed upon the tomb of
Midas. So long as water runs
and tall trees put forth leaves,
Remaining in this very spot
upon a much lamented tomb, I
shall declare to passers by that
Midas is buried here; and you
perceive, I fancy, that it makes
no difference whether any line
of it is put first or last.”
The Myth of Thoth [274c-e]
“’This invention, O king,”
said Theuth, ‘will make the
Egyptians wiser and will
improve their memories; for
it is an elixir of memory and
wisdom that I have
discovered.’ But Thamus
replied, ‘Most ingenious
Theuth, one man has the
ability to beget arts, but the
ability to judge of their
usefulness or harmfulness
to their users belongs to
another.’”
A Device for Forgetting
[275a]
“and now you, who are the father of letters, have been led
by your affection to ascribe to them a power the opposite
of that which they really possess. For this invention will
produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to
use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their
trust in writing, produced by external characters which are
no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own
memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of
memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the
appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read
many things without instruction and will therefore seem
[275b] to know many things, when they are for the most
part ignorant and hard to get along with, since they are not
wise, but only appear wise.”
Is Writing Interactive Enough
for Civic Discourse? [275d]
“Writing, Phaedrus, has this strange quality,
and is very like painting; for the creatures of
painting stand like living beings, but if one
asks them a question, they preserve a solemn
silence. And so it is with written words; you
might think they spoke as if they had
intelligence, but if you question them, wishing
to know about their sayings, they always say
only one and the same thing.”
Orphaned Words
“And every word, when [275e] once it is
written, is bandied about, alike among those
who understand and those who have no
interest in it, and it knows not to whom to
speak or not to speak; when ill-treated or
unjustly reviled it always needs its father to
help it; for it has no power to protect or help
itself.”