CAT 1: Media Seductions The Beginning: Plato and Aristotle Elizabeth Losh

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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 BCE – 1100 BCE Linear B ca. 1375−1200 BCE Collapse ca BCE Homer ca. 850 BCE Earliest Inscriptions in the Ancient Greek alphabet 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 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.”