[Air-L] history of Plato's Phaedrus as example of moral / media panic?
Aaron Hung
aaron.chiayuanhung at gmail.com
Wed Apr 24 11:12:01 PDT 2019
What a fascinating discussion! And coincidentally, I came across this just
last night when reading *Paper *by Mark Kurlansky.
In terms of how this notion of moral panic has been attributed, fairly or
not and accurate or not, to Plato, I trace my own familiarity to this
argument to my first introduction to Walter Ong, who wrote in *Orality and
Literacy
<http://dss-edit.com/prof-anon/sound/library/Ong_orality_and_literacy.pdf>:
"*Writing, Plato has Socrates say in the *Phaedrus*, is inhuman, pretending
to establish outside the mind what in reality can be only in the mind. It
is a thing, a manufactured product. The same of course is said of
computers. Secondly, Plato’s Socrates urges, writing destroys memory. Those
who use writing will become forgetful, relying on an external resource for
what they lack in internal resources. Writing weakens the mind. Today,
parents and others fear that pocket calculators provide an external
resource for what ought to be the internal resource of memorized
multiplication tables. Calculators weaken the mind, relieve it of the work
that keeps it strong. Thirdly, a written text is basically unresponsive. If
you ask a person to explain his or her statement, you can get an
explanation; if you ask a text, you get back nothing except the same, often
stupid, words which called for your question in the first place. In the
modern critique of the computer, the same objection is put, ‘Garbage in,
garbage out’. Fourthly, in keeping with the agonistic mentality of oral
cultures, Plato’s Socrates also holds it against writing that the written
word cannot defend itself as the natural spoken word can: real speech and
thought always exist essentially in a context of give-and-take between real
persons.Writing is passive, out of it, in an unreal, unnatural world. So
are computers...." (p. 78).
This juxtaposition between what Plato said about writing and how people
said/say about computers may have led to some of the comparisons
you mentioned.
- Aaron Hung
On Wed, Apr 24, 2019 at 1:56 PM Charles M. Ess <c.m.ess at media.uio.no> wrote:
> Hi Thomas,
>
> thanks, and forgive me for being somewhat vague in this regard.
> I'm reluctant to provide specific examples because my intent is not to
> develop or direct a critique against specific authors / colleagues, or
> even give the impression thereof. It is rather, as stated, a genuine
> concern that I've missed something somehow and am curious about the
> history of the trope.
>
> So perhaps a generic description will do? An author/s seek to build a
> case that criticisms of a specific new media technology / use are
> somehow off the mark or misleading as the these criticisms can rather be
> understood to fit the model of a media panic. E.g., Tindr and other
> hook-up apps are not necessarily the end of real romance and deep
> relationships; these reactions are rather a media panic - one that
> overlooks several positives uncovered by more careful / empirical analysis.
>
> To be sure, such an account can be built - and, in my reading, often so
> - quite carefully and successfully.
>
> Often, these accounts (rightly) draw on Kirsten Drotner's Dangerous
> Media? Panic Discourses and Dilemmas of Modernity, Paedagogica
> Historica: International Journal of the History of Education, 35:3, 593-619
> http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0030923990350303
> To be explicit, Kirsten does _not_ invoke Plato or the Phaedrus, but
> rather begins her exquisite account with panics surrounding print media.
> In addition, building in part on the work of Stanley Cohen (1972),
> Kirsten develops a very helpful taxonomy of primary criteria of such
> panics.
>
> At least on occasion, however, as the argument continues, in providing a
> few examples of earlier moral / media panics to helpfully illustrate
> what these are, an author will further invoke the mythos of the
> invention of writing in the Phaedrus as just such an example of a media
> / moral panic. Doing so aims at establishing a (broad) conclusion to
> the effect that we always panic with the emergence of new media - but
> this is more or less absurd, i.e., look at Plato's critique of writing.
> By the same token, critiques of new technology X (e.g., Tindr, but the
> list is all but endless, of course) are (ridiculous) media / moral
> panics and so critiques of new technology X can be easily dismissed.
>
> (There's a second logical problem in at least some examples of this
> argument - namely, the fallacy of affirming the consequent. Roughly:
> If you have a strong example of a moral / media panic --> (then) you
> will find X out of Y criteria (as listed by Drotner and/or others).
> SO: if I find X out of Y criteria surrounding media coverage of new
> technology x --> THEN I can conclude the criticisms included here are
> but instances of moral panic and, by implication, deserve no further
> attention.
> This is a variation of the social science chestnut that correlation does
> not equal causation.)
>
> I hope this helps give a better sense of the argument strand / trope I'm
> curious about?
>
> Again, many thanks
> - c.
>
> On 24/04/2019 18:50, Thomas Ball wrote:
> > Dr Ess-
> > This is a challenging query. One thing that might help orient
> > potential respondents would be for you to cite one or two articles
> > exemplifying "moral / media panics that
> > consistently invoke Plato's _myth_ of the invention of writing."
> > As it is, we're left guessing what you have in mind.
> > Thank you,
> > Best regards,
> > Thomas
> >
> > On Wed, Apr 24, 2019 at 12:37 PM Charles M. Ess <c.m.ess at media.uio.no
> > <mailto:c.m.ess at media.uio.no>> wrote:
> >
> > Dear AoIRists,
> >
> > Please be kind and patient with me, recalling that my formal academic
> > training was in history of philosophy, German literature, and ancient
> > Greek. I am comparatively still a little wet around the ears with
> > regard to media and communication studies - or so it seems in this
> > instance.
> >
> > I keep encountering discussions of moral / media panics that
> > consistently invoke Plato's _myth_ of the invention of writing.
> >
> > This seemingly standard invocation puzzles me greatly for a long
> > list of
> > reasons. I include a short list below for anyone with time and
> > interest
> > in looking them over.
> >
> > The upshot is that I'm left wondering: who - and when - introduced
> what
> > has apparently become received tradition in these domains that the
> > mythos (see "2" below) of the invention of writing in the Phaedrus
> is a
> > prime or supportive example moral or media panic?
> >
> > This is, as they say in administration-speak, an appreciative
> inquiry.
> > I'm genuinely curious for the sake of better understanding how this
> > trope first appeared, etc - as well as genuine worried that I may
> have
> > somehow missed something that is considered elementary and obvious
> for
> > those of you with academic training more directly within media and
> > communication studies.
> >
> > Many thanks in advance for any enlightenment and eludation!
> > best,
> > - charles ess
> >
> > PS: The short list includes:
> > 1) the account is taken (bloody and screaming) out of the context of
> > the
> > larger dialogue in the Phaedrus. When read within the larger context
> -
> > beginning with (the young) Phaedrus' effort to impress (perhaps
> seduce)
> > Socrates by memorizing a speech he has copied down on a scroll and
> > initially tries to hide from Socrates - the mythos works much more
> > immediately as a lightly veiled (and hence, pedagogically speaking,
> > likely more successful) chastisement of Phaedrus' efforts at
> > dissimulation. By no means a wholesale critique of writing per se.
> > 2) The account is explicitly delivered as a _mythos_ - too easily
> > translated as a "myth." But: a _mythos_ in Plato is a technical /
> > philosophical form, going well beyond and in some ways directly
> > contradicting more everyday notions of "myth" as a false story; a
> > mythos
> > is specifically an _oral_ story, with its own set of distinctive
> > strengths and limitations. It is often used in Plato when
> > interlocutors,
> > attempting to pursue a reasoned argument (logos), come to an impass.
> > The relation between mythos and logos is hence often complementary,
> not
> > contradictory.
> > 3) It would seem very odd for an author of multiple dialogues, of
> > sometimes staggering sophistication and literary nuance, to sincerely
> > believe that writing is somehow an entirely suspect technology.
> > Different from orality, certainly, as is suggested by the consistent
> > presentation of Socrates as an oral teacher, the careful use of
> mythos
> > vs. logos, etc. - but hardly an example of media / moral panic.
> > And so on.
> > Again: what am I missing?
> >
> > Again, many thanks,
> > - c.
> > --
> > Professor in Media Studies
> > Department of Media and Communication
> > University of Oslo
> > <http://www.hf.uio.no/imk/english/people/aca/charlees/index.html>
> >
> > Postboks 1093
> > Blindern 0317
> > Oslo, Norway
> > c.m.ess at media.uio.no <mailto:c.m.ess at media.uio.no>
> > _______________________________________________
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>
> --
> Professor in Media Studies
> Department of Media and Communication
> University of Oslo
> <http://www.hf.uio.no/imk/english/people/aca/charlees/index.html>
>
> Postboks 1093
> Blindern 0317
> Oslo, Norway
> c.m.ess at media.uio.no
> _______________________________________________
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