[Air-L] history of Plato's Phaedrus as example of moral / media panic?
Charles M. Ess
c.m.ess at media.uio.no
Wed Apr 24 11:24:14 PDT 2019
Again, many thanks -
On 24/04/2019 20:08, Mark D. Johns wrote:
> Walter Ong draws on Phaedrus in his 1982 Orality & Literacy. He may be
> the one who opened the box. However, Ong does not address moral panic,
> merely the contrast between orality and literacy, and the suspicion of
> all new media.
Yes, and he is careful to note Plato's own complex understanding of the
two - i.e., in line with Postman's emphasis on arguments both pro and con:
Plato's relationship to orality was thoroughly ambiguous. On the one
hand, in the Phaedrus and the Seventh Letter he downgraded writing in
favor of oral speech, and thus is phonocentric. On the other hand, when,
in his Republic, he proscribed poets, he did so, as Havelock shows,
because they stood for the old oral, mnemonic world of imitation,
aggregative, redundant, copious, traditionalist, warmly human,
participatory—a world antipathetic to the analytic, sparse, exact,
abstract, visualist, immobile world of the 'ideas' which Plato was touting.
Ong, Walter J.. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word
(New Accents) . Taylor & Francis. Kindle Edition, location 3061
The hunt is on!
best,
- c.
> --
> Mark D. Johns, Ph.D.
> Professor Emeritus of Communication Studies
> at Luther College, Decorah, Iowa USA
> now residing in Minneapolis, MN
> -----------------------------------------------
> "Get the facts first. You can distort them later."
> ---Mark Twain
>
> On Wed, Apr 24, 2019 at 12:52 PM Charles M. Ess <c.m.ess at media.uio.no> wrote:
>>
>> Dear Amparo,
>>
>> many thanks - an excellent summary
>>
>> On 24/04/2019 19:26, AMPARO LASEN DIAZ wrote:
>>> Dear Charles and Aoir list,
>>>
>>> I think this relates to the link between writing and memory and Plato's
>>> account of Socrate's consideration of writing as pharmakon, a greek term
>>> meaning remedy and poison. So for instance, writing could allow for
>>> preparing speeches, and being persuasive, beyond the power of one's own
>>> memory, thus being a remedy for the limitations of our capacity to
>>> memorize.
>> Yes, precisely - this is the object lesson, I would argue, that Socrates
>> (as re-presented by Plato) is attempting to urge on the young Phaedrus,
>> who, it may be argued, runs the risk of being overly impressed / taken
>> with what he can do with this relatively new technology.
>>
>>
>>> But at the same time if we rely on writing and stop
>>> memorizing, people, specially young learners could lose or reduce the
>>> capacity of their memory.
>> Yes, but this is to some degree a strawman, i.e., a fasle either/or that
>> I don't see in the original story - as Postman also points out.
>>
>>> Derrida aldo deploys the idea of writing as
>>> pharmakon. The moral panic not only relates to losing the training of
>>> memory, but also to the moral value Socrates and Plato give to memory
>>> and to learning by memory, which will aldo be lost if young pupils rely
>>> mainly on writing instead of memory and orality. This reflection and
>>> considerations are places in Socrate's and Plato's critique of sofistes,
>>> a kind of professional writers producing speeches and persuasive
>>> arguments, acused of not being guided by the pursuit of truth but by
>>> spurious or manipulative interests
>> Again, spot on, so far as I can tell / recall - but none of this fits
>> with moral or media panic _per se_, as I try to make somewhat clearer in
>> my response to Thomas Ball.
>>>
>>> Hope it could help, just a quick answer from my memories of reading that
>>> text.
>> It helps me at least enormously. Again, many thanks!
>> - c.
>>>
>>> All the best
>>>
>>> Amparo Lasen
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> El mié., 24 abr. 2019 18:38, Charles M. Ess <c.m.ess at media.uio.no
>>> <mailto:c.m.ess at media.uio.no>> escribió:
>>>
>>> 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
>> _______________________________________________
>> The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
>> is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
>> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
>>
>> Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
>> http://www.aoir.org/
--
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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