[Air-L] history of Plato's Phaedrus as example of moral / media panic?

[Charles M. Ess]

Dear Virginia and colleagues,

a thousand thanks for this - for many reasons, but especially two. 
First, you identify what in my reading is a highly influential text from 
1997 that seems to come close to characterizing the critique of writing 
in the Phaedrus as a media panic, if not a moral panic.  This is 12 
years earlier than one of the texts I'm looking more closely into.
Second, you make - with more detail and nuance - the points I would make 
about reading the dialogues, most especially in the Phaedrus, as 
strongly pedagogical in nature, as well as far more nuanced than the 
moral / media panic trope can do justice to.

FWIW, the associations with and illuminations vis-a-vis remix, etc. also 
make good sense to me - but this will require more attention and 
reflection on my part.
There's clearly a good paper or two in here ... hope to get to it one of 
these days.

Best of luck with your current insanities - again, a thousand thanks and 
all best,
- charles

On 25/04/2019 22:48, Virginia Kuhn wrote:
> Dear Charles,
> This may not be helpful but I did write a bit about Ong, Havelock, Plato 
> and new media in a piece called "The Rhetoric of Remix" (2012, 
> /Transformative Works and Cultures/). I've excerpted a few paragraphs 
> from the second section below (though it's open access 
> <https://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/article/view/358>): 
> in which I specifically speak to Plato's concerns about both writing and 
> poetics:
> 
>     [2.2] The concept of secondary orality advanced in Walter Ong's
>     (1982) work is premised on his chronicling of the progression of
>     oral culture to literate culture and, finally, to current secondary
>     or residual orality that combines characteristics of each. In
>     looking at Ong's list of features that characterize orality, we can
>     see many overlaps with remix: "additive rather than subordinative;
>     aggregative rather than analytic; redundant or 'copious';
>     conservative or traditionalist; close to the human lifeworld;
>     agonistically toned; empathetic and participatory rather than
>     objectively distanced; homeostatic; situational rather than
>     abstract" (37–49). However, Ong's work has far more to offer to
>     digital scholarship. In particular, his analysis of Homer and Plato
>     can help reveal the roots of current epistemological boundaries
>     between genres considered to be factual and those seen as fictive.
> 
>     [2.3] The collectively authored and formulaic nature of Homeric epic
>     poetry is old news; it is key to Janet Murray's (1997) notion of
>     cyberdrama, for instance. However, the link between Homer and
>     current conceptions of collaboratively authored narrative (or
>     digital storytelling, as it is increasingly being referred to) is
>     more tenuous than has been acknowledged. Milman Parry's research on
>     Homeric extant texts in the 1930s dashed the prevailing view of
>     Homer as a genius who single-handedly constructed masterpieces such
>     as the /Illiad/ and the /Odyssey,/ although his work was not
>     expanded on until about 30 years later, when Albert Lord extended
>     Parry's research on Homer to consider its implications for
>     performance and literature, and Eric Havelock, Ong's frequent
>     collaborator, used it to explore speech and literacy. The difference
>     in approach leads to differing conclusions about the boundaries
>     between literature and rhetoric. Parry's careful analysis of the
>     /Odyssey/ and the /Iliad/ revealed them to be highly formulaic, and
>     as Ong explains, "The meaning of the Greek term 'rhapsodize,'
>     /rhapsoidein,/ 'to stitch song together,' became ominous: Homer
>     stitched together prefabricated parts. Instead of a creator, you had
>     an assembly-line worker" (1982, 22). Immediately we can see that the
>     current connotation of /rhapsody/ is far more romantic and poetic
>     than its original meaning; indeed, this view of rhapsody evokes
>     sewing and its analogy to film editing as well as to remix (as clips
>     are stitched together), none of which have traditionally been seen
>     as particularly creative endeavors. From a discursive view, however,
>     these prefabricated parts are necessary when one must transmit
>     knowledge orally; it must be repeated to be remembered and passed on
>     to others, so formulaic thought was "essential for wisdom and
>     effective administration" (Ong 1982, 24). In this light, Homeric
>     epic was not the province of entertainment but of governance. These
>     prefabricated parts also change slightly with each retelling over
>     the centuries, and so the /Iliad/ and the /Odyssey,/ when analyzed,
>     are shown to be a patchwork of "early and late Aeolic and Ionic
>     peculiarities" (23) whose forms were reified during the centuries
>     after the invention of the Greek alphabet as they were written down.
>     It would be misguided to see Homeric poetry as consonant with the
>     current conception of literature, which is framed as distinct from
>     rhetoric. In Homeric times, these distinctions did not exist. It
>     would be equally misguided to view this collective authorship as the
>     sort of crowd-sourced democratic practice many of us hope to attain
>     in digital space; the changes to the /Odyssey/ and the /Iliad/ took
>     place over centuries, as is evidenced by their blend of alphabetic
>     conventions, and these blended wordings were not accomplished by
>     people using language, as idioms are, but by the few who had the
>     means to write: poets and scribes working for the ruling classes. In
>     this sense, it was a broadcast medium: it could not be interrogated,
>     only consumed.
> 
>     [2.4] Similarly, Plato is widely known for having banished the poets
>     from his ideal Republic as well as for having condemned writing.
>     Scholars cite passages from Plato's /Republic/ in the former case,
>     and the/ Phaedrus/ and the/ Seventh Letter/ in the latter. For
>     instance, in /Hamlet on the Holodeck,/ Janet Murray (1997) posits
>     Plato's attack on Homer as merely one instantiation of the perennial
>     fear of "every powerful new representational technology," noting
>     that "we hear versions of the same terror in the biblical injunction
>     against worshipping graven images; in the Homeric depiction of the
>     alluring Sirens' songs, drawing sailors to their death; and in
>     Plato's banishing of the poet from his republic" (18). Citing Parry
>     and Lord, she goes on to argue: "A stirring narrative in any medium
>     can be experienced as a virtual reality because our brains are
>     programmed to tune into stories with an intensity that can
>     obliterate the world around us. This siren power of narrative is
>     what made Plato distrust the poets as a threat to the Republic"
>     (98). For Murray, then, Plato was simply terrified by narrative and
>     its immersive quality. This allows her to champion cyberdrama as
>     merely an extension of older forms of literature and a universal
>     human need for stories. However, even as current readings of ancient
>     texts are destined to be somewhat anachronistic, certain facts are
>     difficult to dispute. One such fact is that far from being a new
>     form of representation, the oral structure of the Homeric epic was a
>     centuries-old form by the time of Plato. As Ong's work reveals, it
>     was actually the tropes of orality that, after the invention of the
>     alphabet, no longer functioned as noetic (that is, being of the
>     thought world, or of intelligence); instead, they called attention
>     to themselves as mediated and dogmatic. Indeed, once these epics
>     were written down, they essentially became obsolete. Their forms and
>     attendant iconography, so useful for oral delivery, seem rudimentary
>     and jingoistic when the repetition no longer served.
> 
>     [2.5] In this light, Plato's derision of Homer was actually a
>     denunciation of the outdated and counterproductive structures of
>     knowledge transmission characterized by oral epics because their
>     mythos blocked, rather than encouraged, the acquisition of real
>     knowledge. The grievance was not intrinsically about narrative but
>     rather an indictment of an inferior and ineffective example of the
>     exteriorization of knowledge in a form that is static. Indeed, for
>     Plato, wisdom came via a dialogic process, not from simply absorbing
>     a text whose veracity could not be subjected to interrogation. This
>     view is strengthened by looking at Plato's notorious attack on
>     writing, which needs qualification, particularly because it was done
>     /in/ writing—and, some would argue, often poetically at that.
> 
>     [2.6] Plato's 30-plus dialogues did not faithfully represent an
>     actual conversation but were instead used as epistemological and
>     pedagogical guides, using the voice of Plato's teacher, Socrates.
>     The/ Phaedrus,/ one of most prominent of the Socratic dialogues, is
>     presented as the script of a conversation between Socrates and his
>     frequent interlocutor, Phaedrus, while walking through the
>     countryside on the outskirts of Athens. It is clearly dramatized,
>     with characters named, although there is no narrator to intrude on
>     or mediate the conversation. Phaedrus has just attended a speech on
>     the nature of love, which sparks a conversation about knowledge,
>     learning, and wisdom. When the talk turns to writing, Socrates
>     notes, "I cannot help feeling, Phaedrus, that writing is
>     unfortunately like painting: for the creations of the painter have
>     the attitude of life, and yet if you ask them a question, they
>     preserve a solemn silence" (Jowatt 2006, 278-12). As we see from
>     this passage, the complaint is less about writing per se and more
>     about the incomplete nature of the representation, compounded by the
>     inability to speak back to a text, to be an interlocutor. One must
>     simply accept what the text says without the veracity achieved by
>     understanding the process by which it came to be, and without the
>     ability to gauge the credibility of the author. For Plato, this
>     process// was most important because real wisdom was deeper than its
>     exteriorization in speech, writing, or images. In other words, the
>     shortcomings of any form of representation can be mitigated by the
>     ability to question, interact, and evaluate utterances. If these
>     texts could be conversational, there is little reason to conclude
>     that Plato would not also view them as pedagogical. Indeed, Plato
>     himself wrote a great deal, and perhaps the naming of interlocutors
>     in his dialogues was an early form of citation. Further, the analogy
>     to painting is interesting, not least because visual texts have
>     remained nondialogic until recently. Today, however, the remixer
>     becomes an interlocutor in the digital conversation, one who can
>     question the formal boundaries of a print-literate culture and one
>     whose efforts often expose the process of creation.
> 
> I hope to catch up on this very interesting thread once I get past some 
> insanity.
> cheers,
> Virginia Kuhn
> 
> On Wed, Apr 24, 2019 at 9:37 AM 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
>     <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.hf.uio.no_imk_english_people_aca_charlees_index.html&d=DwICAg&c=clK7kQUTWtAVEOVIgvi0NU5BOUHhpN0H8p7CSfnc_gI&r=oBnuKIJVqxq7Y-shoo-YGLGm1mz27PoesODVkpGFdGI&m=W7i-Cb61IIyMUQ6y1RgwXjcqIqPbe-rgUrM9f6exz7g&s=0XRFag7j5fL2KUE-eItsIahze5OKdJQ3km6smylaWVA&e=>
> 
>     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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> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Virginia Kuhn, PhD
> Professor of Cinema
> Media Arts + Practice Division
> School of Cinematic Arts
> University of Southern California
> http://virginiakuhn.net/
> Twitter: @vkuhn

-- 
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