Reflection #1

This past week we focused on Rhetoric – the Art of Persuasion - through the writings of Gorgias’s Encomium of Helen.  We also discussed Plato’s Republic Books II, III and X.  In addition, we viewed a clip of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.   

I really enjoyed the class discussion of Gorgias the most.  I was reminded that it was important to take into consideration the historical context of the writing; something I failed to do at the start.  It was easy to form an opinion that Gorgias should not have defended Helen for her actions of cheating on her husband, thus leading to the Trojan War, given that we all have free will and are responsible for our own choices.  This makes sense in our century, however, in understanding the historical time of the writing and the belief system during that period, it started to make more sense of why Gorgias argued in her defense.  Several things came into consideration.  First, he argued that because she was a descendant from the gods, she stirred passion in men who could not resist her beauty.   The fact that she may have just fallen in love was another consideration.  Gorgias also stated that through the art of persuasion through speech, this may have persuaded her soul.  Finally, maybe it was just her destiny to be fulfilled. 

In the end, Gorgias makes it clear that there could have been many things that would have been the driving force for Helen to make her choices and that despite her cheating, she should be forgiven and not held accountable for her actions or the Trojan War.

In Plato’s Republic, we learned that he demands censorship of all writings.  He believes that poetry is a lie, psychologically damaging, and because people are impressionable from what they read, these untruths will corrupt the readers.  He also felt this way about plays. 

In the Allegory of the Cave video clip, we saw prisoners being held in a cave, unable to move their bodies and heads which were forced to look straight ahead.  A fire was lit behind the prisoners and a few workers would hold up cut-outs of animals and people and cast the shadow on the cave wall.  When a prisoner was freed and brought up into the sunlight, he learned that he could not trust what was real.  The correlation between clip and Plato’s views are that nothing is real, everything is in a shadow and that poetry is twice removed.