CAT 1: Media Seductions
Media Influence and
the School of Athens
Elizabeth Losh
http://losh.ucsd.edu
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Addressing Counterarguments
Carr on Steven
Johnson’s work
How can the same
evidence be used to
support different
conclusions? (122-123)
CAT 1 Student Gil Olaes
did some more
detective work . . .
Johnson in Context 1
The intellectual nourishment of reading books is
so deeply ingrained in our assumptions that it's
hard to contemplate a different viewpoint. But as
McLuhan famously observed, the problem with
judging new cultural systems on their own terms
is that the presence of the recent past inevitably
colors your vision of the emerging form,
highlighting the flaws and imperfections. Games
have historically suffered from this syndrome,
largely because they have been contrasted with
the older conventions of reading.
Johnson in Context 2
To get around these prejudices, try this thought
experiment. Imagine an alternate world
identical to ours save one techno-historical
change: video games were invented and
popularized before books. In this parallel
universe, kids have been playing games for
centuries - and then these page-bound texts
come along and suddenly they're all the rage.
What would the teachers, and the parents, and
the cultural authorities have to say about this
frenzy of reading? I suspect it would sound
something like this:
Johnson in Context 3
Reading books chronically under stimulates the
senses. Unlike the longstanding tradition of
game-playing - which engages the child in a vivid,
three dimensional world filled with moving
images and musical soundscapes, navigated and
controlled with complex muscular movements –
books are simply a barren string of words on the
page. Only a small portion of the brain devoted to
processing written language is activated during
reading, while games engage the full range of the
sensory and motor cortices.
Johnson in Context 4
Books are also tragically isolating. While games have for many
years engaged the young in complex social relationships with
their peers, building and exploring worlds together, books force
the child to sequester him-or herself in a quiet space, shut off
from interaction with other children. These new "libraries" that
have arisen in recent years to facilitate reading activities are a
frightening sight: dozens of young children, normally so vivacious
and socially interactive, sitting alone in cubicles, reading silently,
oblivious to their peers. Many children enjoy reading books, of
course, and no doubt some of the flights of fancy conveyed by
reading have their escapist merits. But for a sizable percentage
of the population, books are downright discriminatory. The
craze of recent years cruelly taunts the 10 million Americans
who suffer from dyslexia, a condition that didn't even exist as a
condition until printed text came along to stigmatize its sufferers.
Johnson in Context 5
It should probably go without saying, but it probably goes
better with saying, that I don't agree with this argument. But
neither is it exactly right to say that its contentions are untrue.
The argument relies on a kind of amplified selectivity: it
foregrounds certain isolated properties of books, and then
projects worst-case scenarios based on these properties and
their potential effects on the "younger generation." But it
doesn't bring up any of the clear benefits of reading: the
complexity of argument and storytelling offered by the book
form; the stretching of the imagination triggered by reading
words on a page; the shared experience you get when everyone
is reading the same story.
Today We Will Look at Another One of
Carr’s Sources
Plato
• Born into an influential family
• Trained in philosophy, grammar,
music, and gymnastics by the top
teachers of his time
• Became a disciple of Cratylus and then Socrates
• May have traveled widely in the Mediterranean world
• Supposedly founded the Academy
• Wrote dozens of dialogues featuring Socrates
• May have been involved in the politics of Syracuse
Reading with Time and Place in Mind
School of Athens, Greece 450 BCE – 325 BCE
The Age of Sensibility in England 1750-1820
Pre-Civil War United States 1845-1860
U.S. Occupation of the Philippines 1899-1913
The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939
Weimar and Nazi Germany 1919-1933 and 19331945
World War II - U.S. War with Japan 1941-1945
The McCarthy Era in the United States 1947-1957
Urban England: A Clockwork Orange 1962 and 1971
The Post-9/11 World of Digital Media
Today’s Thesis
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.
How Do New Solutions Sometimes
Create New Problems?
“One would like to ask: is there, then, no
positive gain in pleasure, no unequivocal
increase in my feeling of happiness, if I
can, as often as I please, hear the voice
of a child of mine who is living hundreds
of miles away or if I can learn in the
shortest possible time after a friend has
reached his destination that he has come
through the long and difficult voyage
unharmed?? Does it mean nothing that
medicine has succeeded in enormously
reducing infant mortality and the danger
of infection for women in childbirth, and,
indeed, in considerably lengthening the
average life of a civilized man?”
Sigmund Freud,
Civilization and
Its Discontents
How Do New Solutions Sometimes
Create New Problems?
“If there had been no railway to conquer
distances, my child would never have left
his native town and I should need no
telephone to hear his voice; if travelling
across the ocean by ship had not been
introduced, my friend would not have
embarked on his sea-voyage and I should
not need a cable to relieve my anxiety
about him. What is the use of reducing
infantile mortality when it is precisely that
reduction which imposes the greatest
restraint on us in the begetting of children,
so that, taken all round, we nevertheless
rear no more children than in the days
before the reign of hygiene, while at the
same time we have created difficult
Sigmund Freud,
Civilization and
Its Discontents
Bread as a Technology
What does bread signify?
What does it take to make bread?
What does bread make possible?
“seemed no man at all of those who
eat good wheaten bread”
The Odyssey, Eighth Century B.C.
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
Writing as a Technology
Bronze Age Mycenaean Greece ca. 1600 BCE –
1100 BCE
Linear B ca. 1375−1200 BCE
Collapse ca. 1200-1150 BCE
Homer ca. 850 BCE
Earliest Inscriptions in
the Ancient Greek alphabet
770-750 BCE
A Time of Rapid Transition
Polis
Literate Culture
Oikos
Oral-Formulaic Culture
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 356-323 BCE
Plato in the Gorgias:
Rhetoric vs. Philosophy
‘
cosmetics vs. gymnastics
Plato in the Gorgias:
Rhetoric vs. Philosophy
‘
pastries vs. medicine
The Technologies of Delivery
Theater of Syracuse
Theater of Epidaurus
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.”
The Doctrine of Impression
in The Republic
“Do you not know, then, that the beginning in every
task is the chief thing, especially for any creature that is
young and tender? [377b] For it is then that it is best
molded and takes the impression that one wishes to
stamp upon it.” “Quite so.”
Plato in the Republic:
Theatre and Imitation
The argument for banishing poets
Plato on Censorship
“Shall we, then, thus lightly suffer our children
to listen to any chance stories fashioned by
any chance teachers and so to take into their
minds opinions for the most part contrary to
those that we shall think it desirable for them
to hold when they are grown up?” “By no
manner of means will we allow it.” “We must
begin, then, it seems, by a censorship [377c]
over our storymakers, and what they do well
we must pass and what not, reject.
The Story of Kronos
“Even if they were true I should not think that
they ought to be thus lightly told to
thoughtless young persons.” Republic 378a
“but if any poets compose a
'Sorrows of Niobe,' the poem
that contains these iambics,
or a tale of the Pelopidae or
of Troy, or anything else of
the kind, we must either
forbid them to say that these
woes are the work of God, or
they must devise some such
interpretation as we now
require, and must declare
that what God [380b] did
was righteous and good, and
they were benefited by their
chastisement.
How is emotion gendered?
[387e]
“’Then he makes the least
lament and bears it most
moderately when any such
misfortune overtakes him’
‘Certainly.’ ‘Then we
should be right in doing
away with the
lamentations of men of
note and in attributing
them to women.’”
The Allegory of the Cave
[514a]
“’Next’ said I, ‘compare our nature in respect of education
and its lack to such an experience as this. Picture men
dwelling in a sort of subterranean cavern with a long
entrance open to the light on its entire width. Conceive
them as having their legs and necks fettered from
childhood, so that they remain in the same spot, [514b]
able to look forward only, and prevented by the fetters
from turning their heads. Picture further the light from a
fire burning higher up and at a distance behind them, and
between the fire and the prisoners and above them a road
along which a low wall has been built, as the exhibitors of
puppet-shows have partitions before the men themselves,
above which they show the puppets.’”
Plato in the Republic:
The Allegory of the Cave
The Doctrine of Mimesis [595a]
The Argument for Banishing Poets in X
“’What about it?’ he said. ‘In refusing to admit at
all so much of it as is imitative; for that it is
certainly not to be received is, I think, [595b] still
more plainly apparent now that we have
distinguished the several parts of the soul.”
“What do you mean?” “Why, between
ourselves—for you will not betray me to the
tragic poets and all other imitators—that kind of
art seems to be a corruption of the mind of all
listeners who do not possess, as an antidote a
knowledge of its real nature.”
Plato in the Republic:
The Theory of Mimesis
Couch-makers and Playwrights
“’What will you say he is in relation to the
couch?’ [597e] ‘This,’ said he, ‘seems to me the
most reasonable designation for him, that he is
the imitator of the thing which those others
produce.’ ‘Very good,’ said I; ‘the producer of the
product three removes from nature you call the
imitator?’ ‘By all means,’ he said. ‘This, then, will
apply to the maker of tragedies also, if he is an
imitator and is in his nature three removes from
the king and the truth, as are all other imitators.”
‘It would seem so.’ ‘We are in agreement, then,
about the imitator.’”
Homer’s Real Calling
[600c]
“‘Why, yes, that is the tradition,’ said I; ‘but do
you suppose, Glaucon, that, if Homer had
really been able to educate men and make
them better and had possessed not the art of
imitation but real knowledge, he would not
have acquired many companions and been
honored and loved by them?’”
What Does the Poet Know?
“’And similarly, I suppose, we shall say that the
poet himself, knowing nothing but how to
imitate, lays on with words and phrases the
colors of the several arts in such fashion that
others equally ignorant, who see things only
through words, will deem his words most
excellent, [601b] whether he speak in rhythm,
meter and harmony about cobbling or
generalship or anything whatever.’”
The Mob in the Theater
“And shall we not say that the part of us that
leads us to dwell in memory on our suffering and
impels us to lamentation, and cannot get enough
of that sort of thing, is the irrational and idle part
of us, the associate of cowardice?’ ‘Yes, we will
say that’ ‘And does not [604e] the fretful part of
us present many and varied occasions for
imitation, while the intelligent and temperate
disposition, always remaining approximately the
same, is neither easy to imitate nor to be
understood when imitated, especially by a
nondescript mob assembled in the theater?’”
What Other Perspectives Developed in
the School of Athens?
Aristotle
• Born in Stageira as the son of a physician
• Studied in Athens with Plato
• As head of the Royal Academy of Macedon
educated Alexander the Great
• Founded the Lyceum in Athens when he returned
• Studied anatomy, astronomy, embryology,
geography, geology, meteorology, physics and
zoology. In philosophy, he wrote on aesthetics,
ethics, government, metaphysics, politics,
economics, psychology, rhetoric, and theology. He
also studied education, foreign customs, literature
and poetry
Aristotle in the Poetics:
Theatre and Catharsis
The argument for an education that includes being
exposed to the arts and new media
He also thought a good education should include
rhetorical training.
The Theatre as Civic Space
The same location used for public meetings
Theatrical performances as part of community
festivals to celebrate particular gods
The voting on best playwright was done by ten
judges selected by lots from names placed in
urns
Making Sense of Conflict
Pity, Fear, and War with the Persians
Different Types of Imitation
[Poetics 1148a]
Since living persons are the objects of
representation, these must necessarily be
either good men or inferior—thus only are
characters normally distinguished, since
ethical differences depend upon vice and
virtue—that is to say either better than
ourselves or worse or much what we are. It is
the same with painters. Polygnotus depicted
men as better than they are and Pauson
worse, while Dionysius made likenesses
Different Genres Are Valued
Differently
(Will Jane Austen Agree?)
Comedy, as we have said, is a representation of
inferior people, not indeed in the full sense of the
word bad, but the laughable is a species of the
base or ugly. [1449a]
Tragedy is, then, a representation of an action
that is heroic and complete and of a certain
magnitude—by means of language enriched with
all kinds of ornament, each used separately in the
different parts of the play: it represents men in
action and does not use narrative, and through
pity and fear it effects relief to these and similar
emotions. [1449b]
The Virtues of Representation
[Poetics 1448b]
From childhood men have an instinct for representation,
and in this respect, differs from the other animals that he
is far more imitative and learns his first lessons by
representing things. And then there is the enjoyment
people always get from representations. What happens in
actual experience proves this, for we enjoy looking at
accurate likenesses of things which are themselves painful
to see, obscene beasts, for instance, and corpses. The
reason is this: Learning things gives great pleasure not
only to philosophers but also in the same way to all other
men, though they share this pleasure only to a small
degree. The reason why we enjoy seeing likenesses is that,
as we look, we learn . . .
When are the bodies onstage?
When is the violence offstage?
The Lieutenant of Inishmore
[Poetics 1453b]
Fear and pity sometimes result from the
spectacle and are sometimes aroused by the
actual arrangement of the incidents, which is
preferable and the mark of a better poet. The
plot should be so constructed that even
without seeing the play anyone hearing of the
incidents happening thrills with fear and pity
as a result of what occurs.
Aristotle’s Rhetoric [1.2.3]
Now the proofs furnished by the speech are of
three kinds. The first depends upon the moral
character of the speaker, the second upon
putting the hearer into a certain frame of
mind, the third upon the speech itself, in so
far as it proves or seems to prove.
Aristotle’s Rhetoric
The Means of Persuasion
• Ethos – a speaker’s authority, credibility, and
perceived expertise
• Logos – a speaker’s logic, organization, and
mastery of language
• Pathos – a speaker’s ability to move an audience
emotionally
Theories of Seduction as well as
Theories of Media
A Fragile Legacy
Losing Aeschylus and Saving Aristotle
Reading with Time and Place in Mind
School of Athens, Greece 450 BCE – 325 BCE
The Age of Sensibility in England 1750-1820
Pre-Civil War United States 1845-1860
U.S. Occupation of the Philippines 1899-1913
The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939
Weimar and Nazi Germany 1919-1933 and 19331945
World War II - U.S. War with Japan 1941-1945
The McCarthy Era in the United States 1947-1957
Urban England: A Clockwork Orange 1962 and 1971
The Post-9/11 World of Digital Media
For Next Time
New theories about learning and how the mind
is exercised!
New theories about representations of pleasant
and unpleasant things!
New ideas about how easily audiences are
influenced!