One of the ideas we played with in
class is the fact that Athenians would often sprout lines of prose during a
conversation rather than offering an original thought. Like most of Plato’s
knowledge I feel like this happens a lot in our culture, especially with
politics. Our political system has become incredibly polarized, so much so that
people on either side could never imagine considering the other party legitimate.
A big part of this seems to come from the news and media that we consume.
People only ever look at news sources that back up their belief because that’s
what makes them feel smart. They get to listen to Tomi Lahren rant and rave
about democrats and it makes them feel better about themselves. I’m not trying
to say you should go out and bookmark breitbart “news,” but I do think people
should start to be more critical about the information they are absorbing.
Rather than waiting for someone like Trevor Noah to boil down a new law for you
go out and actually read the law. Don’t take other peoples word for it.
Certainly the media can guide you in the right direction but I think it’s important
for us as people living in a free society to exercise our right to be informed
and make decisions on our own.
And I think that is what Plato was
trying to get at. Rather than parroting what someone else tells you is right,
go out and find what is right.
While I agree that people should absolutely be more critical of the news they consume, the situation of poetry in Athens strikes me as being a bit different from the incredible polarization we have in American politics today, and that is because the poems that the Athenians did not think critically about were common cultural texts. So, though they were not thinking critically about their texts in a similar way that we are not, the division of information was not nearly as extreme as it is in our society.
ReplyDeleteThe hegemony of a two-party system already suggests what logicians call a "false dilemma." Our political world has to be broader than that.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Katherine, there certainly is a difference between our own fragmented media sphere and the Athenians' common ties to their literature--but as much as our media is totally divided (and polarized, as Rachael claims) the media we consume have become a substratum to the entire world in which we exist (as I type this into a text box on an internet blog). The Athenian poetry and mythology, it seems to me, played approximately the same role for its citizens, shaping the entire world for them just as the scope of our entertainment services shape the world for us today.
Good points, all. The internet is our (un-)shared text! As for the question of a two-party system, however, try living for awhile in a parliamentary system with, say, three or four significant parties and dozens of minor ones. It's not obvious to me that it actually represents people any better.
ReplyDelete