History
Courtney
touched on the significant role that death had in Greek culture. I want to look at the flip side of that. The way one lives is also apparently
important and is only crowned in the way that one dies. Pericles initially elaborates on the values
of their civilization. Work, recreation,
beauty, good taste, education, political involvement, bravery, goodwill, and gratitude
are only a few of them.
Civilization should encompass these values, and Pericles
shows how awesome his fellow Grecians are because of it. They can thrash the enemy with only half
their army. In the introduction of his book Gorgias
and Rhetoric, Sachs attributes their militaristic successes to the civic
institutions in place at that time, through which man could realize his
potential “to become fully human.”
Rhetoric
I don’t want to sound critical about Pericles’ address to
the parents of the dead, but his logic would not have comforted me. “Ah, you lost a son. That’s okay because you are still young and
you can have another one,” or “Ah, you lost a son. At least you are going to die soon so you don’t
have to weep very long.” That’s how it
came across to me. This perspective may
come from a gospel viewpoint, which is definitely more hopeful and
comforting. I guess Pericles’ words were
the most hopeful and comforting at that time.
Philosophy
If I were to assign this Pericles to a philosophical school,
I would send him to the Socratics. The
Pre-Socratics and the Sophists seem to have tried to define everything as one
or two ideas, such as fire, or love and strife.
Pericles seems to be more open and reflects on moral philosophy. For instance, he claims that goodwill makes
friends more than receiving good. He is
an idealist.
I really like what you said in your rhetoric portion. I made a similar point in my blog post. As a parent, that would not be comforting in the least! Telling them to have another kid or just patiently wait for death contradicts what he says later in the text. "Real grief is felt at the loss of something which one is used to." So to say that any individual is expendable/ easily replaced or that few days left in life in any way minimizes their right to real grief is just ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteI also found your rhetoric section very interesting. I didn't get the same perspective as you when I read the readings and it goes to show how rhetoric can be interpreted many ways by different people. Pericles obviously used rhetoric that applied to his time, and I think that is why he came off a little critical of the pain that the people were feeling. We don't fully understand their culture and thought process which plays a disadvantage to us.
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