Monkey See, Monkey Do

"It is in the nature of the visual sense to
long for some things" -Gorgias    

The sum of Wendy's, McDonalds,
Taco Bell, Panda, pasta, and the Creamery

My roommates gave in,
not I.

Two years ago I witnessed my friends surrender to a very irrational persuasive influence known as the Gilmore Girl sitcom.

In said television show, the mother and daughter binge on fast food when times get tough. They give in to the body's natural desire to eat, much like Helen's natural desire to follow after Alexander, as explained in Gorgias' "Helen's Encomium." After my friends watched episodes of binge eating, they wanted to give it a try. One night during finals week, I accompanied them to seven different fast-food restaurants and...the rest is history. My point is that Gorgias is right when he says, "It is in the nature of the visual sense to long for some things and for other things to give it pain. And in many there is produced much love and desire for many things." By simply seeing the Gilmore Girls eat incessantly, my roommates desired to do the same.

But is Gorgias logical when he claims that such actions, brought about by seeing, "ought not to be blamed as a sin but ought rather to be accounted a misfortune"? I don't think so. We have been given agency, as Katie J mentioned, and we are expected to choose the right over the wrong. I believe Gorgias' logos fails when he ignores the fact that an attraction to one choice or the other is necessary to act on our agency. He makes it sound as though seeing something automatically persuades one to act upon it. Although such was the case with my roommates, I believe that in most cases we are more rational creatures, endowed by God with the ability to discern, and have the power to say, "I see the good or the bad here, and I will choose the good." Helen really did have the choice to follow after Alexander or not. She wasn't so forced into it as Gorgias claims.