When Helen is described as having godlike beauty and the
foremost of the foremost of men and women, I instantly compared her to some of
the women in my life that may “fit” that description. Unfortunately this did
not help me to decide on whether Helen was truly persuaded, or was the
persuader herself, because most of the women (and I guess men that I know that “fit”
her description as well) can take on both of these roles at different times and
situations in their lives. These people I have in mind to contrast with Helen
can be good at using both their words and appearance to persuade others, but I
have also noticed that they can easily be persuaded by someone with similar traits
that match their own.
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For these reasons I don’t know
which side to take on Helen, but would rather point out what I felt was the
most important take away from this reading, and apply it to our class and the
direction we seem to be heading. In the paragraph that starts with “(11)”
Gorgias explains that without perfect memory or knowledge of past, present, and
future that persuaders use lies and opinions to persuade others. By the nature
of what Gorgias has said her it leads me to believe that the power of verbal persuasion was much greater in the 5th century than it in our day,
as well have things like the internet, and places to access facts. The power of
verbal persuasion is still real, but unlike the ancient Greeks we have the
power to go and really find out information on our own. The Greeks ability to
access truth and answer their own questions with ease, pales in comparison to
us in our own time.
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Once I was very logically persuaded
about a religious matter that I had previously had different feelings on until
I was persuaded otherwise. However even after being persuaded I was able to do
my own research and in a way “persuaded” myself to my previous belief. Technology
and the mediums we have now are a huge factor upon how verbal persuasion works today.
I think that the accessibility of information on the Internet is very helpful for us to be able to understand facts and know when someone is lying to us. That being said, I think that belief is deeper than understanding and accepting the words that someone speaks to us or that we read. We can pay attention to what we feel in our hearts in order to know what to believe.
ReplyDeleteWords do still have power, but today one must be very careful with what they choose to say. One wrong statistic and you are sure to be exposed as a fraud, possibly even ridiculed. Back in the days of Gorgias, "truth" could much more easily mean anything the speaker wished it to be, so long as they held other ways of persuasion. Today, appeals to things other than concrete, recorded fact are still present, but people are much more easily verified in their skepticism. One wrong move and counter-citations will rain down on you like hellfire.
ReplyDeleteThank you Thomas for saying what I was trying to say. You said it better than I could have said it myself.
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