While I was reading the Aristotle text, a section that really stood out to me was his theology regarding pleasantness of activities. Aristotle said, “there are many things that are not pleasant by nature that people do with pleasure because they are so accustomed to them” (170). True to sophist style, he truly noted the dualism of experiences. I was especially intrigued when he noted how bad events could have good memories thus making the experience pleasant because it is no longer being endured. “It is truly pleasant to remember troubles after one is saved from them” (172).
This was extremely prevalent in The Funeral Oration of Pericles. The timing of this speech is evidence of the accuracy of Aristotle’s words aforementioned. The speech was given several days after the conclusion of the first battles of the Peloponnesian War. In a sense, the peoples’ “troubles” were momentarily over; thus, making it easy for Pericles to be so optimistic in his manner of presentation. In hindsight, it was easy to say that those who had fallen fell because they had a true understanding of patriotism and wanted to die for their country. However, I personally don’t believe this. I think it is much more likely that those fallen soldiers were not entirely sure what is was they were dying for. They didn’t know their last battles would actually be the first of many in a war. Maybe they showed up because of their understanding of gender roles, maybe all those in their immediate circle supported the war efforts, or maybe in fact they had an understanding of glory and honor if they died and they excitedly sought such an end. Whatever the true intentions were, Pericles at the conclusion of those troubles was able to paint a picture of good, pleasant, and noble causes which motivated them to die.
We are guilty of this today. We do it when we write in journals, retell stories, and give talks in church. Even if our initial motives are not noble at all, we often seek to connect and claim righteous motives and outlooks so that even bad events have an empowering spiritual context. Contemplation of events and time to ponder them lead to such conclusions.
I think it is only human nature to want to remember the bad things as little as possible and to exaggerate the good. It is how we come to peace with everything that has happened to us. Regardless of what Pericles thought, he still had a war to fight and he needed his troops to be in good spirits or they would lose. This motivational side is the logical reason for painting the happy picture, but I would also like to think that it is not the only reason that leaders try to comfort their subordinates in time of sorrow.
ReplyDeleteI think the reason that we often reflect on a hard time and see the good in it is because we no longer feel the pain and suffering that is so strong when we are in the middle of the trial. We grow stronger through our challenges and when we reflect upon them we can see that. Because we see that positive growth we engrave it in our memory that it was a good experience or not as bad as we thought because we finally had a positive emotion connected to the bad times.
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