Vulnerability- Past, Present, Future

After reading Jon's post, I changed my perspective of 'Pericles' Funeral Oration so that I could see it in a little bit of a better focus in terms of why and how Pericles approached his agenda.

Pericles (or at least through Thucydides' interpretation of his speech) carefully crafts the decorum of his speech according to his audience and the point that they're at. He takes advantage of a kairotic opportunity in realizing that the people of Athens are vulnerable. They're coping with the loss of their husbands, lovers, sons and friends and their feelings are overwhelming. They're seeking consolation and some kind of logical reason for why this happened. How can this be okay? They want to be assured by the right voice, a credible, ethical voice that this tragic event has purpose or at least can be made purposeful. They are at a point where they crave pathos, logos and ethos so that, as humans, they can find a motive to emotionally recover from this tragic event.

This is comparable to the way that we remind each other of the Plan of Salvation at LDS funerals so that we can move on with our lives in the knowledge that death has a purpose. For example, Pericles tells the Athenians that death brings an honor that is no longer "liable to the jealousy of one’s competitors, but...sincere and unchallenged." To the Athenians, this appeals to them pathetically as they can relate to the desire for that kind of honor and they can find solace in the fact that the ones they love have reached that aspiration. This is also logical because of their societal emphasis on honor and authority. The dead are painted as honored figures for the living to aspire to become. Finally, this is an ethical argument because Pericles, an authority, is addressing them and they honor his words because authority is important to them. This use of rhetoric shows the Athenians that this mass death was not in vain.

Pericles goes on to explain that, to make this loss even more purposeful, the people must look at the success of their government and society and how political/patriotic ambition and self-motivation makes their "city an education to Greece."

In all of these things, Pericles creates a judicial, epideictic and deliberative conversation by prompting the people to 1) honor, defend and glorify the valiant that they have lost from their society as he does 2) celebrate pretty much the awesomeness of Athenian culture and conduct/praise the virtue of their society right now and 3) continue being and raise more children to be similarly courageous in society while seeking "rewards of valor."