Final Exam Essays: Gavin Chatterley

Short Essay

                The relationship between rhetoric and religion, between the sacred and the secular, has often been difficult to pin down.  The question 'What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?' puzzles as many people now as it did anciently.  Emblematic of the complexity of the issue was Rome's shift from persecuting to promoting Christianity.  Rome discovered that religion and secular society can coexist.  The question is how.

                Augustine thought that understanding rhetoric was critical in order to understand religion.  Perhaps one reason for this was their interdependency.  Rhetoric is primarily focused on form, while religion is more content-driven.  However, form and content are inseparably connected.  A teacher cannot communicate content without a form to carry it, and a listener cannot understand the message without wading through the form.  At the same time, there is no such thing as pure form; every sentence carries semantic meaning.  Despite the necessity of rhetoric in order to communicate religious values, the misuse of persuasive tactics can also be detrimental to morality.  Historically problems have emerged when rhetoric came to represent content that differed from the speaker's true purpose.  For example, the Sophists often persuaded people of things that the speakers themselves didn't believe were absolutely true, and the result was an amoral worldview.  During the crusades the Catholic Church used an ethos built upon the backs of Christian doctrines such as charity and forgiveness to push soon-to-be soldiers toward murder and hatred.

                In modern times, rhetoric has shaped the way that the public has viewed moral issues such as abortion, LGBT rights, and the exclusion of Muslims from the United States, as well as religious freedom, democracy, and equality.  Rhetoric is a necessity when talking about religious subjects in modern society, but it has also done considerable damage.  I believe that truth is naturally persuasive, despite differences between people in both capacity and willingness to perceive and receive it.  Rhetoric can be a tool that allows pure truth to shine through, or a smoke machine that clouds other's perceptions of reality.  If we let the content drive the form, rather than the other way around, rhetoric can be a means of persuading the world's citizens of Christian values that will bring them peace and happiness.  Making rhetoric our servant rather than our master will make us more capable servants of the One true Master.

Short Rhetorical Analysis

                Jacob had good reason to do his best to be persuasive.  His people was in deep spiritual trouble and the Lord had given him the responsibility of motivating them to repent.  Several kinds rhetorical tools allowed him to make his point powerful, well-rounded way.

                For example, Jacob used each of the rhetorical appeals during his sermon.  He directly referenced receiving his assignment from God to build his ethos.  He supplemented this point by telling the people specific details of their sins, which would have helped them realize that he knew what was happening in their lives.  He appealed to pathos by portraying vividly the suffering of local families, "Ye have broken the hearts of your tender wives, and lost the confidence of your children, because of your bad examples before them; and the sobbings of their hearts ascend up to God against you" (Jacob 2:35).  Logos helped him emphasize why the people should not think that they are better than the Lamanites.  "Their hatred towards you is because of the iniquity of their fathers; wherefore, how much better are you than they, in the sight of your great Creator?" (Jacob 3:7)  By using all three appeals, Jacob created a more balanced argument than he would have had by just using one.

                On a deeper level, Jacob utilized topics of invention that emphasized the steep contrast between his expectation for the people and reality.  He incorporated a combination of cause and effect and past fact/future fact to describe how the people's sin had affected their families in the past, implying that such damage would continue to occur in the future unless the people repented.  Jacob also showed how similar the Nephites had become to the Lamanites.  That must have stung particularly hard because the Nephites saw the Lamanites as savages.  Both of these methods painted a stark picture of the Nephites' situation and encouraged them to repent.

                On the micro level, Jacob's tropes made his description of the Nephites' sinful state more poignant.  "Many hearts died, pierced with deep wounds (Jacob 2:35)," is an example of metonymy, using the heart to symbolize feelings, and of hyperbole, and contributed strongly to pathos.  Perhaps the most salient use of metonymy was the phrase "their skins will be whiter than yours (Jacob 3:8)," which Jacob used to reflect the relative degrees of righteousness of the Nephites and Lamanites.  That particular metaphor played well into the kairos of an audience, who connected the skin color of their enemies directly to their brutal nature.  The mention of skin color in particular, the mark of God's displeasure with their brethren, held a subtle threat that if they weren't careful, the Nephites would fall to their spiritual level.

                Jacob masterfully incorporated a variety of rhetorical techniques into his address that played on the Nephites' culture, emphasized contrast between reality and the ideal, and utilized multiple persuasive appeals.  By exerting a well-rounded persuasive effort, he was better able to touch the hearts of his listeners and encourage them to change.

The Effect of Ancient Greece on Modern Social Work Practice

           Every career path has a face, a legacy, and a story to tell.  Each has the potential to reshape a piece of the human experience.  Clinical social work is unique because the ability to change individuals' lives is not ancillary to its professional purpose but rather its very core.  In the therapy room perspectives of patient and clinician collide, creating a sense of relationship and situation that shifts and transforms over time.  While the therapist's perspective includes needed expertise that can, when communicated well, be effective in changing a person's long-standing habits, the philosophical predecessors to modern social work that subtly inform his practice can at times also threaten to undermine his patients' wellbeing.  No human-conceived methodology or way of thinking is perfect, and failing to acknowledge  that fact can be detrimental to the progress and general good of individuals and society.

Annotated Working Draft and Hot Spots - Social Work

Component Assignments:

1. Communication and Persuasion in Clinical Social Work
   In this post, I compare and contrast the perspectives of therapists and patients and how those perspectives build the kairos of a therapy session over an extended period of time.  I also show how the three branches of social work connect with therapy.
   
   
2. Storytelling in Clinical Social Work
   I explain why therapists must become adept at telling people their own stories in ways that help them cope with their problems.  I include a story from a real therapist that explains why people become stuck in specific modes of thinking and how they can begin to change.
   
   
3. Philosophy:  The Bedrock of Civilization...and Modern Therapy
   I delve into Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, one of the most common therapy types, which has its roots in cognitive and behavioral ways of thinking that started as parts of Greek philosophy.  I also share my History of Psychology Teacher's opinion on the moral implications of psychology's philosophical beginnings.
   
   
4. Institutional Authority and Communication in Social Work
   I delineate the function, authority and practices of the National Association of Social Workers.  I describe its mode of communication with practitioners, the standards that it holds the field to, and how the organization handles violations of professionalism.
   
   

1. Hot Spot #1 (Personal/Field): Clinical social work is uniquely focused on the welfare of individuals.  Compared to other fields, Social work is less focused on learning about people and more focused on actually helping them, which is why I picked it as a career.  For me it is about being able to step into another person's life, relieve some of their suffering, and change their lives forever.
   
   
2. Hot Spot #2 (Field): Therapy is involves the perspectives and relationship between the therapist and patient.  As I explain in "Communication and Persuasion in Social Work," understanding the kairos that both perspectives working together build over time is critical to be able to grasp the nature of therapy and the interplay between both parties.
   
   
3. Hot Spot #3 (History): Therapy gets its roots from Greek philosophy, and that heritage has consequences,  Some of those consequences have negative implications for moral issues including issues involving moral relativity and materialism, which therapists disregard at their peril.

Institutional Authority and Communication in Social Work

             

                Giovanni Habakkuk finally knew what he wanted in life, and it wasn't dentistry.  But he wasn't at the light at the end of the tunnel yet.  He outlined his dilemma to his academic adviser,

                "There are so many degrees that would allow me to become a therapist, but most of them seem to care about research more than actually helping people."

                Mr. Zephaniah set a pamphlet down on the desk between them.

                "How about this one?"  He read from the pamphlet:  " Social workers elevate service to others above self-interest...Social workers are encouraged to volunteer some portion of their professional skills with no expectation of significant financial return."

                Giovanni was surprised.  "Where is that from?"

                "It's a document for social workers called the Code of Ethics.  The NASW uses this to keep all the therapists in line [2. Regulating Standard]."

                "The NASW?"

                "The National Association of Social Workers.  They train social workers, maintain a professional standard, and try to make large-scale change in the country [ 1. Authoritative Organization]."

                "And how exactly do they do all of that?  They can't watch every social worker all the time."

                Mr. Zephaniah nodded.  "I think one of their biggest achievements has been using the Code of Ethics to create a culture of altruism within the field.  They also have a newspaper, NASW News, which proliferates changes in policy [4. Authoritative Publication].  It also includes information on research and new legislation.  Every year they hold a NASW National Conference for professional development and continuing education [3. Influential Event].

                Giovanni was impressed, but it was still a little too good to be true.  "That wouldn't work for everyone, though, right?  There are always a few bad apples wherever you go."

                Mr. Zephaniah nodded.  "They have a process called professional review to evaluate the status of social workers who violate the Code of Ethics [5. Challenging Authority].  It works a little like a court hearing, but instead of sentencing people to jail, they order corrective action, such as retraining or restitution, or sanctions, such as revoking NASW membership and credentials."

                "I see.  that makes sense."  Giovanni smiled softly to himself.  Perhaps he had found the field he was looking for.

"Families Matter," no changes made, by joelle t. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/legalcode

The Hope of Lamentation

            I used to think, as many of you probably do, that the Lamentations of Jeremiah was one of the most depressing books of the Bible.  If that is how you feel, think again.  Hidden in the middle of the third chapter is the following passage:

21 This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope.

22 It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.

 23 They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.

 24 The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.

 25 The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.

 26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.

 27 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.

 28 He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him.

 29 He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.

 30 He giveth his cheek to him that smiteth him: he is filled full with reproach.

 31 For the Lord will not cast off for ever:

 32 But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.

 33 For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.

 34 To crush under his feet all the prisoners of the earth,

 35 To turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High,

36 To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approveth not.

            Jeremiah uses a few tropes in this passage, including metonymy (bear the yolk in his youth) and synecdoche (lift up our heart with our hands) that add eloquence and clarity to the passage.  However, the most powerful technique that Jeremiah utilizes is much larger in scale.

            Compared to the drawn out cries of mourning that constitute the rest of the book, this passage just a small blip of light drowning in a sea of sorrow, but its position in the text completely changes the meaning of the whole book.  You see, Hebrew writers often used a particular kind of arraignment that involved placing the point that they wanted to emphasize in the middle of a passage.  The above verses are almost in almost the exact middle of Lamentations.  By giving a message of peace in the middle of a book of gloom and despair, Jeremiah is telling us that hope in God should have a more important place in our hearts than lamentation.  If Jeremiah had only given a message of hope and joy, the grief-torn Jews, who had just been conquered by Babylon, may not have bought into it.  But by incasing his testimony of Christ's triumph inside of a lamentation so vivid that it rivaled that of the Jews themselves, Jeremiah could more powerfully express reality, touch the hearts of his audience, and cover two very important yet highly contrasting sides of a very emotional issue.

"Finnich Gorge Sunbeams," no changes made, by John Mcsporran https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode

"Lightning Strike," no changes made, by dgarkauskas. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/legalcode

Philosophy: The Bedrock of Civilization...and Modern Therapy

            All modes of considering the world, be they scientific or otherwise, are based on an underlying set of philosophical assumptions that drive the way acquisition of knowledge occurs.  Nowhere is that more true than in the development of psychology, and later, the specific therapy practices that we use today.  The ancient Greeks pioneered the Western idea of seeking to understand the natural world through non-supernatural means.  The two prevailing epistemologies, or methods of accepting validating ideas, were empiricism and metaphysics.  Empiricism is the basis of modern scientific thought and involves acquiring knowledge by using sensory observations.  Metaphysics refers to gaining understanding of existence through reason.  Both modes of exploration shaped the way that philosophers thought about human beings.

            Although empiricism is by far the most widely accepted epistemology in the Western world today, it is interesting to see how the two predominant methodologies parallel the two pieces of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), one of the most common forms of therapy today.  Behaviorism is mechanistic in its approach, focusing on more easily observable biological methods of change, such as conditioning.  In contrast, the cognitive side of CBT relates to the mind; it involves correcting irrational beliefs that often underlie mental illnesses.  It is interesting to see how direct observation and reasoning have distinctive representative elements in both ancient and modern thinking.

            Behavioral therapy developed first.  Its foundation was the idea that reinforcement and punishment can change behavior patterns, and that exposing a person to something that they fear over a long period of time can lessen that fear.  Albert Ellis and other cognitive psychologists believed that ignoring a person's unobservable mental state neglected an important part of their difficulties.  Ellis' tried change the perspective of his patients so they could view themselves and their circumstances in a more functional way.  Aaron Beck created the cognitive therapy that is considered the main forerunner of modern practice, incorporating many of the elements of behavioral therapy to make it more integrative.

            Dr. Gantt, my History of Psychology professor, explained that he felt the materialist root of modern psychology naturally developed into the likes of behaviorism and evolutionary psychology, which are philosophically connected to determinism and moral relativism.  The consequences of ideas are modes of thinking that often directly contradict Gospel principles.  Navigating the modern field requires discernment and a willingness to question professional assumptions about human beings.  On one hand, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy can do a lot of good for many people.  On the other, we should not assume that it represents a perfect solution.

            While much has changed in psychology since Socrates and Plato were in their prime, in some ways it feels as though nothing has changed at all.  Although much different in its specific application, the same basic methods and assumptions that were active in ancient Greece are still viable today through the medium of the modern therapist, both for good and for ill.

Thoma, N,, Pilecki, B., & McKay, D. (2015). Contemporary cognitive behavior therapy: A review of theory, history, and evidence, Psychodynamic Psychiatry, 43(3) 423–462,

"Bonsai Rock Lake Tahoe," no changes made, by Joe Jiang. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/legalcode

The Three Plagues of Egypt

Title:  The Three Plagues of Egypt

Kairos/Audience:  I normally tell this story when discussing mission stories or bug infestations in general.  It's one of the few really unique stories I feel like I have to tell, and I love seeing others' reactions to...well, you'll have to read on to find out.

Original Story:

            My first apartment in the mission field seemed normal enough to start with.  A little run-down, maybe, but functional for the four of us.  We didn't mind that it was a bit old.  After all, we were gone for most of the day.

            Then one day Elder Heiner commented on a small pile of sawdust collecting on the floor of the bathroom. 

            "We should tell management about that," he said.

            We found out that the apartment ceiling had again become infested with termites and that the pile of sawdust was evidence of their handiwork.  Management sent people to spray them out of existence, but that only added to our predicament.  You see, as termites begin to die, they also lose the will to hang onto high, horizontal surfaces.  I had to brush termite wings off of my bed sheets at night and be very careful of what I let get into my lunch.  It wasn't just in one isolated part of the apartment.  They were all over the place.

            Then, out of nowhere, the ants came.  They were everywhere.  I left a bag of popcorn on my desk overnight only to find a frothing mess of entomological gluttony by morning.  Several hundred found a gigantic sucker tucked deep inside one of my suitcases and organized an assembly line between it and their colony.  If we didn't keep our cereal in the freezer, it was doomed to infiltration.  The first time my trainer found some in his cereal, he froze it and then ate it anyway.  I was gutsy too, but not that gutsy.

            The flies arrived last but not least.  Admittedly, we had been a bit...lax about taking out the garbage.  That said, the sheer number of flies that soon began swarming throughout the whole apartment was a harsher sentence than any minor act of negligence deserved.  One day Elder Davis got fed up and, bereft of a flyswatter, unsheathed a spare Gospel of Jesus Christ pamphlet.  I followed him around and tallied mortality statistics to the tune of about a hundred or so.

            Three plagues of insects:  termites, ants and flies.  One apartment, over the space of several months.  Time has passed, apartments have changed, and we no longer have to beware the skies or store our cereal in the freezer.  But I stand convinced that none of us that passed through those incidents ever forgot what transpired.

Second version:  Why Bug Genocide Is Justified

Kairos/Audience:  Trying (and failing) to consol the thousands of insects killed in a certain apartment during the war of '14.

            Hi, great to see you all tonight.

            I know how that sounds coming from me, but it's true.  I never had anything against you personally.  It just wasn't possible for all of us to live in such a small place.  You have to admit you could be a real pain sometimes.  It was either our peace of mind, or the destruction of your entire civilizations.    A toss up, really [meiosis], but hey, the choice had to be made.

            Look, termites, I know you were there first.  I know you clawed tooth and nail from the brink of annihilation after the first time the exterminators tried to wipe you out.  But come on!  Trickling sawdust on our bathroom floor?  You knew that was a capital offense!  Technically we should have sent up a subpoena and had a trial by jury, but there were far too many of you for that [possible/impossible].  And then you had to add to the indecency to not bother to sepulcher [anthimeria] your dead properly!

            And as for you, ants, you were the ones who invaded us!  Invaded us [anadiplosis], I know, to feed your starving colony.  You thought we had plenty to spare, but you were wrong.  $120 a month only gets you so many bags of Raisin Bran.  We'd have negotiated more with you, but we were too busy teaching Light [Mytonymy], so we thought that turning your society into so much ground alfalfa [metaphor] probably served a higher purpose.  Plus, we spent so much time learning Spanish that we'd let our Antish slide, communicating would have been inconvenient [asyndeton].  And, after all, it was your choice to enter the traps we laid out for you.  That one was on you.

            Of all of you, the flies have the best excuse.  We invited you into the apartment, but it wasn't on purpose.  We were just lazy at taking the garbage out.  The problem was that you invited too many guests who didn't realize they had overstayed their welcome.  One or two of your buzzing around was ok, but a hundred?  Seriously?  We were missionaries, not party-planners [definition]!

            Look, I know that our side of the story is a little shaky.  I know it didn't end well for you.  But hey, what done is done, right?  All's fair in love, missionary work, and insect extermination [maxims and proverbs].  What's a few thousand casualties between friends?

Personal Stories Catalog - Gavin Chatterley

1.  The story of losing 10 pounds in a week...completely on accident [overactive metabolism, being skinny].  I tell this story to explain to people why I gave up on the idea of trying to gain weight.

2.  The story of the ideal mission companion [relationships, mental synchronization, shared vision].  I tell this story to explain what I am looking for in a dating relationship.  I normally only tell this to RM's because the effectiveness of this story depends on them having experiences similar to mine.

3.  The story of why I picked my major [personal priorities, inspiration, talents].  I tell this story when people ask why I chose the field I did.  How I tell this story changes every time I explain it based on my audience.

4.  The story of using seasoned potato slices instead of condiments on my hamburgers. [idiosyncrasies, ultimate simplicity, stinginess].  I share this story to explain my love of extreme pragmatic simplicity and thriftiness.

5.  The story of  the creation of quabablabachipichipi, a strange recipe I invented [culinary creativity, quirkiness, persistence].  I tell this story to explain the extent of my cooking experience and my characteristically unconventional approach to life.

6.  The story of how I got into ultimate frisbee [sports, high school, personal interests].  I tell this story when people are interested in my hobbies and how I acquired them.

7.  The story of getting all of my roommates into the same room at the same time for the first time one semester [college life, schedule coordination].  I tell this story to describe how improbable it is to wind up with six people who live together in the same room when they have very asynchronous schedules

8.  The story of the mission apartment that experienced bug infestations analogous the plagues of Egypt including ants, flies, and termites that fell from the ceiling [mission stories, bugs, apartment shenanigans].  I tell this story when the context of mission stories or bug infestations arise.

9.  The story of my subtle passive aggressive spiting of classic literature on the AP English test by writing about a book I had read outside of English class on the third essay [spunk, subtle acts of rebellion, inner satisfaction].  I tell this story during conversations with people about the high school English curriculum with people who at least somewhat agree with my position on the subject.

10.  The story of my thwarting of my teachers' attempts to split up our dream team during an informal debate tournament set up by a history teacher and an English teacher in middle school by restructuring the situation in our own minds [debate, teamwork, mental exercises].  I tell this story to myself to remind me of the power of changing mental constructs in order to solve problems and the often resilient nature of teams that band together out of loyalty.

Storytelling in Clinical Social Work

Forward

            Uniquely, the job of a clinical social worker is to tell the client's own story in a way that they haven't seen it before.  The reason a person goes to a therapist is to get a new perspective of their problems so that they can fix them.  By helping them to understand their own inner workings, the social worker shows them where their levers and pulleys are so they can take control of their own lives.  The key is explaining the story in a way that the patient will easily comprehend it.  The example I will give is the part of the repertoire of my advisor at Wasatch Mental Health that he uses to help people understand how long-standing mental habits can change in a positive way.

Example Story

            Your mind is like a hill made out of dirt.  When you are born, your hill is smooth and unblemished.  As time goes on, you have many thoughts and experiences that are like raindrops trickling down the hill.  When thought patterns are repeated over and over again, it is like streams of water frequently running down the same part of the hill:  tiny ruts become large trenches that are difficult to change.  However, by consciously changing your thought processes and consistently making them a part of your routine, you can re-carve the grooves of your mind and improve your functionality.

Analysis

            The persuasive power of this story is the straightforwardness of the analogy.  It translates the emotional complexity of a mental illness into a simple phenomenon that makes sense to the listener.  Even more, it transforms the overwhelming prospect of deep life change into one basic task that can be completed with some effort.  That idea persuades the listener that they can make meaningful shifts in lifestyle because the connection between the cause and effect of water running down a hill of dirt is so obvious.  It encourages them to believe that hope is on the horizon even though their previous attempts at improving their lives may have failed.

Retelling the Story

            Habits are difficult to change.  It is easy to feel that you are sliding back into the same habits without making any progress.  However, if you follow certain steps, I know that you can rise above your depression.  The process is difficult, but anyone who puts their mind to it can do it.  Let me explain how this is done:

            Your mind is like a hill made out of dirt.  When you are born, your hill is smooth and unblemished.  As time goes on, you have many thoughts and experiences that are like raindrops trickling down the hill.  At first, when you think negative thoughts about yourself it probably didn't make much of a difference, just like a single rivulet of water wouldn't do much to the mound of dirt.  Over time, however, the negative emotions that you return to again and again are like streams of water constantly running down the same part of the hill.  They begin to cut ruts into your mind that are difficult to escape from.  That is why thinking positively about yourself for a day or a week is not enough to change the way you feel overall.  However, by consciously changing your thought processes to make a positive self-image a consistent part of your routine, you can re-carve the grooves of your mind and have the relationship with yourself and your family that you have told me you wanted.

            I put this story in the context of a single person's situation, specifically a patient suffering from depression.  I connected the thought processes they are experiencing to elements of the story to bring them inside of it more deeply and help them see how it relates to what they have already expressed in therapy.

"King of the Hill," no changes made, by Russ Allison Loar. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/legalcode

Communication and Persuasion in Clinical Social Work

            There are many academic roads to therapy, and even more methods of helping people in life-altering ways.  But I chose to devote my life to social work because of its emphasis on the individual and the greater opportunity to influence others in spiritual as well as cognitive or physical ways.  In my subjective opinion, other fields such as Marriage and Family Therapy or Psychology focus more on the acquisition of knowledge to understand people, with less of an emphasis on actually helping them.

             I volunteer with Wasatch Mental Health, which means I spend a lot of time chatting with patients just before they go into therapy.  My advisor, who I meet with regularly, is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with many years of experience in the field.  So although I have never actually seen therapy in action, piecing together these two perspectives has given me a clearer understanding of it.

            From the patients I have learned that the effectiveness in communication is largely dependent on long-term relationships.  They express frustration and sadness when they change therapists because to them it feels like they have to start over again.  The kairos of an effective therapy must be built up deliberately over a long period of time for communication to be most effective.  At the same time, I have been surprised by the number of people who decide to open up about their problems to me, a volunteer in the waiting room who they have never met before.

            From the therapists I have gleaned some insight into the stress weighing on their shoulders.  Burnout is a real issue in social work, and sometimes the therapists need people to help them bear their burdens just as much as the patients do.  On the positive end, experienced therapists have had so much communication with people who have specific psychological difficulties that some of them can be 90% sure of a diagnosis within just a few minutes of talking to them.

            Therapy is the ultimate form of individualized verbal communication, including judicial journeys into the past to resolve deep-seated pain, epideictic evaluations of what is to blame for their difficulties in the present, and deliberative discussions about the best course of action for the future.  Each patient is their own context to which the therapist adapts within the perspective of their own discipline.  Both are at times speaker and audience, mentor and trainee, guide and follower, united in the common effort of bringing peace, functionality, and happiness to the inner confines of a single human soul.

The Measure of the Roman Society

            The Romans standardized many things to create cohesion and unity including language, education, and government.  But one aspect of daily life that may easily be overlooked was the institution of a common measuring system.  In order to function well economically as a thriving empire, consumers needed to understand that buying a pound of goods from sources hundreds of miles away was equivalent to buying the same amount in their home town.  Not only did they need a lingua franca for general communication, they also needed to know that words of measurement meant the same thing wherever you went.  Weight, length, volume, and area, were all standardized across the civilization. 

           While many of our measurements differ from the Romans, a few, such as the mile and the ounce, are very similar to their ancient counterparts.  Even more importantly, we inherited the very idea of common dimension specifications across large groups of people.  From the cookie recipes conjured up on the other side of the country to the volume of water in the apartment complex swimming pool, common measurements that many different kinds of people accept strongly influence many aspects of my day-to-day life.

            That phenomenon is especially easy to see in the sciences, where the metric system unifies very specific thoughts and ideas across the globe.  In my own field, psychology, precise reaction times or neuron activity would be much harder to share with an international audience without standardized measurements.  Even more importantly, the metric system provides a common foundation for education in the sciences so that more everyday people understand clearly what scientific results mean and how they relate to their own life.  That creates a more knowledgeable public who can hold the scientific community accountable for their claims.  So the next time you bake a cake, run an experiment, or wonder why the mile that you're running couldn't be just a few feet shorter, thank the Romans.
"Road," no changes made, by Moyan Brenn. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode

Two Treatises on Government and Truth

Prompt #5

            Although rhetoric touched a wide variety of Greek activity, it had a uniquely powerful influence on government because of the advent of democracy.  Unlike many governments that bare the title today, all eligible males in Athens could vote on every issue.  Because of this, rhetoric was a necessity, not a convenience.  Without the ability to persuade the civilians of one course of action over another, it would have been impossible for anything important to be accomplished. 

            However, as critical as rhetoric became for everyday functions of government, it also began to  play a role in the framework of the system  itself.  Because of the democracy, citizens had  legitimate power to act on the opinions they were persuaded to believe.  Therefore, there was a justifiable reason to convince them that one type of government was better than another.  This implicit realization must have been an underlying motive of Plato's work "The Republic."  In elaborating on his concept of an ideal state, Plato implied that a better government was something worthy of persuading others about.  He also unconsciously laid the groundwork for deliberative oratory to be expanded to include not only decisions about the future, but also the way that decisions are made about the future.  In  another sense, Plato was attempting to set up scaffolding for the way he thought deliberative oratory should unfold in the ideal state.   He was trying to form a structure of kairos that rhetoric directed at specific problems could fit themselves inside.  Not only did rhetoric influence the day-to-day politics of ancient Greece, their politics also began to shape the way that rhetoric was expressed.

            The bidirectional relationship between rhetoric and politics were the beginnings of the modern-day worldview of government.   While still in its infancy in terms of  development, the importance of convincing large groups people about political decisions and that the rules of how and in what setting that persuasion took place was a segue to modern forms of deliberation of both policy and procedure. 

Prompt #2

           

            Much of Socrates' work was intended to be a critique of sophist ideas.  It wasn't just that he believed that absolute existed, though he indeed did that.  It wasn't just that he had a problem with written communication, although that was true as well.  No, the most fundamental difference between Socrates and the Sophists was how they both handled the uncertainty of life.

            Socrates was known for saying "The unexamined life is not worth living."  But he also stated, "True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing."  Surprisingly, like the Sophists, Socrates believed that humans did not have a perfect knowledge of truth.  However, in contrast to Protagoras, who, upon understanding the limits of his understanding, threw up his hands in defeat and concluded that since we can't fully know anything about anything, we shouldn't even try, Socrates believed that by "remembering" the echoes of truth in our minds, we could come closer to true knowledge.  Not all the way there, but closer. 

            Upon hearing Socrates' critique of rhetoric, Gorgias may have commented on the irony of the philosopher using a rhetorical principle, logos, to incriminate rhetoric as a whole.  But I don't think he would have understood that seeking the dissemination of truth is an entirely different animal than trying to manipulate the opinions of others, even when both objectives use tools that are superficially similar.  It is a classic error of man to believe that truth can exist independently in the mind without a heart to go along with it.  For all his logic, it was Socrates' heart that made him reach for the stars instead of drowning beneath the bubbling froth of relativity and pragmatics.  Though he may not have realized it, Socrates' real problem with the Sophists was their commitment to wallow in their own uncertainty rather than, to paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald, beat on, boats against the current, borne forward ceaselessly toward light, knowledge, and the future.  Isn't that exactly how it is today?

Predominant Parallelism

            Repetition is a well-known rhetorical technique for General Conference speakers, especially in terms of fundamental doctrines and practices.  Elder Lawrence of the Seventy integrated that pattern on a micro-level.  Uniquely, a large portion of his talk was simply the repetition of a single idea.  When a person restates an expression we call it repetition.  When he restates an idea, it becomes parallelism.  Elder Lawrence employed a variety of nuances to shape each iteration of his primary theme, the act of asking God what is inhibiting our progress, to give his message the feel of a rhythmic, ideological beat rather than a single note that is pounded out over and over again to the irritation of those paying attention.

            He accomplished this subtle shifting of ideas by first repeating the scriptural story that clearly explained the principle, sharing many short examples to quickly underline the continuity of his principle across a multitude of similar, everyday contexts, briefly expounding on the central theme to add contrast and depth, and concluding with personal examples and testimony.  The topic of invention of cause and effect was especially critical in the short example section because it helped us to see the real-world impact of asking God what we lack, and the consistency of the positive consequences that ensue.  However, even though parallelism was an effective tool, it was also important to the purpose of his message that not all of his talk followed that pattern.  Like an opera singer belting out an aria at a constant forte, sticking too strictly to unending repetition would have been too much to bear.  The ebb and flow of the non-parallel pieces of the talk ensured that we would not be distracted from the fundamental message by the overuse of a single method of delivery.  This allowed the parallelism to assume a supporting role, peripheral to the core truth that seeking correction from God unbars the stumbling blocks of our progression and facilitates our reentry into His Presence.

"parallelism," no changes made, by Barbara Krawcowicz. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/legalcode

Mightier Than the Pen

            Writing is a powerful medium that has power to convey messages in a unique way.  As with almost all methods of communication, it also has drawbacks.  In class we touched on the idea that writing in some sense takes the writer out of the message because the author cannot adapt to a changing audience.  I believe that is true, but there is more to it than that. 

            This semester I am taking an online class for the first time.  It is a completely different experience from a normal class because there are no lectures and we are often essentially required to teach ourselves out of the textbook.  Going into the class, I didn't have a problem with this.  Independent study is one of my strengths, so I didn't worry too much about having difficulty learning the material.

            However, after a few weeks I have had greater difficultly than I expected in internalizing what I am learning.  It isn't the textbook's fault; it's actually one of the more interesting textbooks I have read.  The problem is that writing has a limited "sink in" factor.  Imagine the difference between a commander who gives a rallying speech in a big booming voice that echoes down the mountainside and one who just writes it down on paper and distributes the message to his soldiers.  Which army is going to be more energized for the battle?

            There is a reason that political candidates give speeches rather than distributing treatises on government to the voting bloc they want to target.  A man giving you a message is more powerful than words written by someone you have never seen.

            That being said, I don't think the weaknesses of writing should inhibit our use of it.  Rather, I believe that the most effective message is the one taught by a variety of mediums so that each compliments and supports the others.  By using writing together with other communication forms, we can more fully bridge the gap between intellects and introduce a greater depth of internalization to the human mind.

"Pen, a," no changes made, by Alan Klim. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode