The Smith and Hyde article presented some interesting thoughts and shed a different light on the Aristotle readings. Whereas most of our previous discussions had centered around Aristotle's somewhat problematic exploration of opposites, this article provides a useful application of those polarities. Before I had viewed Aristotle's exploration of the emotions as primarily philosophical, useful in critically thinking about the particular emotions we can evoke in an audience and that audience themselves. Cast in the light of this article however, it seems much more clear and useful.
The individual plays an interesting part in this discussion. They argue for an individual who is innately affected by the masses, since "even being alone presupposes a being-with-others, for an individual can be alone only because the other is not present with him/her" (448). That can be all well and good, but it seems to be cyclical: I am alone because I am not with other people, but it takes other people for me to know I am alone. Maybe that is not cyclical, but it seems problematic to me.
Abandoning that train of thought entirely, I gleaned what seemed to be a procedure for moving the masses. (I think they actually stated it explicitly somewhere, but I could not find it again.) They discussed three things: 1) the public, 2) the individual, and 3) Aristotle's pathe (449). Plato espoused that the argument that worked on the individual would also work on the public, but maybe not the other way around, since the individual is more critical than the crowd since he can ask questions to the speaker. So if a person has an argument that will work on an individual, than it will be exponentially more effective on the crowd, since it will resonate with each individual in the crowd. That being said, if the speaker/writer makes use of Aristotle's pathe/concept of enargia to take the crowd from their mixed emotional state and brings them to the brink of fanaticism (but not into a state of extremity), then that it is the most effective argument.
...Maybe?
In response to the second paragraph, I also found this idea a little confusing. They (Davis echoed this in class) seem to be stressing that we have such a communal/collectivist nature as social beings that we have a special word for when we DON'T have anyone around--we're "alone." If we were all in isolation, such a word would have no purpose. I'm not sure that the word itself creates a sense of "together-ness" but it is certainly indicative of that aspect of our nature. If we weren't so dependent on others, and our existence wasn't often defined as "being-with-others", perhaps we would still have the word, but it would lose much of the (perhaps negative) connotations.
ReplyDeleteIn response to the third paragraph, I think there are different *points* on the emotional spectrum that are optimal for different decisions. If an audience is ambivalent toward the outcome, perhaps a slight push in one (emotionally-polar) direction would be ideal. But if you're trying to get people to dispense entirely with their earthly pleasures (as Edwards was), and they're hesitant to adopt your extreme views, perhaps "the brink of fanaticism" is the only way it's going to happen. Certainly, though, no matter the objective, it can go too far, into that "state of extremity" that led Edward's father-in-law to take his own life. So, a knowledge of the Optimal movement of the crowd along the emotional spectrum seems crucial to the orator.
"The individual plays an interesting part in this discussion. They argue for an individual who is innately affected by the masses, since "even being alone presupposes a being-with-others, for an individual can be alone only because the other is not present with him/her" (448). That can be all well and good, but it seems to be cyclical: I am alone because I am not with other people, but it takes other people for me to know I am alone. Maybe that is not cyclical, but it seems problematic to me."
ReplyDeleteI also thought this was an interesting observation. Especially because of the reaction it receives. I often wonder about the cultural relativity of the articles we read. They seem to makes sense, in many cases, for us. But would they make sense in another culture? This particular idea, however, seemed to pose the opposite question. I believe that the idea that we are only alone because we are not in the presence of others seems backwards to a person raised in an individualist culture like the United States. We like to think of ourselves as being of primary importance, and thing of other things in relation to the self. So, we might be more receptive the the idea that we are *no longer* alone because we are *now* in the presence of other people.
Perhaps, in a collectivist culture, where the group is generally more valued and the individual tends to think of him/herself in terms of group membership, the idea would seem less 'problematic'.