I logged onto Blogger just to see if anyone read Rereading the Sophists yet, (I’m starting it right after I post this) and I clicked on the one blog link “Tech Sophist” to see what it was. It is some professor, “Dr. Lanette Cadle, Assistant Professor of English at Missouri State University, specializing in Rhetoric and Composition, especially where those subjects intersect digital spaces.” You should really read some of these posts, they’re amazing. Anyway, I watched the video that was posted there and it made me appreciate TIME’s decision of making “You” the person of the year. I think Plato would shit a brick if he knew how influential things like Wikipedia, YouTube, MySpace, and Blogger are. You can be a digital Sophist right from your living room. You wouldn't even have to wear out a pair of sandals walking from town to town. Any who, from a Platonian perspective, I think we can already see the dangers of this type of information in relation to identity, ethics, copywriter issues, Truth with a big T, etcetera. Anyway, I’m going to read now and post again after I finish.
1 comment:
I think what Greg says is intriguing here...mostly because I've been trying to piece together just what the legacy of the sophist tradition is. Could it be muck-raking and tabloid journalism? Could it be 'The Daily Show with Jon Stewart' and 'The Colbert Report?' What I'm getting at is the sophist tradition seems to be one of "outside voices" intruding upon the mainstream status quo.
Who would be the sophists of today?
In Jarratt's book, sophists are portrayed to be well-educated travelers using deceptive rhetorical tactics, but at the same time, I believe these rhetors must have their share of hucksters and snake-oil salesmen too. For every Gorgias and Protagoras I would venture there was the ancient equivalent of Ann Coulter and Geraldo Rivera. It seems that where ever fame and fortune can be created there are second and third level cretins vying for the crumbs. Why should the ancient sophists be any different?
Greg's comments about digital rhetors (bloggers, wikipeds, et al) strikes me as the most extreme expansion of sophist philosophy. Where else but the internet can the erudite and the insane share perspectives? Where else can conspiracy and fact be neighbors?
Yes truly Plato would shit a brick...he could even do it on 'Plato'sDump.com.
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