Which "Herd" do you belong to?

[Varmit]

I don't know about dinner.... but an easy snack on occasion comes to mind.. 

Easy there tiger 

[flintauqua]

I present, you decide

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Friday, October 30, 2009
Media Rants: A Socratic Dialogue
The November Media Rant for the The Scene reveals that the great philosopher Socrates anticipated the schlock that today we call corporate media. --TP


MAD Media: A Socratic Dialogue

Media Rants

By Tony Palmeri

Classical Greek scholars were shocked recently when an Athenian farmer tilling soil in his olive grove accidently stumbled across a manuscript dating back to the 4th century BCE. Believed to be a lost dialogue of Plato, the manuscript features the great philosopher Socrates in conversation with a dimwitted character called Hannityus. The best scholarly guess is that Hannityus was a disciple of Euthydemus, a popular public speaker in 380 BCE known to practice what Socrates called the "eristic" mode of communication. For Socrates, eristic wasn't a form of argument designed to educate, but rather a method of humiliating opponents by showering them with verbal abuse. In the newly discovered manuscript, Socrates warns of a future world featuring eristic as the dominant mode of public discourse, with partisan verbal bullies presented to the masses as patriots. In what might be the earliest critique of media corporations, Socrates says that that "in a distant future, those organizations making profit by polluting the public discourse will be guided by the values of Mediocrity, Anti-intellectualism, and Disrespect. They will be truly MAD." Media Rants is pleased to present an excerpt of the lost dialogue.

Hannityus: Good day Socrates. I noticed you in attendance at my debate with Democritus. You were impressed by my performance, yes?

Socrates: Good day Hannityus. Well, I heard Democritus arguing that the State ought to guarantee equality for all. To great applause, you mocked him, questioned his integrity and loyalty to Athens, and continually interrupted his attempts to substantiate his claim. Your performance . . .

Hannityus (interrupts): Certainly one as wise you does not sympathize with Democritus' nonsense?

Socrates: As I was saying, your performance entertained the crowd with much ridicule and vivid condemnation of your opponent.

Hannityus: Much deserved ridicule and condemnation, good sir.

Socrates: And I must say that I was quite impressed by how you turned the tables and made into an enemy of the people a man who from his perspective was arguing in support of expanded rights and benefits for the people. You are quite clever Hannityus.

Hannityus: Euthydemus says that turning the tables is the height of communicative excellence.

Socrates: No, it is one of the many forms of communicative mediocrity. Like your calling Democritus an "idiot."

Hannityus: A tactic I learned from Glennbeckus.

Socrates: Whatever. The point is that communicative excellence requires an honest attempt to discover the truth. I heard none of that in your so-called debate with Democritus.

Hannityus: Surely you are not saying that there could be any truth in Democritus' claim that the State should guarantee equality for all?

Socrates: I do not know, as he was never allowed to elaborate. Does he mean the State should guarantee equal opportunity for all? Or does he mean the State should guarantee equality under the law? Does he mean the State should guarantee equal compensation for all regardless of effort? Or does he mean equal pay for equal work? These questions are all worth asking and thinking about, yet with all due respect your eristic approach to debate urges participants not to think. Or at least not to think very critically.

Hannityus: Euthydemus warned me that you are nothing but an elitist intellectual snob, Socrates. I must say that your comments validate his judgment of your character.

Socrates: As you wish. I am sorry to have sparked your antagonism, but the problem is not that you, Euthydemus, and Glennbeckus are anti-Socrates or anti-Democritus or anti-anyone else.

Hannityus: Pray tell oh wise one, what is the problem?

Socrates: The problem is anti-intellectualism. The refusal to take anything other than a black and white, good and evil, us and them approach to serious issues. Positions are taken not on the basis of principle or rigorous analysis, but on the basis of whether or not such positions support whatever particular team you happen to be on. It's quite pathetic.

Hannityus: Are the so-called intellectuals any better? I've seen them in debates. Your student Plato, for example, and others in his Academy succeed only in putting people to sleep or leaving them in utter confusion.

Socrates: I would hardly hold up the academic intellectuals as role-models of how to debate in public. They too can be boorish, disrespectful, and willing to serve the team instead of search for the truth. In fact I can imagine a future in which intellectuals become a professional class that uses its brain power to aid and abet extremely abusive governments, businesses, and other institutions. They'll create lies instead of expose them. Such "intellectuals" will be worthy of contempt.

Hannityus: You enjoy forecasting the future. Tell me, what will be the future of my brand of public debate? Surely it will someday rule the world?

Socrates: Those who can profit by polluting the water and air will do so. They can be stopped only when people acting collectively decide they no longer will tolerate drinking dirty water and breathing toxic air.

In a distant future, those organizations making profit by polluting the public discourse will be guided by the values of Mediocrity, Anti-intellectualism, and Disrespect. They will be truly MAD. They will be stopped only when people acting collectively decide they no longer will tolerate madness.

posted by tony palmeri at 11:39 AM

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From the Center

Flint

[pamsback]

 That gets a high five Flint Socrates has it goin on .......stilll lol

[Varmit]

That so-called Dialogue might have actually held water if the author had done their homework on folks like Beck, and Hannity.

[flintauqua]

Oh, please.  

You uber-rightists are so hesitant to face the truth that when it presents itself, all you know how to do anymore is shout baseless epithets at it from the top of your lungs as you run as fast as you can in the other direction.  

You wouldn't believe the truth even if Ronald Reagan's ghost was the one telling it to you!

[Varmit]

Really? Thats interesting.  But hey, speaking of truth maybe you could help me with something.  You know that little thing called Global Warming the left was screaming about, saying that it was man made, whatever happened to it?...

Or what about that so-called 46 million americans who were without medical insurance?  Well, thats 46 million before you take out the illegals, the people who can afford it but chose not to buy it, then theres those folks who got included because they lost their job and their insurance along with it even though they were able to regain insurance within 6 months.

Before you leftists start in about truth ya'll should clean up your own backyard.

[jarhead]

Varmit,
Surely you aren't saying Flint is a lefty. He's from the center---he's told you that a kazillion times

[Varmit]

yeah, and obama said that bills would be posted for 5 days online, said it more than once, didn't mean it was true.

[pamsback]

 Just out of curiosity why do yall find it so hard to swallow that a person doesn't HAVE to be either/ or? That some people are capable of thoughts and beliefs on ALL sides based on the MERIT of the idea instead of what party it most closely resembles? Just GOT to label it and put it in a neat little box, tape it shut, and bury it ESPECIALLY if it don't agree with you.

Yeah AL Gore exaggerates and he is makin money off it.......Dick Cheney is a consumate crook.......Obama made promises he hasn't kept......George Bush exaggerated to get his war.......Clinton got caught with his cigar in the cookie jar......and so on and so forth and blah blah blah.

The fact of the matters are......POLLUTION IS killin the planet..yours...mine.....any and EVERYbodies.
Obama has some good ideas
I hate Bush but I will admit some things he did made sense
Clinton was a horndog, he did things I agreed with also.
Dick Cheney is just a *&^%, he has no redeeming value I can come up with but there is one in every crowd.
People (read that politicians), I guess MOST people, USE facts to run their own personal agendas.....the fact they may tweak those facts does not change the base fact.

Just the fact that the people on this forum can't talk about issues without ridiculing or attacking, labeling, actin like twelve year olds on the school yard exhibits what is wrong with this country at it's base. Y'all don't like ANYbody who doesn't belong to YOUR "herd"...they MUST BE STOPPED!!!!!!

Guess what....I ain't interested in what you are gonna tell me is wrong with my thoughts on this.....I ain't part of your herd....

[Patriot]

Just out of curiosity why do yall find it so hard to swallow that a person doesn't HAVE to be either/ or? That some people are capable of thoughts and beliefs on ALL sides based on the MERIT of the idea instead of what party it most closely resembles? Just GOT to label it and put it in a neat little box, tape it shut, and bury it ESPECIALLY if it don't agree with you.

Yeah AL Gore exaggerates and he is makin money off it.......Dick Cheney is a consumate crook.......Obama made promises he hasn't kept......George Bush exaggerated to get his war.......Clinton got caught with his cigar in the cookie jar......and so on and so forth and blah blah blah.

The fact of the matters are......POLLUTION IS killin the planet..yours...mine.....any and EVERYbodies.
Obama has some good ideas
I hate Bush but I will admit some things he did made sense
Clinton was a horndog, he did things I agreed with also.
Dick Cheney is just a *&^%, he has no redeeming value I can come up with but there is one in every crowd.
People (read that politicians), I guess MOST people, USE facts to run their own personal agendas.....the fact they may tweak those facts does not change the base fact.

Just the fact that the people on this forum can't talk about issues without ridiculing or attacking, labeling, actin like twelve year olds on the school yard exhibits what is wrong with this country at it's base. Y'all don't like ANYbody who doesn't belong to YOUR "herd"...they MUST BE STOPPED!!!!!!

Guess what....I ain't interested in what you are gonna tell me is wrong with my thoughts on this.....I ain't part of your herd....

While you made some good points here, the final question might be... why would you continue to hang with a herd in which you claim no part?