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A current debate with ancient roots April 25, 2007

The current debate over violence and other kinds of contemptible behavior that is being broadcast to the youth in the form of video games, CDs, music videos, television shows, movies, and song lyrics, harkens one back to the dialogues of Plato (428 B.C. – 348 B.C.) and which are found in The Republic. It was more than 2,500 years ago when Plato founded an Academy in Athens, which is considered one of the earliest institutions of higher learning in the western world.

In his dialogues, Plato provides thought-provoking discussions concerning the teachings of his mentor, Socrates. Among these writings is a concern on the poets’ corrupting influence on the youth. Plato even raised the issue of censuring the poets in order to protect the youth.

Poetry itself can involve a kind of persuasive and influential discourse or rhetoric, which Plato claimed can result in not only the corruption of self but also can be harmful to the audience exposed to it. In the Republic, rhetoric is described as the art of “leading the soul by means of speech” and poetry and rhetoric is also considered a “matter of the soul leading itself.”

Homer (800 B.C.) was a poet whose writings shaped the popular culture and religion of Ancient Greece. Plato saw how influential Homer’s poetry was and it was widely recited throughout the culture as people committed it to memory and repeated it over and over again. The kind of poetry Plato was most concerned with is not the written text that is read in silence, but rather the kind that is recited or performed and is also experienced in a group setting, theater, or concert hall.

A great deal of the final book of Plato’s Republic is a criticism of poetry. And, I think it is important to consider the impact violent images, messages, song lyrics, and other forms of rhetoric and poetry are having upon our culture, including our own values and the youth. Yes, Ancient Greece was a very different culture and its philosophers grappled with these issues a long time ago. However, they were and we are human beings, which means we share a lot in common. Consider the function of the human mind’s memory. Right now, you can recall more than you realize and have in your memory bank images, words, speech, movies, songs, and so much more that you have been exposed to in your lifetime. I could ask you a question, such as “Think of a scene from your favorite movie” and you would probably be able to replay it in your mind. I could ask you questions that conjure up childhood memories. And, as biographers will tell you, the more you ask questions and provoke responses, the more your brain will bring up more memories that you thought you had forgotten. The process of questions and answers stimulate memories and bring them to mind.

Music can also inspire moods and behavior too. Not only the melody, but also the lyrics can impact a person’s disposition, attitude, and values. What are we putting into our own memory banks? Are we even aware of how influential the arts are for both the good and for ill?

If Aristotle was right that happiness is an activity of soul in accordance with virtue, then are the arts, music, theater, movies, poetry, among others, that we are exposed to helping to promote and inspire the virtues we need for happiness?

Satirical, not satyrical > there’s a difference April 25, 2007

Ancient Greece has given the world exceptional examples of art, architecture, government, philosophy and, of all things, words. 

If something is described in satirical (pronounced “sa-teer-i-cal”) terms, it is typically being mocked in the form of a satire, a literary work in which human foibles and follies are ridiculed in an ironic, derisive, sarcastic or witty manner. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, satire can also use sometimes caustic and often sharp language to expose, denounce or deride society’s vices, abuses and evils.

The Athenian playwright Aristophanes, regarded as the most influential Greek satirist, inspired the likes of Horace, the Roman lyric poet, and Shakespeare. Since the Romans loved to copy the Greeks, it’s little wonder that both the idea of satire and its practice is alive and well in today’s television shows, movies and plays.

According to the OED, British historian Goldwin Smith, in the February 1880 edition of Atlantic Monthly, describes the various forms of satire thus: “There are different kinds of satire: the epicurean, which laughs at mankind … the stoical, which indignantly lashes mankind … the cynical, which hates and despises mankind.”

As it turns out, satire comes to us by way of Middle French, and thence from the Latin satira or satura, meaning a “medley,” and referring to a type of poem that denounces society’s flaws. Curiously enough, it is expressed as lanx satura, literally meaning a “full dish”, supposedly a plate or dish of mixed ingredients, such as various kinds of fruit, since lanx means “dish” and satura is the feminine form of “full,” from satis, meaning “enough”.

In this form, The American Heritage Dictionary says that satura was quite possibly derived from the Greek word satur, or satyr, a forest-dwelling deity that is associated with Bacchus, aka Dionysus, the Greek god of wine. This is where the etymology gets interesting, as it is this association with the mythical chorus of satyrs in “satyric” comedies, plays with satyrs, that led to the two words being used interchangeably.

Back in 1509, satire made its first quasi-modern appearance in the English language in Scottish poet Alexander Barclay’s The Ship of Fools, with the line, “Therfore in this satyre suche wyll I repreue…” and the English author George Puttenham was the first to use the word in its meaning as a written composition in The Arte of English Poesie in 1589. A typical 17th century example of satirical is found in this rather silly title of a work by Thomas May: “The Life of a Satyrical Pvppy, Called Nim, who worrieth all those Satyrists he knowes, and barkes at the rest.”

The word history of satire took us back to ancient Greece and dropped us off in Shakespeare’s day. From Greek plays to puppies, etymologies have it all.