So can education, in Isocrates's mind and classification, be considered, bad or serving the means of the state? Surely, Isocrates considered education and rhetoric to be beneficial to people, and not as a means to create the perfect society or Plato's Republic. That is why Plato and Isocrates stand on opposite sides (or at least history and society have placed them on opposite sides).
I see Isocrates using rhetoric and education to better individuals for practical use; to create citizens that will perform public deeds and will work to create a better society and also one that is open to negotiation and discourse. I am extremely fond of Dr. Kemp's relating this to American Pragmatisim, because it helps me understand Isocrates's form of education easier. He sought not to create the Republic, where a philosopher king was in charge and controlled society, but rather where participation was valued and where discourse and discussion was placed at the top of society. True, this may in itself be considered a form of brainwashing and manipulation, but I don't see or consider Isocrates a brainwasher or manipulator. Also, I think that without this deep desire to empower people with practical and useful knowledge to better society as a whole, society will tend to repress and oppress people instead, or that chaos and anarchy will ultimately reign supreme.
What happens to society without an open society where discussion is placed at the upmost of importance? True, a privileged few might as well stand for a privileged individual, and this individual could then oppress the rest of society with their power. I’m not entirely sure how ancient Greece operated as a society and who ultimately called the shots. But I think reading Isocrates’s writing, we can start to get the impression that he didn’t want an oligarchy, but instead wanted to give people the means and tools to practically and usefully change their society. As Dr. Kemp stated of American Pragmatics’ slogan, “cause the least amount of suffering for the least amount of people.” It was all about helping others create an open society where instead of oppression there was open discussion where people could settle their disputes through dialogue and discourse.
But I’m still interested in understanding if and how this operates in our society now. Do we truly have an open society where discussion is welcomed and encouraged? I’m not sure. I understand that any citizen has a vote here in the US, and I do believe that voting has power in itself. But I still think there are a lot of people who are oppressed and who aren’t given a voice. But I also see certain technologies creating a means for these people to be given a voice; namely the Internet.
I wonder what Isocrates would think of the Internet and today’s model of education? It’s interesting to think about.
My answer, Daniel, to the question of whether we have an open society is yes, with qualification. Churchill said that Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others, and that's how I think about our "open society." It is not "an open society"; it is only more open than all the others. And given how difficult it is for any group of people to get anything really worthwhile done, that is probably all we can expect: a continually self-revising society struggling for more openness and egalitarianism and succeeding only a little bit more than we fail. Things are getting better, just slowly and sometimes maddeningly indirect. I'm old enough to have strong memories of a United States much less tolerant than now, about all kinds of ideas and people. But perfection is never in the cards (pace Matthew Arnold and Plato).
ReplyDeleteI agree with Dr. Kemp on the idea that our government is more accurately "the lesser of many evils." I think Isocrates assumed that this would be the case. He assumed that humans were too inconsistent in their beliefs to rely on an absolute "Truth" to guide their society. And, hypothetically, even if there were those in the group that "knew" the Truth, not everyone would believe them and follow them. Thus, a system of government in a heterogenous system of beliefs must be based on the open society, or socially constructed set of laws and beliefs that, though not all agreed with them, most of the people accept them. Then only can a relatively peaceful society exist.
ReplyDeleteBut on the topic of causing the "least amount of suffering", I'm tempted to get into an argument about semantics. What is suffering? And is suffering always "bad"? I take the old adage as my example: "Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime." We might think we are reducing suffering by just giving people stuff without accountability, but we actually do them a disservice. If rather we sought to teach them how to live sustainably, though they suffer a while in hunger and frustration, is not this the higher goal?