On the live podcast today, I have fun with Lewis Carroll, the Walrus and the Carpenter, and Jabberwocky. The jabberwocky is dripping with creative words and phraseology, and I find it fun to recite it out loud. We don't have "the feather is mightier than the sword" as a shared idiom, but the majority of the finest words came from the quill, often with vegetable based inks, and not a pen. If not the quill, then a crafted tool with a sharp or flat tip.
In words, we find three philosophical considerations: There is the written or spoken word, there are the internal thoughts and finally there is action or manifestation of the words. The sages hold that the thoughts are the most critical and powerful of these three states. When we improve and seek to master our mind and thoughts, words and actions have no germinal source.
What did Plato say about rhetoric?
—But Plato pushes on to grant Socrates his first major conclusion against rhetoric, that 'it has no need to know the truth about things but merely to discover a technique of persuasion, so as to appear among the ignorant to have more knowledge than the expert'. In Phaedrus, Plato, through Socrates goes on to conclude that rhetoric is worthless and superfluous. To speak to the masses, you need to simplify the subject so greatly as to make it less not more. If you speak to a select audience, who can appreciate the entire subject you are simply "preaching to the choir.
In ancient Greece, as today, there were 5 categories of spoken word, in poetry, song, theater and writings. Utopia, tragedy, biography, good intentions, and bad actions. Biography included the town cryer, the Grio, news and current events. Good intentions includes religion and philosophy, both seeking the Utopia above and within. Bad actions explores ethics and governance, seeking to avoid falling into tragedy.
With nothing new under the sun, why not share the silly Jabberwocky?
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