Will, Plato, Love, and Jew-Frenzy
30 Pages Posted: 21 Sep 2012
Date Written: September 20, 2012
Abstract
In this paper I simply show the need to look at how we see and shape our conversation about persuasive-text making, and the teaching of rhetoric and writing, in a way that is far more pervasively inclusive of the notion and questions regarding the notion of "will" or "agency." I use love as an example, showing with Plato's "Phaedrus" how love upsets "will" or "agency" and I use Jew-frenzy as an example showing it from Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray." In studying and teaching rhetoric and persuasive-text making, one notices that these great mights, these powers that energize and move massive throngs, are not having to do much with smaller items of rhetoric such as sentencing, organization, and the like, but, as Plato says, everything worth looking into for the dynamite-powers, the things that really overwhelm and do so grandly, globally, and create frenzies, is related to the nature of souls.
Keywords: Plato, anti love, anti-semitism, teaching rhetoric and writing
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