Blog #2 -- Encomium of Helen

Gorgias does his best to try to explain rhetoric (primarily through speech) as a powerful appeal to the soul. The best quote I took from Encomium was "Speech is a powerful lord, which by means of the finest and most invisible body of effects the divinest works: it can stop fear and banish grief and create joy and nurture pity." Although Gorgias explains four different explanation or reasons why Helen did was she did, it is speech or persuasion that Gorgias believes was the real explanation. He spends a bulk of the small text talking about how powerful rhetoric is. He says that "So that on most subjects most men take opinion as counselor to their soul, but since opinion is slippery and insecure it casts those employing it into slippery and insecure successes. What cause then prevents the conclusion that Helen similarly, against her will, might have come under the influence of speech...?" Although it is a long quote, it sums up exactly what Gorgias is trying to say. Speech is powerful, it moves the soul. Why, if speech is so powerful, can we not use it as an explanation for Helen's actions? I don't necessarily want to agree that is was the soul reason for Helen's actions, but I surely don't want to disagree with the power of speech.

Speech has persuaded many people, whether it be good or bad. A good example of speech that moved people in a positive way was Martin Luther King, Jr.'s speeches. If you were on the fence of racial inequality, Dr. King could move you to fight (although fight may be the wrong word) against segregation and discrimination. Flip the coin, and look at Adolf Hitler, and you can see how he turned ordinary people into savage killers, mostly through speech. A lot of leaders need to have speech, and once that ability to speak and persuade is gone, people become less powerful. For example, President Bush came under attack because of his inability to speak effectively. Although I don't want to get into a debate on whether his policies were good, he was a good president, or etc., I think that his inability to speak to the heart and persuade was the root of a lot of his problems. Gorgias has a valid point, that speech is one of the most powerful parts of language or culture, whether it was then or now.