The Ancient Greeks Speak on Trump
In humanity's first democracy, that of Athens in the fifth century BC, the role of the media fell to the playwrights. Aristophanes was the Greeks' Woodward and Bernstein. In his "Lysistrata" he issued a damning statement against the Peloponnesian War by inciting women to withhold sex from military men until the end of the war. In "The Clouds" he lampooned Socrates as an intellectually flighty buffoon. This caricature was substantial enough to be used against Socrates in his infamous trial and subsequent execution.
These are lessons for the here and now; the hard truth in Trump's condemnation of the press as the "enemy of the people" is that the press's role in this case should well be adversarial; just toward the state, not the people. The media can and is and will stand up for itself!
The power of a "storyteller" to fabricate narratives and purport them as reality through the induction of imagery and emotion. Politicians use the same technique, but so too does the media. Fabricating narratives as reality is a good way to condemn and execute good people.
Well said krnel
Well said. But storytelling and narrative are also the prime means for information discourse in our culture. Hard to evolve this.
Indeed, the basic mythopoetic narrative is an easier method to communicate as we have been doing it for thousands of years. Critical thinking, evaluation to represent reality accurately, is harder, takes more work, etc.
Using imagery to construct a perception of reality has its uses, but it can easily be used to manipulate people.