In Response to Longinus

It is amusing to note that my first encounter with On the Sublime occurred while reading the Panegyricus, and not in class. Barely a few paragraphs into the  Isocratic treatise (broken up into small sections on the Perseus database), a very large and prominent footnote appeared. It read:

“The author of the treatise On the Sublime quotes this passage and condemns Isocrates’ ‘puerility’ in thus dwelling on the power of rhetoric and so arousing distrust of his sincerity…Plutarch attributes to Isocrates the definition of rhetoric as the means of making “small things great and great things small” … a similar view is attributed to Tisias and Gorgias.”

Immediately apparent from this passage was Longinus’ intent, personal convictions, and faction association in the philosophy vs. rhetoric divide. Despite all of Isocrates’ insistence to the contrary, Longinus depicted him as a sophist in the style of Gorgias, devoid of all claim to the notion of sublimity. On the Sublime itself certainly did not disappoint in these regards. Longinus specifically singled out one of Isocrates’ passages as an example of a rhetorical figure executed badly, while Plato was referenced with high praise many times in the treatise.

Furthermore, the positions advocated by Longinus were almost always diametrically opposed to those advocated by Isocrates (and by extension Cicero and Quintilian). The most prominent of these appeared to be the role of natural ability in the development of the sublime, the model citizen, or the ideal orator. Out of five sources of sublimity, Longinus attributed the foremost to “natural greatness”, while Isocrates was adamant in the Antidosis that “credit is won not by gifts of fortune but by efforts of study”.

Other criticisms of the Isocratic style I will accept and take to heart, but I cannot let this foolhardy sentiment of Longinus to stand. In fact, I consider this line of thinking to be seriously detrimental to education itself. In America, the belief that you are predisposed to failure or success is especially prevalent. Students abandon all hope on a subject too often, simply because they have been ingrained with the notion that you must be born with the “gift” in order to succeed. While natural greatness may be a non-negligible factor in reaching virtuosity or sublimity, the vastly dominant contribution comes from the sheer amount of time spent honing a skill, drilling a technique, or practicing a routine.

Talent may get you past the basic motions effortlessly, if only for the sake of appearance and bluster, but conceptual mastery is the direct result of intensive study.

There is yet another matter regarding Longinus and Plato that I must address. My primary critique of Plato was the following: while Plato had explicated in great detail his Theory of Forms, he ultimately left no way for humans to distinguish what constituted a Form and what did not. We could perhaps speculate that that the concept of sublimity is capable of being extended to enhance Plato’s Forms.

Longinus makes several references to the true sublime, which can remain awe-inspiring to its audience no matter how many times it is examined. The true sublime is independent of who or what perceives it; everyone who experiences it can only depart with unanimous and fervent praise. Can this be used a criterion in recognizing the Forms? How good of you to patch up the numerous holes in Plato’s so-called theories, Longinus!

And what a criterion it is. Will there ever be a speech, performance, philosophy, or ideal that elicits total approval from its evaluators? Why, perhaps we should journey around the globe to put certain promising items to the test, accosting all beings that chance upon us. When we’ve reached a thousand bodies in favor and only one opposed, can we call it a Form? No? Longinus, you have simply redrawn the asymptote and redefined the indefinite. What we need is a measure of how close we are to that asymptote, and correspondingly, when to stop wondering if what we have is a Form or not.  I would like to have awarded you the honor of improving upon Plato, just as Cicero improved on Isocrates, Quintilian on Cicero, and Augustine on them all – but it is not to be.

1; Unity

In the half-century following the conclusion of the Peloponnesian War, the city-states of Hellas remained embroiled in incessant quarrels over the most of petty matters, despite the best attempts of those who had once hoped to unite all Hellenes under a common banner. Though the leaders in power had never solved any issues of great importance, they still walked with pride and held their heads high, concerning themselves with little matters fit only to enhance their own reputations. These leaders made often treaties of peace between themselves, but in vain and perhaps in ill-conscience from the outset. The treaties themselves did not settle hostilities, but served only to defer wars to the moment that one such leader perceived that he could inflict some grievous wound upon another.

It is in this environment that we are counseled by Isocrates, that the more narrow-minded and cowardly our leaders prove to be, the more vigorously the rest of us must work to find a solution in order to end our apparent enmity. Our duty is to rise above these petty plots and endeavour to establish a greater sense of security at home, and to install greater confidence among neighbors and between each other.

The specifics, however, may be more difficult to swallow in modern times. Isocrates presents a simple solution to forging a lasting peace: war with Persia, which would turn the mutual enmity of the Hellenes away from each other and towards a common enemy.

Yet has America not been forged by the very same process? We have been united by war, and our member states have long ago sacrificed much of their independent identities and sovereignties to become integrated as parts of the whole. Our enemy was no derivative Achaemenid king, guardian of a realm long bereft of their former glory and hegemony, but one of the most powerful and far-flung empires that has ever graced the surface of this Earth, and it was still yet in its prime.

It took a foreign army to conquer the city-states of Hellas and impose unity upon them. Isocrates would no doubt look upon the creation of the United States as a demonstration of the natural tendency to form bonds against all adversity. The colonies, which were established with vastly different motivations and creeds, had virtually no mutual ties but were able to create common cause nonetheless.

The United States has advanced innumerable steps since then, but our political climate has suffered to the point that it is comparable to that of Hellas. Long gone are the days that any single politician can be elected to the office of the Presidency on a unanimous vote. Politicians today stand on what they call “principle” in order to appeal to their voter base, instead of compromising with opposing factions to create more balanced legislation. They do and say not what is required for the betterment of country, but what will cement their reelection. One faction’s triumph is now automatically regarded as another’s scourge. The recent battle over the 2011 budget is exemplary of the tendency to pass temporary treaties so that all parties involved can probe for another chance at the killing blow: several “stopgap” funding measures were passed that funded the government for 3 weeks at a time, postponing the inevitable confrontation and giving politicians more time to maneuver. However, I am not here to judge the guilty party, but only to observe that all sides are worthy of praise and deserving of condemnation.

It is time that we left behind these petty, childish power plays that have yet again divided our country into squabbling factions. But who are we to unite against? Enemies that we face now are much more insidious than the looming threat of a foreign invader. The true threats are diminishing natural resources, global overpopulation, and rising extremism on all sides of the political spectrum. These are enemies that shed no blood and conscript no hosts, and cannot be solved by a broken and disjointed effort. No, what can spur a nation to great heights other than the sentiment that it is being outdone by another? Like those before me, I propose a simple solution. We have been complacent for too much time while we surmised that our country was preeminent in all affairs: science, law, medicine, literature, and invention. Such designations are far from permanent and are ultimately worthless to our motivations; other nations have been spurred by the desire to match and surpass our accomplishments, and they are getting ever closer. Let the spirit of competition among nations dictate to us an identity and purpose that all can rally behind. If we are to endure the real challenges that lie ahead of us, our banners must first be unfurled.

To that effect, let us bask in our mutual accomplishments instead of our ideological differences, and allow all our myriad parts to come together as a functioning whole once more. After all, we hardly boast that that a single state was responsible for the civil rights movement or that the Democratic Party defeated the Third Reich in World War II; such deeds are what the nation is capable of only if it chooses to come together.