Essay 1 Final

Imitatio Reflection:

Against the Lobbyists: Our Modern Day Sophists

Isocrates’s Against the Sophists was quite a speech to imitate. This speech was intended to set Isocrates apart from many of the other rhetoricians of his time, specifically the Sophists. He singled out the Sophists because he felt that they were not being true to the art and study of rhetoric. The status quo he felt had become one of deceit and lies. Isocrates claimed “although they say that they do not want money and speak contemptuously of wealth as ‘filthy lucre’, they hold their hands out for a trifling gain and promise to make their disciples all but immortal” (Bizzell 72). He attacks the quality and validity of their work and seems to feel a degree of anger towards these Sophists because he argues that the field is being degraded for mere monetary gains. There is no drive for the greater good and advancement of knowledge here, rather just greed.

            Finding a speech from an ancient rhetorician was very difficult for me, but after jumping around from speech to speech I finally fell upon Against the Sophists. Though it may not have seemed appealing, after reading it about two or three times I noticed how much this seemed familiar. It was heavily reflective of political races today. The connotation of rhetoric follows that of politics, and many consider them to be closely related. I am specifically referring to the parallels between this speech and that of a slur campaign or a breakaway stance in a politician’s campaign. However, analyzing the relations between the two seemed almost too simple. After writing a short rough draft of my speech, I noticed a blaring difference between Against the Sophists and a political slur campaign. Isocrates conveyed a love for teaching and a passion for the greater good of his students in his speech, whereas a political slur campaign ad has a more selfish feel about it. This is because a political candidate’s goal is to further their career and win elections arguably for the good of the public, but what is good for part of the public is not good for the whole. Isocrates on the other hand seemed to care about the good of his students more than his own prosper. If he was concerned about “winning” or being ahead of the competition he could have stayed with the Sophists and reaped the benefits however he didn’t do that.

            At this point I tried to think of a current issue where people were the people with more money get what they want and those with true promise and capabilities can get shut out. Of course politics came to my mind again. However, lots of political issues seem very self-centered and Isocrates was giving a speech to inform people of the issue at hand, not for his own benefit, but for theirs. If I was going to use politics as my topic, I needed a topic where I could empathize with the people and make a call to action against whatever political issue I picked in order to replicate the motive of Isocrates. I noticed that the exact scenario that I was thinking of was political lobbying by conglomerates and corporations to further their own interests. As the conveyor of this speech I would stand as Isocrates would against the unfair bias in political lobbying towards the wealthy and their interests.

The issue of lobbying in politics fit nicely with Isocrates`s Against the Sophists. However, making my speech sound at all like one written centuries ago was not simple and though I may not have fully evoked an Isocratic feel, I feel it mirrored his structure and use of rhetorical conventions. Isocrates seems to use this speech as  a public service announcement and as such I tried to make my speech mimic that tone. Through this process I learned a lot about how Isocrates formed his speeches and what forms of rhetoric he actually employed. Much of his rhetorical issues can be seen in modern times as well.

            Isocrates for one employs a great amount of ethos when he basically stakes his personal character on the issue. He suggests that he is willing to act in the best interest of the student rather than reap the benefits from taking advantage of the public and only tailoring to the rich. Isocrates does this not by blatantly saying these things but rather, he attacks the other side’s character and in doing so he separates himself as opposite from that group. According to Isocrates, the Sophists “distrust those from whom they are to get this money, they distrust, that is to say, the very men to whom they are about to deliver the sciences of just dealing” (Bizzell 72). He basically calls the other side a bunch of frauds. This mimics the stance that many anti-lobbying and anti-oil groups take.

            After attacking the credibility and character of the Sophists, Isocrates backs up his accusations using logical proofs. He shows that the Sophists are taking advantage of their students by explaining the fact that these teachers promise success as long as the students pay. However, Isocrates points out that success in this field isn’t something that can be guaranteed or bought and logically it should follow that if these Sophists are lying about one aspect of their services, they are more than likely lying about other parts.  This can be translated into modern times just as my speech showed when referring to BP oil and lobbyist funding.

            From a holistic point of view this project seemed very difficult. However, when broken down and thought out it was actually a very valuable learning experience. Being given loose guidelines and very general prompts seemed to me at first to be the product of a difficult class, but in hindsight this project actually allowed me to learn the material and synthesize it in a manner unique to myself. The reason it was hard I figured out was because in the past teachers did half of the work for you by providing a specific prompt and details. However as we have learned from relevant readings, class discussion , and especially this project, forming the questions and guidelines for ones work is just as important as the actual product itself.

Against the Sophists Imitation

Energy is something that we as a society are extremely reliant upon. Those who control energy control the world. I would ask, what responsibility does the energy industry have to work towards “the greater good”? Is it wrong for oil and gas companies to use their vast fortunes to influence politics and legislation? Even if it risks deteriorating our environment and economic independence?. Gas and oil are positive for our economy, but when “about 50% of the crude oil processed in U.S. imported” in 2013 according to the Energy Information Administration we see a dependency begin to form. This dependency as we have seen can lead to war, and can cause complications in international politics.

All this while there are promising benefits from clean energy. These benefits would include less foreign dependency, and a cleaner environment.   It is important to remember though that politics and legislation is all very influenced by money. By that I mean that having a limitless supply of money can guarantee that a company’s political interests are met. For example, the top 54 oil and gas companies in the world share a market value of over 4 trillion dollars. Since 2011 alone 105 million has been spent of lobbying for oil and gas in the United States and another 150 million has been spent on TV ads promoting fossil fuel interests.

The people in our country are being taken advantage of and these companies are only interested in financial gain. Time and time again we hear about these oil spills and oil wars, all because our dependency forces us to act on our fossil fuel interests in certain countries.

            I’m sure many of you remember the BP oil spill. In this case there was an offshore drilling incident where 200 million gallons of crude oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico. The leak was capped and closed after 87 days of spilling into the ocean and devastating much of the coastlines. The officials at BP immediately started creating TV ads and organizing cleanup efforts, however their primary goal throughout the whole situation was salvaging their reputation. President Obama even created a 20 billion dollar response fund for relief. This was money that could have been spent in other places if this disaster had never occurred, but offshore drilling is heavily supported by companies that lobby to the U.S. Government.

            These companies play on the weakness of society based on our energy dependency. We don’t care how we get the energy as long as we get it. If money were spent on clean energy like it is on gas and oil there would be no shortage of clean energy which would reduce the impact to the environment.  These gas and oil companies are simply taking advantage of society’s dependency without any interest in the future. They look at the issue from a why fix it if it isn’t broken point of view.  And sure, these companies invest in some clean energy, but nowhere near what they could be investing. The question must be asked, do these companies owe any degree of responsibility to the public? People pour money into these conglomerates and in turn those conglomerates lobby in their own interest rather than the interests of the people, taking advantage and reaping the benefits. Capitalism is a great thing, but I feel that there should be a higher level of accountability for these companies as a whole.

References

Bizzell, Patricia, and Bruce Herzberg. "Against the Sophists." The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from Classical times to the Present. 2nd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2001. 72-74. Print.

Brenner, Noah, Anthony Guegel, Tan Hwee Hwee, and Anthea Pitt. "Coast Guard confirms Horizon sinks." Upstreamonline. Accessed February 25, 2014, http://www.upstreamonline.com/live/article1188900.ece

Hoch, Maureen. "New Estimate Puts Gulf Oil Leak at 205 Million Gallons." PBS Newshour. Accessed February 25, 2014, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/new-estimate-puts-oil-leak-at-49-million-barrels/.

"How Dependent Is the United States on Foreign Oil?" U.S. Energy Information Administration. E.I.A., 1 Jan. 2011. Web. 19 Sept. 2014.

Leber, Rebecca. "Three Ways Big Oil Spends Its Profits To Defend Oil Subsidies And Defeat Clean Energy." ThinkProgress Three Ways Big Oil Spends Its Profits To Defend Oil Subsidies And Defeat Clean Energy Comments. 24 Oct. 2012. Web. 17 Sept. 2014.

Searles, Chris. "Oil & Gas, the World's Wealthiest Industry." 2 Feb. 2012. Web. 18 Sept. 2014.