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Saturday, January 31, 2009

Gecko and Aristotle

I noticed many aspects of Aristotle's teachings express definition in Michael
Douglas' character Gecko's speech in the movie Glengarry Glen Ross and this 
is verbatim what I jotted down:

Douglas' speech embodies the Aristotelian conceptualization of logos,
pathos, and ethos. He speaks about the "free market" and how it is the
most logical (logos) way of doing business because it is in the best
interest of the shareholders. Furthermore, the audience should believe
him because he is the largest shareholder, he has the most at stake, and
therefore, is the expert on the subject matter, ie. ethos is employed.
Lastly, his use of pathos comes about in the joke about all the money
the board members spent on paper [which] was probably just for passing
around to one another. This makes the audience laugh, thus giving him a
more amiable appearance, as well as, creating fear in the shareholders
that they may be subject[ed] to the board members betrayal. In the end,
the audience jumps out of their seats and yell Hooray! for our savior
who has shown us the light! (Practically)

I love the use of the company which equals the country which equals the
people idea, reminded me of the whole, "Every nation in every region now
has a decision to make: Either you are with us or you are with the
terrorists.” Bush excerpt speech after 9-11-01

or even the one that went, "In boundless love as a Christian and as a
man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose
in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood
of vipers and of adders. How terrific was His fight for the world
against the Jewish poison."

I guess this is where Plato comes in and says we need to strike those
words which people are not able to rationalize intellectually so as to
not encourage the kind of speech which as we see, someone like Hitler is
able to manipulate a passage from the Bible and use it for the
extermination of the Jews.

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