Blogging - A Powerful Rhetorical Form of Dialectic

As a Speech Communication minor, I am currently taking "The History and Theory of Rhetoric" in which a lecture last week about Plato's love for dialectic made me think of blogging.

In Plato's Phaedrus, Socrates addresses whether or not rhetoric is an art. Instead of hearing a speech and not being able to respond, Socrates prefers using dialectic to break everything down to develop and understand the monologue. Despite his complaint about an unresponsive speech, he especially disfavors writing because it is "dead" and cannot answer questions.

Can't writing and dialect come together in the blogosphere? Computers and Internet technology have brought about a new world of communicating with others, and I believe that blogging is the “dialectic” of the future. As Socrates thought dialectic was useful because things could be broken up and understood instead of hearing one long memorized piece, I believe he would appreciate blogging, as people post comments back and forth, mostly arguing or bringing about more in depth points to an original post. Topics are broken down and discussed by many different kinds of people, all bringing various issues and opinions to the table. Since posting blogs is essentially writing on the computer, I believe writing today has the potential to be full of rhetoric thanks to the blogosphere and new social media we are now exposed to on a daily basis.

Blogging is also commonly used for dialectic to discuss speeches. After President Bush’s State of the Union address last month, thousands of blogs were created primarily to discuss the President’s speech, which is exactly what Socrates and Phaedrus did after Phaedrus heard Lysias’ speech about non-lovers and lovers. Instead of having to speak dialectic, we now have the technology to write back and forth to one another without wasting time by mailing letters, etc.

Throughout the rhetoric lecture, I noticed that my opinion about the importance of blogging was reinforced because it can be such a rhetorical tool. People's opinions can be changed, different arguments and points can be discussed, yet with blogging, millions of people have access to the discussions and comments unlike in the days of the ancient Greeks. I think Plato would appreciate this form of social media.