And Now Eros?

 

 

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players..." 

 

William Shakespeare

As You Like It

Act II, Scene VII

 

 

 

The goal of argumentative writing is to persuade your audience that your ideas are valid, or more valid than someone else. Almost 2,500 years ago, Aristotle divided the means of persuasion into three categories: 

Ethos (Credibility) means convincing by the character of the author.

 

Pathos (Emotional) means persuading by appealing to the reader's emotions.

 

Logos (Logical) means persuading by the use of reasoning.

These three categories still hold true today. I find it interesting to read different stories or articles and try to determine which  style of writing style it used. For example, one of my favorite writers is George Will. His style is total Logos - very logical. On the other hand, Maya Angelou's style is Pathos. Jimmy Carter uses Ethos - he uses the power of his presidency to have his writing bona fide. 

 

Pathos also has to do with the theater - live, movie or TV. When I was in high school, we had an excellent theater arts teacher. He was very gifted at taking a script, training young actors to read it, and ending up with excellent high school theater. Under his tenure at my former high school, many awards were won, and some of the young actors he trained went on to become national thespians.

 

I had the honor to be in one of this very gifted man's plays. I can remember many times, being coached about Pathos - making the audience feel what you are feeling. Pathos is often associated with emotions, but it is more complex than simply emotions. A better equivalent might be appeal to the audience's sympathies and imagination. If you could make that connection with the audience, your play would probably be a success.

  

That brings me to today's entertainment venues - both cinema and television. Rather than Pathos, the words that come to mind are vapid, vacuous, vulgarity and empty. What in the world has happened to our entertainment industry? Today there only are a handful of shows that honestly "touch us". Mostly, they just revolt us. In fact, one more term from yesteryear is conjured up - Eros. Entertainment today is mostly to titillate, not to fascinate. It is rare to see a good television show or a memorable movie. In the event a very good one is found, watching it surprises and delights us.

 

To conclude, I will say this - what Aristotle knew in the age centuries before Christ, we seem to have forgotten today. As a man, I will admit that I enjoy a watching a show that brings a tear to my eye - I know how hard that is to achieve. I will continue to search for the venue, the medium, that allows me to truly escape into another's reality, albeit for a brief time. When I find it, I will once again experience Pathos as Aristotle defined it, and for that I am thankful. Unfortunately, I must first make my way thought the hours and hours of Eros, which seems to have clogged up many of the channels on the television.