Just wondering if in your publications on Helen of Troy you will mention the following trivia (which I came across in researching for my novel Journey into Antiquity). People attribute the coining of "the thousand ships" to Christopher Marlowe in his play The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus in 1604 when his diabolical Doctor asks: "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?"

But Lucian of Samosata, a 2nd century CE Syrian satirist who wrote in Greek, has this exchange in his Dialogues of the Dead:

Hermes: This skull is Helen

Menippus: And for this a thousand ships carried warriors from every part of Greece?

Was Marlowe's similar phrase a coincidence? I think not. Apparently there is a unit for measuring beauty called the "millihelen" (one thousandth of a "Helen"). It could be used to launch one ship!

Perhaps Paris should have used this unit of measure in his "judgment" to choose the fairest! He might have been more objective... and saved the Greeks "many ships"!

Regards,

Denis

Can discourse ever be irrational?  I think when it becomes non-rational it would not be called discourse but rather bad conversation or argument.  

Many of us have grown up in a family in which at the dinner table there was chat on everything from excessively repeating how good the food was, or what the family plans on doing in the future, or talking of world events that were really not that rational. Often, in teenage years, one would be embarrassed of having any outsider witness such chat; however, for the better, it prompted us to talk with each other, setting the road for better discourse with education in the future.  So how can we save Rational Discourse: bring back the ritual of dinner or meals eaten together sans TV, Phones, Computers, or other distractions in preparation for communication via the spoken/written word.  

The dinner table is the basis of civilization; when we lose that, we lose discourse.

Herman. H, San Francisco

There are at least two ways to answer this question. One response implies that the participants in a conversation attack the argument presented, not its author (ad hominem as happens in Aristophanes’ play The Clouds with his attacks on Socrates and the Thinkery). Along with this is the notion that the argument’s claims are devoid of sophistries—so too the rebuttal (such as the Strawman sophistry wherein Sophist Thrasymachus purposely weakens his opponent’s argument by omitting an important premise).

The second meaning of “rational” follows from Aristotle’s three laws of logic. The first, the Principle of Identity, means that A is equivalent to A (or rather don’t change the meaning of an argument’s key term after establishing its meaning unless you inform your auditor). 

Second, the Principle of the Excluded Middle, which in the simplest terms implies that a claim is either true or false, there is no other option.

Finally, the Principle of non-Contradiction. A self-contradiction is always false. This, of course, was Socrates oft used ploy against his adversaries--through Socratic dialectic drive your opponent into a self-contradiction.

All rational discourse must fashion itself around these two considerations.

Barry F.

Prof. Dr. (emeritus)

Anya, I have a rather simplistic view on how we can salvage rational discourse. It is not instant, nor fool proof. We need to concentrate on teaching children HOW to think and not WHAT to think. Of course there is much more to it, but I see a real trend, for decades, in inculcating rather than incubating.  

Regarding anger, lack of objectivity, and the polarization, I then turn to the media, but, with so many of these altering and difficult to solve factors, that go back forever, I really have no answer in changing the trajectory.

I do however think that your objective, intelligent discourse and debate, and other sites with the same goal, do help and serve a great purpose.  There is always hope. 

Continued success, and I salute you, stay healthy.  

Steve G.

In my opinion, you can only engage rational discourse with those who share the same fundamental values such as no stealing, killing, or destroying.

If a cannibal moves to your neighborhood and decides to hunt around for dinner, there is no rational discourse that could persuade a cannibal to not be a cannibal. You could ask him/her to maybe hunt a neighborhood further away, but a cannibal is a cannibal is a cannibal.

Rational discourse also can best be achieved when touching on light topics of opinion. For example, which ice cream flavor is better --chocolate or vanilla? The mere difference of opinions between ice cream flavors does not affect the livelihood of either debater. Whether they agree, disagree, or agree to disagree, at the end of the debate, they both go home with the ability to house, clothe, feed and protect themselves and their families.

When you try to tackle real issues rational discourse is near impossible.A dog cannot meow and a cat cannot bark.  There is good and evil, as there are good people and bad people.

Most do not change. There are always anomalies, but there are so few.

So when considering a debate or some rational discourse, one must always consider what culture is being addressed. How valuable is your time? Is it worth it to try and change the unchangeable?

Thanks for the wonderful and thought provoking ideas.

Angeline

I don’t believe it is an assumed positive to save rational discourse. Weimar Germany tried with the Nazis and Hitler followed. Kerensky tried with Lenin and Stalin resulted.

When a dog is rabid, shoot it. You cannot have a rational discourse with a dog gone mad and much less so with a human that has exited humanity. Pol Pot ring bell? North Korea today? Uighurs in Red China? Tibetans? Seen a Montagnard alive recently?

You do not try for a rational discourse. Bonhoeffer realized that the opposition to Hitler’s thugs could not rest with rational discourse. It had to be defeated by force and a terrible resolve to use it. Chamberlain tried rational discourse with Hitler and WW2 resulted. When the Nazis marched into the Ruhr this was not met with force but rational discourse.

When Japan invaded Manchuria rational discourse was applied and the Rape of Nanking soon followed. It took Hiroshima and Nagasaki to compel Japan’s surrender and endless napalm bombings that killed far more. Rational discourse with their military? There was rational discourse happening in Hull’s office as the bombs fell on Pearl and Clark Field. How about rational discourse between Greece and Persia? Rome and Parthia?

Jehu to Jezebel? How about the American colonists against the UK fascist empire? It took force and surviving ten years of English genocide and a second war later to secure sovereignty.

Rational discourse in a world gone mad and globally given over to degeneracy and desensitized to human value? What is rational and what is discourse? Does lightness have anything in common with darkness? Or is rational discourse simply cowardice and compromise by alternative methods? 

Charles F.

Although thumos meant different things to the ancient Greeks (soul, life, heart, etc.), in its meaning of courage, spirit, will(power), unflinching purpose, even heart - in the sense of "having heart" - I would suggest a modern translation (and concept): "true grit" (I know, there's the movie, but there you go!)

It is not rage (menin) or glory-seeking (kleos), which both applied to Achilles!

Regards,

Denis

Anya, The Ukrainian people certainly demonstrate the spirit of Thumos in defending their country.  

Ignatius S