The Right to Write

    Phaedrus, when in discourse with Socrates on the left column of page 155, notes that "the most influential and important men in our cities are ashamed to write speeches and leave writings behind them, through fear of being called sophists by posterity". In other words, these men have a fear of either being misrepresent and misinterpreted, or they fear being immortalized through their words which may or may not hold up to the test of time (ironic, since we are still educating ourselves with the discourse of philosophers from hundreds of years prior). Socrates explains "... if this speech is approved, the writer leaves the theater in great delight: but if it is not recorded and he is not granted the privilege of speech-writing and is not considered worthy to be an author, he is grieved, and his friends with him" (155; right column).
   It helps me to think about the issues that Socrates and Phaedrus bring up in modern terms, to better conceptualize and utilize their discourses. In this case, it brings up the relationship between an author and his work, or for clarity's sake, we will say a rhetor and his writing. They  move logically from these first statements, and pursue the question of "What, then, is the method of writing well or badly"(Socrates, 156)? In our own writing, is it fair to ask ourselves the too common question of "is this good"?
   Are we merely attempting to hold ourselves up to a level of integrity, or are we pushing ourselves into a corner where there is, in reality, no answer and no unquestionable, absolute Truth for fear of being rejected? If even now we struggle with the exigence of our writing, if we don't feel we have a reason or a validation to write, then should we? I hope that thinking about this question, that asking ourselves to place our work and our pride on the same scale, that perhaps we will produce writing that is even more combative and can hold up to the test of time that way that these philosophers have.