Be nice! This is my first blog attempt!

Having never read the works in Matsen for rhetorical purposes, they were eye openers.
The general acceptance of rhetoric being so strong in Homer's work that even the Athena tells Achilles that "with words you may abuse (Agamemnon)" is simple, yet elegant(Matsen 8). These epic stories are to hold the same values of their culture, and this shows how important the use of words were during the Trojan War.
Plato later warns against attacking a person, and suggests attacking their ideas as Socrates is quick to question Gorgias' thoughts on rhetoric when he says "I am afraid to cross-examine you for fear you might think my pertinacity is directed against you, and not to the clarification to the matter in question" (Matsen 68).
Rhetoric's play in the ancient texts is simple, as is its impact on Obama and Dobsen as we read in class. Again, reading these texts from another point of view makes for an interesting weekend.
I will be interested to discuss truth (big T vs. little t) in class on Tuesday as several of our authors discussed both ends of the spectrum from a secular and a religious standpoint.