Neal Stewart
The Greek word parrhesia (παρρησία) comes from para (beyond) and resis (speech), and means “to speak freely.” Parrhesia appears in Isocrates’ “To Nicocles,” a letter in which he expounds his views of what a good ruler should do to sustain healthy democracy. Mirhady & Too (2004) translate parrhesia as outspokenness, and they observe that parrhesia can be “readily transferred to a democratic context” (158). Isocrates identifies parrhesia, along with legal and economic circumstances, as the prime factors influencing the lives of the average Greek citizen. Rulers should likewise acknowledge this outspokenness, and “grant free expression (parrhesia) to those who are sensible so that you may have good advisers to draw on when you are in doubt" (163). A ruler’s council should be free to speak truth to power; sycophants must be avoided. Isocrates also advises that granting free speech to people gives them great power, and, as we all know, with great power comes great responsibility. Isocrates implies that speech has power equal to action when he states that slanderers should be punished equally to criminals (163). To make responsible decisions (and discern slanderers from good persons), a ruler should “listen to what people say about each other, and try to discern the characters of both the speakers and those they speak about" (163).
Parrhesia’s meaning is refined over time to include an ethic of courage. The Bible describes the Apostle Paul’s parrhesia in evangelizing his beliefs about Christianity, though he received abuse from many people, and his unwavering outspokenness eventually cost his life.
The term parrhesia has been picked up by modern scholars, most notably by Michel Foucault. In his book Fearless Speech, Foucault seeks to explore how Greek philosophy problematizes truth, truth-telling, truth-tellers, and the relationship therein. He addresses parrhesia through the concepts of frankness, truth, danger, criticism, and duty. The notions of frankness, truth, danger, and duty have already been addressed, but Foucault’s inclusion of criticism adds an element of inferiority; that is, one exercising parrhesia is speaking to a superior interlocutor. There is even a journal of critical philosophy titled Parrhesia. It aims to “examine the intersections between questions of subjectivity, politics, ethics, aesthetics and truth.”
Resources:
Keefe, Carolyn (1991). Paul of
Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Speech Communication Association (77th,
Mirhady, D. C. & Too, Y. L. (2000).
Sylva Rhetoricae. "Parrhesia."
Zapata, F. R. (2005) Review: Michel Foucault, Fearless Speech. Foucault Studies, 2, 150-153.
2 comments:
I find it interesting that in Ancient Greece this right to speak freely was granted to those deemed “sensible.” I assume that those considered sensible enough to be outspoken were men, but regardless, it would be remarkable to see what factors determined whether one was chosen. One other factor that intrigued me regarded the compulsion to speak the truth when speaking freely. The natural checks and balances of “say what you want as long as it’s true,” provide an opportunity to let speech be free, but punish that which was not true. Instead of stopping speech before it happens, parrhesia allows the speech to be made, much the way our constitution works.
This is a really good word to excavate, I really enjoyed reading it. Foucualt actually wrote an entire book working with that word and talked about it in the relationship to biopolitical power. The book is called Fearless Speech and speaks to how it is more than free speech but more invovling speaking out when there is high risk of bad consequences.
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