As an example of parrēsia, Michel Foucault quotes the 5th/6th c. BCE rhetor Isocrates as telling the Athenians, “you have formed the habit of driving all orators from the platform except those who support your desires”: in other words, you’ll watch Fox or MSNBC, but not both. Isocrates here is using parrēsia to tell the people they’re suppressing parrēsia. He goes on to declare that “I know that it is hazardous to oppose your views and that, although this is a free government, there exists no freedom of speech [parrēsia] except that which is enjoyed in this Assembly by the most reckless orators, who care nothing for your welfare, and in the theater by the comic poets.” So, demagogues and satirists, in other words. The former are not interested in the health of the state. The writers, for their part, may or may not be. The parrhesiast, as Foucault points out, plays a critical or pedagogical role. Certainly satire can fit that bill. But if people can laugh it off, is there any risk to the writer? It’s not sho-nuff parrēsia unless there’s a chance you’re going to piss people off. The mob, by contrast, will listen to the comic poets because they cloak their parrēsia in laughter. Or, as George Bernard Shaw supposedly said, “If you want to tell people the truth, you’d better make them laugh or they’ll kill you.” But the parrhesiast is willing to risk death, feels they have a moral duty to tell people and tell ‘em straight.
The past couple of years has seen a barrage of (unfunny) publications detailing the worst-case scenarios from climate change, as well as the best-case scenarios, which are themselves not very good. David Wallace-Wells’ The Uninhabitable Earth is perhaps the most parrhesiastic, with last year’s IPCC report not far behind. Concern was expressed in some quarters that such doom-and-gloom predictions would stifle people’s motivation to militate for mitigation – that it would make us despair, in other words. “Human beings cannot bear very much reality,” as the poet says, so let ‘em down easy like. Give them 100 simple things they can do to save the earth: don’t tell them they’ll have to stop flying, have to take the bus (!), or have to chain themselves to a senator’s office door. Definitely don’t tell them that the effects of the last 30-year’s-worth of CO2 emissions is “baked in” and will lead to more frequent and more intense storms, droughts, and floods, even if we cut emissions to 0 tomorrow. In response, those of a more parrehesiastic bent faulted scientists for soft-pedalling their results via understating the implications or wrapping them in endless qualifications and circumlocutions – and, sure enough, it seems like every time I turn around, the scientists are saying things are worse than their last study or report let on. So: are you the kind of person (and writer) who says, “Everything is going to work out,” or the kind who says, “Give it to me straight, Doc” - ? Most people are the former: they have no framework, no philosophy or outlook, that will allow them to absorb the facts and still function normally. In fact, most people these days only want to hear the “truth” of what they already believe to be true (psychologists call this “confirmation bias”). By contrast, Foucault claims, “The parrhesiast . . . faces power, he opposes the majority, or public opinion . . . He acts not as an integrating agent but as s disintegrating factor or agent.” Or, “I come not to bring peace, but a sword,” as one famous parrhesiast once said. Parrēsia is only meaningful in the context of virtue ethics. It’s not a utilitarian approach. But there’s the conundrum: do you tell people the unvarnished truth, even if nobody listens, or do you tell them things they’re willing to hear (i.e., fib) and get them to do things they’re willing to do, even if it doesn’t do a damn bit of good in the long run? Parrēsia is, at root, a spiritual practice. It is a true friend who will tell you the truth about yourself. And only a person who is truly bent on improving their character will seek out that truth. Foucault writes that when “the soul seeks a touchstone that will enable it to know the state of its health, that is to say the truth of its opinions,” it is hungering for parrēsia. This last part is, to my mind, the most important. You can’t control how people will respond to what you say or write – indeed, you can’t know how they will respond – or if they will at all. Did Wallace-Wells really think his dour book would land on the NYT bestseller list? But the best-selling, prize-winning novelist or poet often has to flatter agents, publishers, critics, colleagues, in order to get their work wider circulation. They have to give the public what it wants – and who wants prophecies of doom? Seen in this light, seeking a wider audience starts to seem like selling your soul for 30 pieces of silver – or your legacy for a mess of pottage. Parrhesiastic writers, by contrast, gain fame, if they do, usually after they are dead. Which may be sooner rather than later, the way things are going. And that’s the truth Ruth.
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June 2021
Kristin Prevallet Author/Editor
I'm a writer & teacher in Lawrence, Kansas who actually believes the scientists. I wrote a book of poems called Of Some Sky that seems to have something to do with all this. |