Field Notes Inside an Integrated Communications Agency

One of the most perplexing panel discussions I attended at SXSW was “Is Aristotle on Twitter.”  And the answer is most certainly yes.  Here’s one of the many affirmative arguments that the panelists presented.

Aristotle felt that a good rhetorician held an understanding of current and past events along with a strong theoretical knowledge.  They held practical wisdom and could take knowledge of the past and apply it to the current. In order to judge someone’s ability or character, individuals would look to their intuition and decide if they would pay attention to them.

Consider the influential Twitters today.  They give good URL references and insight about them.  They are good filters of information and aid in community deliberation. In the end, they're simply rhetoricians using a different medium and their status is confirmed by their large audience of followers.

So, Aristotle would probably find qualified rhetoricians on Twitter.

As one questioner asked, if Aristotle is on Twitter, then where is Socrates?  A panelist responded, “He’s on Usenet.”  I suppose that’s a panel discussion for another SXSW festival.