Plato's Phaedrus is a dialogue between Socrates and Phaedrus. In the dialogue, Phaedrus discusses with Socrates love and passion. Socrates suggests that love produces a kind of madness in both lover and loved, making them less interested in either's future form. If a lover is shaped by contemporary love of love, then the loved is the victim of being molded by the passions of a lover.
In the context of new media, this relates to the design of new things in the image of the old in the service of those who are used to old things: until each former generation passes away, freeing media from their lover's grasp, they cannot come into their own, most robust form. In the author's handling of this metaphor in the context of Phaedrus, media is a child, and media producers are essentially child molesters.
On the topic of writing, Phaedrus says that writing can only serve to remind someone of what they were already aware of, making it fundamentally different from intrapersonal discourse. The nature of media are discussed, whether any art can be made that isn't made by a fully informed creator, and what moral obligations authors and artists have.
Plato's Phaedrus | Full Dialogue in English
Wikipedia Entry on Plato's Phaedrus
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