Do we see the leaky jar today?

Throughout the semester, I had many ideas of where I wanted this paper to go, but all of these ideas never seemed sufficient for me as I was not completely interested in writing about those ideas, and I felt my paper would have been very mediocre. From thinking about how Helen of Troy, Aristotle, and Socrates relate to today’s society that we live in, I pondered hella options that I thought might be okay. However, after really thinking about what to write for this paper, I came up with an idea that I find great while I was scrolling through Amazon looking for a mother’s day present for …… my mother (shocker). When scrolling through the tech monster that is Amazon, I thought to myself that I really wanted a lot of things off Amazon, but I did not technically need anything from it (besides my gift for my mother of course). As I thought about all of the things that I wanted but did not need, I thought about how I could relate me wanting all this shit to Rhetoric 320. After some thinking, I quickly recognized how I could relate this to the leaky jar analogy that was presented by Socrates in the piece Gorgias. In this paper I will discuss how the leaky jar analogy is so prevalent in today’s society, and I will analyze how it compares from classical times to the society we live in today.

So, you are probably thinking, “What the fuck is the leaky jar analogy?” That is a very understandable question as I also had never even heard of this leaky jar analogy that was invented by a guy from thousands of years ago, but the leaky jar analogy is an analogy that compares self-control and not falling into unnecessary desires versus not having self-control and falling into the unnecessary desires. The leaky jar represents the unwanted desires as someone always something unnecessary will always be incomplete just like a jar with holes in it, aka the leaky jar. A person who resists these urges of temptation represents a non-leaky jar as that person is content with resisting temptation and the unnecessary desires of life. While Socrates probably never imagined all of the technology that we have today, his analogy has made it through the test of time and is still applicable thousands of years later. With the technological advances that the world has seen in the past couple of years, the ability to have self-control has become very difficult. For example, humans can now access almost any temptation they could think of due to the work of great human beings like Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos! If you are unaware, Zuckerberg is the founder of Facebook and Bezos is the CEO of Amazon, and they both are exceptional humans that care about more than just their money! Due to the work of these guys and a few others, the internet has become a pretty big thing, and it has pretty much everything in the world on it. Consequently, humans now have the ability to view anything they want, and they can do this at any time of the day with just the help of owning some sort of personal technology such as a computer or smart phone. Due to the internet, the leaky jar analogy has become very prevalent in today’s society for one major reason: People always want what they cannot have! An example that shows this perfectly occurs in a top 2 show of all-time, New Girl, when character Schmidt is obsessed with a woman named CeCe, and he becomes very enamored with her once he finds out that she is engaged. He then attempts to steal her away from her fiancé at the time, however one she becomes single, Schmidt is not as interested. While this is a very silly example, it perfectly describes the nature of human beings as they are always interested in “wants” rather than “needs.”

While the leaky jar analogy was invented thousands of years ago, I believe that this analogy is the most relevant it has ever been. I say this as I am now old enough to remember the world before the invention of smart phones, and I now live in a society where everyone is glued to their smart phones. Online shopping presents a great example of facing a “want” versus a “need.” As I know that almost everyone can relate to the temptation of wanting everything on a website such as Amazon, it takes a lot of self-control to resist. While Socrates has no clue what the internet is, his ideas still very much relate to today’s world. For example, Socrates believed that humans need to strive for a good soul rather than worrying about material needs and he also thought people should disregard thoughts about money and fame and rather focus on their soul. These fears of Socrates have become true in today’s society as we have all seen people that posses a leaky jar that buy a new pair of ugly ass shoes every week and people that attempt to become famous through social media. I can only imagine how upset Socrates would be seeing how easy it now is to buy material products, but I can not imagine his reaction if he saw how many people are now using their social media in attempt to become rich and famous. If only people carried around jars with them to let everyone know whether they could resist temptation, Socrates would be the happiest dead man in the history of the planet that is known as Earth.

As I have stated a little bit throughout this, Socrates probably could never have predicted the technology that we have today. As we have discussed in class, Isocrates states in Symposium that he believes that rhetoricians must not go to the town tavern to consume alcohol and interact with the town women. In his eyes, Isocrates views the tavern and easy women as the unnecessary desires as he believes that rhetoricians must always focus on their craft rather than displaying characteristics of a leaky jar! Rather, Isocrates believed that to be an effective member of society, one must resist the temptation of easy women and liquor (party pooper, Isocrates). If one followed Isocrates’ version of life, one would feel satisfied with life as they possess ultimate self-control. While this version of the ideal life presented by Isocrates might not be practiced by many, these values can still be valuable in today’s life as learning to resist unnecessary temptation is one of the most valued skills that I have (kind of) learned to date. While I am a bit of a hypocrite as I cannot resist these temptations at times, I believe that Isocrates had a great vision of life, and if he was still alive today I believe that he would be held to a higher standard than living legend Matthew McConaughey.