Aristotle is one of the greatest of the ancient Greek philosophers. He was a student of Plato and he was the teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote ‘Poetics’ which is regarded as the seminal work on Arts, especially Drama (Theater). The book contains detailed information about the various elements of theater like story, charcter, plot, and the three unities. (Unity of Place, Unity of Time and Unity of Action). Aristotle’s views on Theater were strictly followed by the classical Greek theater tradition. Tragedy writers who were known as the trinities of classical Greek drama (Sophocles - 496-406 BC, Aeschylus - 525-456 BC and Euripides -480-406 BC) practiced Aristotelian theories in their art. Theater for the Greeks was not just a form of entertainment. They saw it as means to understand the problems of life. Hence the genre of Tragedy was popular. Aristotle defined tragedy as the fall of a hero because of a tragic flaw in his charcter, which he described as ‘Hamartia’. It is very clear from this that the character of a person is responsible for his destiny. Oedipus never shied away from truth – he accepted it with courage and was ready to face the consequences. According to Aristotle plot is an important element of Theater.
Aristotle observation on theater also was necessarily his thoughts on Communication. For Aristotle Theater was a form of communication and he regarded theater as a universal concept. Maybe Shakespeare was influenced by this when he said that the world is a stage. Plot was of primary importance to him and he defined it as the arrangement of events on a cause effect way. This idea to certain extent has influenced both Newton and the basic communication paradigm. Newton in his third law of motion defines action as something which has got a equal and opposite reaction. In the communication paradigm the sender receives a feedback for the message he has conveyed.
Noble peace prize for 2007 was divided equally between an institution and an individual i.e. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Albert Arnold (Al) Gore. Their pioneering work in the field of climate change was commended and the Nobel peace foundation said that was for ‘for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change’.
Al Gore is the leading public advocate of the need to take immediate action to reduce anthropogenic climate change. His campaigning takes many forms, including the Academy Award-winning film An Inconvenient Truth and a book of the same name.
The IPCC was established by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1988 to provide policymakers with neutral summaries of the latest information related to human-induced (or anthropogenic) climate change.
Aristotle’s concept of communication which is based on his cause effect pattern helps us to understand the fact that every human being is accountable for the climate change. There is no point in kick starting a blame game. Like a tragic Greek character, each one of us should take the responsibility and find an amicable solution for this global phenomenon. It is better to see the scenario from the point of view of the butterfly effect which also illustrates chaos theory. The phrase refers to the idea that a butterfly's wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that ultimately cause a tornado to appear (or prevent a tornado from appearing).
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect
http://nobelprize.org/
Microsoft Encarta 2006
