Realizing the "possible" with Yoda

According to Gorgias, speech “can stop fear and banish grief and create joy and nurture pity” (45). Speech is powerful, and perhaps not even Helen of Troy could escape its grasp. As a Sophist, Gorgias promotes rhetoric as a force to be reckoned with and also as a highly stylistic art form. It is not just what you say but how you say it. Many have argued for and against the sophistic movement, and where all the different points converge is around the idea of truth. The author of Dissoi Logoi goes to great pains to reveal what is good and bad, just and unjust, etc. depends on context. The Greeks may have done something a certain way, but the Thracian culture was completely different. The same idea can be applied to speech. Different audiences call for different modes of speaking. Waiting for kairos-that “opportune moment”-is essential for one to be effectively persuaded (Poulakos, 40).   

The rhetorician takes a risk when he speaks to a certain audience; he must choose his words wisely in order to show the listener the possible truths of what may come. Yoda displays this in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back as he trains Luke Skywalker. His words are inverted which stylistically adds thoughtfulness to everything he says. The master causes Luke to question his inability to complete what seems like an insurmountable task. Even with a statement such as “Do or do not. There is no try,” Yoda urges Luke to reconsider the ideas the young Jedi has already established in his mind. Luke must “unlearn” what he has already learned and think beyond what he has been taught. Through this speech, Yoda persuades him to “use the force.” 

But in order to persuade, there must be an element of truth present. Isocrates casts a negative light on those who “pretend to search for truth” and “attempt to deceive us with lies” (72). Can truth be found in something other than fact such as a passionate display of words? Or is truth always just in a firm statement? Isocrates admits that the ability to know the future cannot be found among humans. However, in a general sense, the Sophists take words too far and promise potential students that through Sophistic study “they will know what to do in life” (72).

I believe the Sophists would respond to this claim with the idea presented by Poulakos in that they aim to discover the “possible” of a situation (36). Man may not be able to immediately recognize what is “possible” if his views or thoughts are clouded. He is caught between the present and the future. Poulakos reveals “the rhetorician tells [him] what [he] could be” (43). From this viewpoint, truth becomes situational. Truth comes with kairos and in a way that cannot be predetermined. As noted before, Yoda presents Luke with what is possible. He causes the young Jedi to question his original thought. Luke still had to make a choice, but the power of Yoda’s words helped persuade him. In Poulakos’ words, the possible “rejects permanence and favors change; it privileges becoming over being” (44). This change occurs across the spectrum of situations, and it is up to the rhetorician to determine how he will make the most of that change.