Serendipitously, as I was reading Chapter 11 of Book 1 I overheard the Samsung Galaxy s3 commercial.
This commercial corresponds with Aristotle's Judicial Rhetoric and the notion of pleasure and wrong doing in two ways. The first is how his concept of revenge relates to the relationship between Apple and Samsung. The second is his point that there is pleasure in longing, as he states, "And everything is pleasurable for which there is longing; for longing is a desire for pleasure" (88). The Samsung commercial resembles this by the use of people waiting in line for the newest iPhone release.
Aristotle starts Chapter 10, Topics About Wrongdoing for Use in Judicial Rhetoric stating,
1. We should [next] speak of accusation [kategoria] and defense [apologia]: from how many and what sort of sources should their syllogisms be derived? 2. One should grasp three things: first, for what, and how many, purposes people do wrong; second, how these persons are [mentally] disposed; third, what kind of persons they wrong and what these persons are like. (83)Aristotle goes further to state that longing is among the 7 reasons that people do everything that they do, yet it is an irrational desire (85).
Apple, the company, has capitalized on this irrational desire/longing for their products. It is this pleasure that people associate with buying the latest gadget, specifically the iPhone, that Apple relies on in selling their products. Aristotle notes the association of the memory of pleasure with getting things, "A kind of pleasure also follows most desires; for people enjoy a certain pleasure as they remember how they got something or as they hope they will get it" (89). The iPhone 5 release was targeted to this very pleasure. It seems reasonable that Apple would covet their designs and their ability to captivate a crowd of repetitive buyers, simply compelled to buy out of their desire through their memory of pleasure and the iPhone. Therefor, it would seem reasonable for Apple to sue Samsung for copying their designs as Samsung begun to build recognition for their quality touch screen phones.
As Aristotle claims, "To be revenged is pleasurable" (89). To be worth suing, Samsung must have been coming close to becoming a threat to Apple's customer base, which only gives the Samsung commercial further credence.
Apple's iPhone 5 official release trailer:
Love this post, Madeleine. You're right on with this... where would Apple be without their product fanatics? What a great example of longing.
ReplyDeleteThanks Katie! Sorry about the broken videos. They are fixed now.
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