Plato's Gorgias And Discourse

Discourse means communication or debate. (oxford dictionary). The word discourse is used to show the difference of opinions among people. Plato who was a famous philosopher has written about discourse in many of his works. In Gorgias he shows discourse among Callicles and Socrates. Callicles, a character from Plato's work argued with Socrates that he believed stronger people had the right to oppress the weaker ones. He said that nature itself proves this fact. He gave an example of animals to illustrate his point. According to him, strong animals always prey on the weaker ones, this is how the food chain works. The lion attacks a cat and a cat preys after a mouse, this shows that the weaker ones tend to preyed on by the stronger animal. Callicles thinks that it is okay to oppress people when you have the power. He considers oppressing people a far better thing than being oppressed.

'Colonialism is the policy of occupying political control over another country' (Oxford dictionary). The British had power and considered themselves as civilized. They thought that the non-English people were savages and that they were not civilized. The British thought that they should civilize these savages. This is also called the white mans burden. The mission of civilizing the Indians (natives) was used as a tool to loot, plunder, murder and oppress the natives. A book the heart of darkness is based on how white men treat the natives. The book shows Kurtz, the English dealer and his attitude towards the natives. When Marlow, a worker for the same company as Kurtz goes to visit Kurtz he finds out that the natives worship Kurtz and he also sees that there are heads of natives on display near his house. The entire book shows how these civilized men treated the natives in the most gruesome ways and thought what they did was right. (Conrad, Joseph.