Print This Post Print This Post

Dec

22

Me? A gadfly? It could most definitely be worse


Someone from whom I’ve been seeking advice and wisdom suggested that the idea of a gadfly comes to mind when thinking about me – though it was specifically stated that it was not in a pejorative way.

I had the idea of a gadfly (not to be confused with Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway in Barfly – what a dark movie) but wasn’t exactly sure so, being the Internet-dependent person I sometimes am, I googled it and looked first at the Wikipedia result.  Wow.  Nail on head.  Especially for anyone who knows that I “named” my first car Plato and studied a lot of political theory. From Wikipedia:

“Gadfly” is a term for people who upset the status quo by posing upsetting or novel questions, or just being an irritant.

The term “gadfly” (Gk. muopa)[1] was used by Plato in the Apology[2] to describe Socrates‘ relationship of uncomfortable goad to the Athenian political scene, which he compared to a slow and dimwitted horse. The Bible also references the gadfly in terms of political influence; The Book of Jeremiah (46:20, Darby Bible) states “Egypt is a very fair heifer; the gad-fly cometh, it cometh from the north.” The term has been used to describe many politicians and social commentators; in modern Hebrew, which knows many more idioms than those used by Jeremiah, gadfly is “mekhapes pagam” literally “fault finder”.

During his defense when on trial for his life, Socrates, according to Plato’s writings, pointed out that dissent, like the tiny (relative to the size of a horse) gadfly, was easy to swat, but the cost to society of silencing individuals who were irritating could be very high. “If you kill a man like me, you will injure yourselves more than you will injure me,” because his role was that of a gadfly, “to sting people and whip them into a fury, all in the service of truth.”

In modern and local politics, gadfly is a term used to describe someone who persistently challenges people in positions of power, the status quo or a popular position.[3] The word may be uttered in a pejorative sense, while at the same time be accepted as a description of honorable work or civic duty.[4]

But yeah, remember – not in  pejorative sense, got it?

Bookmark and Share

By Jill Miller Zimon at 1:32 pm December 22nd, 2008 in Jill Miller Zimon 

Comments

4 Responses to “Me? A gadfly? It could most definitely be worse”

  1. 1 Boring Made Dull on December 22nd, 2008 9:52 pm

    Pejorative or not, I’d avoid hemlock scented drinks if I were you…..

    After all, the gadfly thingy didn’t work out all that well for Socrates, now did it? ;^)

  2. 2 Jill Miller Zimon on December 22nd, 2008 9:58 pm

    That is a really good point! lol

    On the other hand, billions of people still study Plato and Socrates. Life is short but good political theory is…something.

  3. 3 LisaRenee on December 22nd, 2008 10:05 pm

    I don’t think I’d want to blog about some of the names people have attributed to me.

    :-)

  4. 4 Jill Miller Zimon on December 23rd, 2008 11:34 am

    Well, we know those kind of names almost always say more about the speaker than they do about us. :)

Leave a Reply




"));