EP22 · Research · first published 2020-06-07
Antiquity and Negotiating Power | Juhana Torkki | Neuvottelija 22
Author and translator Juhana Torkki and his co-author Sami Miettinen trace, in Turku, the arc from a doctoral thesis on the rhetoric of the apostle Paul through the books Puhevalta and Uusi neuvotteluvalta to Finnish translations of Seneca and Plutarch. The episode explains why an ancient letter required the whole thought to be finished before writing began and how slowness deepens thinking. The discussion contrasts Plutarch's practical techniques for governing the mind with Stoic determinism and the doctrine of the perfect sage, and asks what the patron-client relationship and etymological discoveries reveal about our own time. It closes on Quintilian's claim that a good speaker must first be a good person, and why workplace communication is needlessly abstract.
Antiquity and Negotiating Power | Juhana Torkki | Neuvottelija 22
Summary: Author and translator Juhana Torkki and his co-author Sami Miettinen trace, in Turku, the arc from a doctoral thesis on the rhetoric of the apostle Paul through the books Puhevalta and Uusi neuvotteluvalta to Finnish translations of Seneca and Plutarch. The episode explains why an ancient letter required the whole thought to be finished before writing began and how slowness deepens thinking. The discussion contrasts Plutarch’s practical techniques for governing the mind with Stoic determinism and the doctrine of the perfect sage, and asks what the patron-client relationship and etymological discoveries reveal about our own time. It closes on Quintilian’s claim that a good speaker must first be a good person, and why workplace communication is needlessly abstract.
Key Themes
- Turku Plutarch and staying in your home town: Discussed from 00:00 onward.
- The labour of writing on papyrus and ancient audiobooks: Discussed from 02:30 onward.
- Why slow formats deepen a thought: Discussed from 05:00 onward.
- The thesis on Paul at the Areopagus and the arc of themes: Discussed from 07:30 onward.
- Bill Clinton Cicero’s structure and a speech in the Finnish parliament: Discussed from 10:00 onward.
- Michelle Obama Greta Thunberg and new rhetorical examples: Discussed from 12:30 onward.
- The four levers and the negotiator’s inner world: Discussed from 15:00 onward.
- Seneca and Plutarch as texts on the philosophy of living: Discussed from 17:30 onward.
- The professional hides emotion; patron and client: Discussed from 20:00 onward.
- Etymology apatheia and concursus as cleansers of terms: Discussed from 22:30 onward.
- Plutarch as positive psychology and Stoic determinism: Discussed from 25:00 onward.
- The doctrine of the perfect sage and Plutarch’s gentler path: Discussed from 27:30 onward.
- Slaves in ancient texts and the wrestling analogy of equal resistance: Discussed from 30:00 onward.
- Ahtisaari on judging an oppressor people and layered meaning: Discussed from 32:30 onward.
- The black and white of online argument versus dialectic: Discussed from 35:00 onward.
- Speaking negotiating and leading as three core skills: Discussed from 37:30 onward.
- Quintilian and the education of an orator from infancy: Discussed from 40:00 onward.
- Vir bonus the good speaker must first be a good person: Discussed from 42:30 onward.
- The absence of ethos and hiding behind a pseudonym: Discussed from 45:00 onward.
- Ancient dialogue versus abstract workplace communication: Discussed from 47:30 onward.
- The arc of Uusi neuvotteluvalta as a growth story: Discussed from 50:00 onward.
- Translating Quintilian and the limits of translation: Discussed from 52:30 onward.