The Kind Man: Joe Pug | Alex Roth's Reflections on Isocratean Philosophy

There's a man named Joe Pug who has done nice things for me.  He doesn't know me at all, and maybe he never will, but he sent me a couple copies of his CD for free and I think that's a nice thing.  I know it's partly promotional, but really, I think you have to possess a big heart to spend your money in order to share something with a stranger.  He just wants to be a part of others' experiences.

Isocrates believed that speech is the reason why humans can survive and thrive.  It's a matter of human agency; rhetoric is the way humans grow, learn and comprehend the world around them.  Joe Pug realizes this Isocratean tenet and creatively expresses himself by writing and playing music.

Here's a video of him doing a candid show out of U of I's WPGU 107.1 truck behind the Illini Media building on Green Street:

Pug's story is certainly not a typical one.  His website Bio section reads:

The day before his senior year as a playwright student at the University of North Carolina, he sat down for a cup of coffee and had the clearest thought of his life: I am profoundly unhappy here. Then came the second clearest. Pug packed up his belongings and pointed his car towards Chicago. Working as a carpenter by day, the 23 year-old Pug spent nights playing the guitar he hadn't picked up since his teenage years.

Pug's garnered success, especially around Chicago and in Champaign.  It's easy for college kids to relate to him because of his honest, humble, non-commercial approach to music.  He's quiet, which, with such a star-studded culture these days, can be an immediately attractive attribute in an artist.

'I Do My Father's Drugs' is a song about traveling in others' footsteps.  It reminds me of class discussions on T.S. Elliot's point about the importance of knowing history.

About the making of his most recent album, he said

It's like that thing where there's an explosion and you realize how many options there are in the world.

I feel like these words could have come straight out of Longinus' mouth, to be honest.  But I think this stems from Isocratean thought in that he realizes that the best way to approach this vast world is with uncertainty.

Here's a very nice song (with a nice video, but I prefer the song by itself).