Cultural and social things: Is there a difference?

If the Greeks are to be trusted, theory is above all else a matter of observing with the inner ear the spectacles of the world about. Hence, Aristotle, On Rhetoric , I: 3: ‘The hearer must be either a judge, with a decision to make about things past or future, or an observer’ – where ‘observer’ translates the word theoros . Whether the observer can refrain from judging is far from clear, especially in modern times, where spectacles major and minor abound.