I don't suppose that many people did not notice that Socrates was quite adept at rhetoric himself and that, in fact, rhetoric is nearly if not completely unavoidable. I do suppose that what happened is that a few bad apples spoiled the whole bunch. Not every rhetorician is out to swindle you out of your oxen or property and thereby reducing your rank to that of a slave. But, those people are out there.
When I am arrested for feeding my ex-husband an exploding omelet in a faux gesture of kindness...I mean...if I were ever arrested for some terrible thing like that...I would want a rhetorician of the highest skill to come to by defense...especially if I had nothing to do with such heinous a crime. Who would even think such a thing??
So..my question is why is Plato not focusing on the character of the lowlifes who would misuse rhetoric?
The other, and perhaps unanswerable question the reading seems to beg, is wether man is inherently good or evil.
If a man is inherently good, then robbing a person blind because he can use words to persuade some dolt out of all they have, stands against everything in his being. But if the opposite is true...then it is every man for himself and tough luck for the dolt.
I am inherently good, by the way...the omelet thing was just an example.
Truth, sadly is sometimes subjective.
I totally agree. The whole inherently good thing really makes me burst out laughing. Sheltered anyone? Through pain and suffering bad is brought to good, but somehow bad secretly wishes to be good. I think they killed lots of innocent people, justified torture, and hoped people would turn themselves...honestly.
ReplyDeleteYou posed a really good question? Why didn't Plato focus more on the "lowlifes" who could abuse rhetoric? I don't know about that, but that makes me think of another question. Can rhetoric even be abused? In all honesty, I kind of see Socrates as a pompus jerk in most cases. Did he "abuse" rhetoric by only using it to make himself look more important or smarter?
ReplyDeleteMatt Parsons over in Historicus Rhetoricus takes on some of these ideas, Dezri. He notes that it's the goals that make rhetoric suspect: rhetoric seeks to persuade, not to find what is true, and it gets to call itself successful whenever it actually persuades. Socrates concedes that there might be a place for rhetoric if it is used to persuade people to believe things that are true, but he says that never happens, more or less.
ReplyDeleteBut I would say, in response to Molly, that rhetoric can be abused - that's not a stretch to find situations where that happens, yes?