The Spiciest Beef of All Time
Philosophers and rhetoricians threw down 2,500 years ago and everyone is still talking about it.
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Today, I want to address the spicy beef that everybody is talking about — a genre-defining feud between two of the greatest legends of all time.
That’s right. I’m talking about Socrates and Gorgias.
In Plato’s Gorgias, what begins as a friendly conversation between two rivals turns into one of the most epic beat-downs in the history of western philosophy.1
It all starts when Gorgias, a rhetorician and sophist, defines rhetoric as the art of persuasion. Socrates, who happens to have some pretty strong opinions on the subject, isn’t about to let that stand. He decides to throw down the gauntlet. But not before giving Gorgias an opportunity to walk away:
I am afraid to point this out to you, lest you should think that I have some animosity against you, and that I speak, not for the sake of discovering the truth, but from jealousy of you. Now if you are one of my sort, I should like to cross-examine you, but if not I will let you alone.
Gorgias initially tries to get out of it, but ends up agreeing to Socrates’ terms. This is the first mistake: Gorgias lets Socrates choose how the debate will proceed. Socrates, unsurprisingly, suggests his own dialectical method and proceeds to take Gorgias apart like a child dismantling a LEGO set one piece at a time.
At first, Gorgias tries to claim rhetoric is for persuading audiences in matters of justice. However, when Socrates questions him, Gorgias is forced to admit truly just people have no use for persuasion because they’re already intrinsically motivated to do the right thing.
It takes Gorgias a good minute to realize that he’s just admitted in front of everyone that rhetoric reserved for charlatans and frauds. He gets so flustered, it’s hard not to feel bad for him at this point. Eventually, he pulls a J Cole and completely bows out of the conversation.
Polus, a friend and pupil of Gorgias, steps up to the plate. He’s done letting Socrates ask the questions, so he tries to beat the philosopher at his own game. Polus demands to know how Socrates would define rhetoric. This time, Socrates does not mince words. He calls it an “ignoble” enterprise and the “ghost or counterfeit of a part of politics.” According to Socrates,
rhetoric is not an art at all, but the habit of a bold and ready wit, which knows how to manage mankind: this habit I sum up under the word ‘flattery’ […] [It] may seem to be an art but, as I maintain, is only an experience or routine.
Socrates compares rhetoric to cooking2 and cosmetics, describing the latter as “knavish, false, ignoble, illiberal, and working deceitfully.” He’s polite about it, but everyone in the audience knows he’s still talking about Gorgias. I’m told this is called a sneak diss. And it’s a pretty savage thing to do to someone standing right in front of you.
After getting Polus to contradict himself, then mocking him for his poor memory, Socrates seizes on something stupid the younger man says, which is that “rhetoricians are like tyrants” who can “kill and despoil or exile any one.” Polus thinks this is a good thing. Who wouldn’t want to be a tyrant?
Polus should know better than to say something like this in front of Socrates, but the younger man decides to run with it. This is the second mistake: Polus fumbles and lets a debate about rhetoric become a debate about morality, which just so happens to be Socrates’ home turf. After a little arm twisting, Polus admits Socrates is right about everything.
This healthy serving of humble pie upsets Callicles, the most belligerent man in the room. Callicles is either a meathead or a savvy practitioner of realpolitik, depending on how you feel about democracy. He starts bellowing that tyranny is actually good, which is not quite the flex he thinks it is. In fact, it’s the kind of hysterical thing a person only says when they’ve backed themselves into a corner and feel like they have no choice but to double down.
Remember: this was supposed to be a friendly debate about the definition of rhetoric. If someone asks you to explain what you do for a living and you end up offering a full defense of tyranny, there’s a good chance you’ve lost the plot.
Unsurprisingly, Callicles’ rant about subjugating the weak doesn’t win anyone over. This is Athens, after all. In fact, all it does is confirm what Socrates has been saying this whole time, which is that rhetoricians are power hungry and amoral.
Socrates crushes Gorgias during this exchange. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say the discipline of rhetoric never fully recovered from this broadside. I don’t know where philosophers rank Gorgias on Plato’s list of greatest hits, but rhetoricians are introduced to it early in their careers and are forced to return to it often. We bristle when people use terms like “empty rhetoric” or disparagingly call someone a sophist, because we still feel the sting of Plato’s critique.
As sympathetic as I am to Gorgias, Plato’s dialogue captures the tension between how rhetoricians would like rhetoric to be used (ethically) and how it is actually used (strategically). More importantly, it sets up a binary opposition between philosophy and rhetoric that persists for 2,500 years and into the present day. The former is equated with truth and knowledge. The latter is dismissed as sophistry.
In next week’s post, I’ll dig deeper into the tension between rhetoric and philosophy and share methods for incorporating the best of both worlds into your work.
In the meantime, good luck with your writing!
We should take Plato with a grain of salt here. He wrote the text to discredit rhetoric (and the sophists who teach it) so the dialogue is completely one-sided in Socrates’ favor. As a result, watching Socrates cross-examine his opponent feels like watching the Harlem Globetrotters beat a high school basketball team. Plato makes it clear from the beginning that Socrates is on another level.
What Socrates has in mind here is more like fast food: something that tastes good, even though its bad for you.