{"id":3290,"date":"2011-12-16T08:44:46","date_gmt":"2011-12-16T13:44:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=3290"},"modified":"2011-12-16T08:52:12","modified_gmt":"2011-12-16T13:52:12","slug":"suck-on-this-gorgias","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=3290","title":{"rendered":"Suck.On.This, Gorgias."},"content":{"rendered":"

I have been reading Plato's Gorgias<\/a> lately, wondering why I didn't assign this to my argumentation class (well, ok, they had enough to do already).  But in honor of the "end" of the Second Iraq War, I think the following passage is worth thinking about:<\/p>\n

\n

Socrates.<\/strong> Come, then, and let us see what we really mean about <\/a>rhetoric; for I do not know what my own meaning is as yet. When the assembly <\/a>meets to elect a physician or a shipwright or any other craftsman, will <\/a>the rhetorician be taken into counsel? Surely not. For at every election <\/a>he ought to be chosen who is most skilled; and, again, when walls have <\/a>to be built or harbours or docks to be constructed, not the rhetorician <\/a>but the master workman will advise; or when generals have to be chosen <\/a>and an order of battle arranged, or a proposition taken, then the military <\/a>will advise and not the rhetoricians<\/strong>: what do you say, Gorgias? Since you <\/a>profess to be a rhetorician and a maker of rhetoricians, I cannot do better <\/a>than learn the nature of your art from you. And here let me assure you <\/a>that I have your interest in view as well as my own. For likely enough <\/a>some one or other of the young men present might desire to become your <\/a>pupil, and in fact I see some, and a good many too, who have this wish, <\/a>but they would be too modest to question you. And therefore when you are <\/a>interrogated by me, I would have you imagine that you are interrogated <\/a>by them. "What is the use of coming to you, Gorgias? they will say about <\/a>what will you teach us to advise the state?-about the just and unjust only, <\/a>or about those other things also which Socrates has just mentioned? How <\/a>will you answer them?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It's early in the discussion, but let us never forget the rhetoricians who arranged battle for us.  The archives here are full of them.  Here for your horror, is one<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

I think it [the invasion of Iraq] was unquestionably worth doing, Charlie.
\n\t\t…
\n\t\tWe needed to go over there, basically, um, and um, uh, take out a very big stick right in the heart of that world and burst that bubble, and there was only one way to do it.
\n\t\t…<\/p>\n

What they needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house, from Basra to Baghdad<\/strong>, um and basically saying, "Which part of this sentence don't you understand?"<\/p>\n

You don't think, you know, we care about our open society, you think this bubble fantasy, we're just gonna let it grow?<\/p>\n

Well Suck. On. This.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Okay.<\/strong><\/p>\n

That Charlie was what this war was about.<\/strong> We could've hit Saudi Arabia, it was part of that bubble. We coulda hit Pakistan. We hit Iraq because we could. That's the real truth<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And so example #15675432 why rhetoricians shouldn't advise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have been reading Plato's Gorgias lately, wondering why I didn't assign this to my argumentation class (well, ok, they had enough to do already).  But in honor of the "end" of the Second Iraq War, I think the following passage is worth thinking about: Socrates. Come, then, and let us see what we really … Continue reading Suck.On.This, Gorgias.<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1249,1248,340,558,1191,201,860],"class_list":["post-3290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-expertise","tag-gorgias","tag-pundits","tag-rhetoric","tag-suck-on-this","tag-tom-friedman","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3290"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3292,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3290\/revisions\/3292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}