Bernard E. Jacob’s “What Socrates Said: And Why Gorgias and
Polus Did Not Respond: A Reading of Socrates’ Definition of Rhetoric in
‘Gorgias’” interestingly focuses on the exact portion of the Socratic dialogue
that is truncated from “Appendix I” of George A. Kennedy’s translation of
Aristotle’s On Rhetoric: the moment
when “Gorgias’ student, Polus, interrupts impatiently, complaining that
Socrates is taking unfair advantage of Gorgias.
Polus demands that Socrates say what he thinks rhetoric is” (Kennedy
258). Jacob’s essay, then, is an
expansion and explication of information that Kennedy deemed disposable and
footnote-worthy. This, I think, is an
interesting rhetorical move by Kennedy, who could have undoubtedly printed more
of the Socratic transcript in his book.
Indeed, the wholesale excision of Polus’s character and interactions
from the dialogue indicate Kennedy’s attempts to downplay that segment in favor
of the Socrates/Gorgias dialogue, which, I think it is important to note, does
not attack the practical and theoretical foundations of rhetoric like Polus’s
segment does.
The
rhetorical trap—whether intentional or unintentional—that Socrates leaves for
Polus is masterfully orchestrated to the point when Polus “shortcuts” the need
for Socrates to prove his point (that rhetoric only exists as a parasitic
add-on to politics/justness/etc.) “because he himself supplies the most
persuasive proof of all for it. It is
not a proof in speech or by argument. It
is a dramatic proof” (Jacob 94). I had
to re-read and re-evaluate this concept several times; it felt important, and I’m not 100% positive that I’ve “cracked the
code” per se, but I think I’m close to the mark. Polus performs Socrates’s proof that rhetoric
is inextricably linked to political power (or other “true arts”) by the act of not crying foul when Socrates subtly
links the two concepts in his discussion of rhetorical flattery. The master, it seems, has put the student in
his place.
However, as
Jacob suggests, an adequate defense of
rhetoric has not yet been presented either by himself or Polus or Gorgias or even
Kennedy. Never fear! Do not despair! I shall attempt to quickly summarize what
such a defense might look like in short form:
Socrates’s logic is flawed in light
of his own logic. Socrates’s argument is wrong because he is
right. This paradox can be most easily
grasped through his concept of the omnipresence of flattery in rhetoric
(especially in regards to politics).
Flattery, Socrates claims, “will end with the speaker’s loss of his or
her own soul” in spite of the fact that “flattery works” (Jacob 94, 90). This complicates things a bit. A logical conclusion—using Aristotle’s
beloved inductive reasoning—would be that to perform rhetoric well, one must
become a “bad,” unscrupulous person outside of a rhetorical setting. So does this mean that rhetoric is inherently
evil? That seems to be along the lines
of what Socrates is getting at, but, as I said before, I’m not giving up hope
just yet. Socrates himself uses little
to no flattery (quite the opposite, in fact) when convincing an unwitting Polus
of his argument. Just as Polus accidentally
dramatizes a performed proof of Socrates’s argument, Socrates unintentionally
proves himself false by performing successful
rhetoric without the use of flattery. To
return to inductive reasoning again: if it’s at all possible for successful persuasion
to exist in an unflattering or non-manipulative manner, then rhetoric cannot be
completely flattery-based (i.e., morally just rhetoric can and does, indeed,
exist).
In the interest of not writing a
novel-length discussion here, I’ll conclude by conceding Socrates’s point that
rhetoric cannot exist in a vacuum; it is dependent on another “life source” for
its sustenance, but those “life sources” are infinite (ranging from politics to
medicine and anywhere in between) and all-pervasive. Indeed, to find a dividing line between
rhetoric and any “true art” would be next to impossible; rhetoric—the art of persuasion—is woven into the
fabric of all interactions and exchanges.
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