I think it's only fair to blame Lenny for everything I'm about to say--he's driven me so crazy that I've begun talking to myself. Like so:
ME (1): Well, Wes, you've really lost it this time.
ME (2): Yes, I'm afraid you're right.
ME (1): Shall we analyze the causes and nature of our insanity?
ME (2): No, let's not.
ME (1): I agree. But don't we at least want to know the justifications for our belief that we have lost it?
ME (2): Wes, you're talking to yourself.
ME (1): Yes, that's it exactly. And Plato, probably, would consider having multiple, contradictory selves as a form of insanity--a falling away from a healthy state of the soul--and would want us to resolve our contradictions. But I say, let us embrace our post-modernity, and acknowledge that the self of Wes is constructed by a multiplicity of ideas and beliefs and values and old Three Stooges comedies.
ME (2): Whatever.
ME (1): But if we're going to persist in this schizophrenic state, we'd better give ourselves some names, so that they [gesture to audience] can tell us apart. For myself, I choose to be Sophisticles, Socrates' long-lost twin sister.
ME (2): Funny, you don't look like a Greek sister.
ME (1): Well, you can't get good acting help these days--there's nobody up here but us future dead white males. Choose a name.
ME (2): OK, I'll be Gorgeous.
ME (1): You can't be Gorgias--that name's taken!
ME (2): Not Gorgias--Gorgeous. I've always wanted to be gorgeous. Instead I'm stuck at 32.
SOPHISTICLES: Whatever.
GORGEOUS: So now what, Sophisticles?
SOPHISTICLES: Now we examine each other. I get to ask you a bunch of leading questions, and you get to agree with everything I say.
GORGEOUS: Why should we do that?
SOPHISTICLES: Because it's in the script.
GORGEOUS: But I don't want to be the one who agrees with everything! I want to be the smart one.
SOPHISTICLES: Tough. There are certain assumptions our author needs to get out, and he needs you to agree with me to get them out. Isn't it necessary, therefore, that you be the stooge and I be the brilliant interlocutor? Answer yes or no.
GORGEOUS: Yes, Sophisticles, that is necessarily so.
SOPHISTICLES: Good. That's settled, then.
GORGEOUS: So what subject are we talking about, that you need me to agree with you on?
SOPHISTICLES: Rhetoric.
GORGEOUS: Oh God. Why?
SOPHISTICLES: Because in the Gorgias, Plato takes a bunch of cheap shots at rhetoric--what's translated as "oratory"--and I don't think they're fair.
GORGEOUS: Fair enough--begin.
SOPHISTICLES: No they aren't!
GORGEOUS: No they aren't what?
SOPHISTICLES: Fair enough.
GORGEOUS: Whatever. What is rhetoric, anyway?
SOPHISTICLES: Roughly speaking, Gorgeous, in modern parlance, it's the study of the elements and the arrangement of elements in speaking and writing, such as structure, argumentation, and style. In classical terms, it's more specifically the art of oratory, especially the persuasive use of spoken language to influence the thoughts and actions of an audience.
GORGEOUS: Oh. That was pretty good for speaking roughly.
SOPHISTICLES: It was in the script. Now first, let us establish our manner of proceeding.
GORGEOUS: OK, shoot.
SOPHISTICLES: Why, have you done something wrong?
GORGEOUS: No, you idiot, I mean proceed.
SOPHISTICLES: May I remind you that I'm the philosopher and you're just the stooge?
GORGEOUS: Sorry. "Idiot" was in the script.
SOPHISTICLES: Well, that's OK then. Now, as to our manner of proceeding. I suggest that, just as in Plato's Gorgias, we avoid the long style of speechmaking in favor of alternately asking questions and asking them.
GORGEOUS: Why? How long is the Gorgias?
SOPHISTICLES: 113 pages, but--
GORGEOUS: That sounds pretty long to me.
SOPHISTICLES: No, no you're missing the point. The point is that by discussing things, turn and turn again, we can proceed in an orderly fashion from premise to premise to conclusion. We can argue logically, rather than just rambling on about nothing in a long windy speech.
GORGEOUS: Can't a speech have an argument? You know, lead from premise to premise to conclusion in an orderly fashion?
SOPHISTICLES: Well, I suppose it could . . .
GORGEOUS: But then I suppose a 113-page speech would take a long time to recite.
SOPHISTICLES: No, no. The Gorgias isn't a speech. It's a book. Written down. And it's only as long as it is because it's a dialogue. If all the arguments were put into a speech it would be much shorter.
GORGEOUS: Wait a minute. I thought you said that the idea was to make it shorter.
SOPHISTICLES: Not the book, you idiot, the speeches.
GORGEOUS: What speeches?
SOPHISTICLES: The speeches the characters make.
GORGEOUS: Again, what speeches? I thought it was a book. Written down.
SOPHISTICLES: It's written down in the form of the dialogue. You know, like a play. That allows Plato to add depth and complexity to the arguments with dramatic irony and stuff like that.
GORGEOUS: OK, I get it. So our manner of proceeding is to prefer the short style of speech, which will make this monologue longer and more complex.
SOPHISTICLES: Something like that.
GORGEOUS: Oh. Why?
SOPHISTICLES: Because we want to arrive at the truth. See, for Plato, the art of oratory could only produce false belief, conviction without knowledge. He preferred discussion, in which people could question each other until they rooted out each other's false beliefs.
GORGEOUS: So the Gorgias is written by more than one person.
SOPHISTICLES: No, Gorgeous, it isn't.
GORGEOUS: How could it not be? I thought you said that Plato preferred discussion to long speeches.
SOPHISTICLES: I did.
GORGEOUS: Well, you can't very well have a discussion with just yourself, now can you, Sophisticles? That wouldn't be a Platonic dialogue, it would be a Platonic monologue. Unless, of course, Plato were also a schizophrenic postmodernist sort, giving the different selves within himself their own voices . . . nah.
SOPHISTICLES: What an uncooperative stooge you are! I didn't say that the Gorgias is a discussion, I said that it recommends discussion, and specifically argument. And it makes that point very clearly by being written in the form of a dialogue.
GORGEOUS: Monologue.
SOPHISTICLES: Dialogue.
GORGEOUS: Whatever. So let me see if I have this straight, Sophisticles. The elements of the Gorgias are arranged in the form of a dialogue so as to persuade its readers that discussion and argument are preferable to speeches.
SOPHISTICLES: Yes, Gorgeous, that's it exactly.
GORGEOUS: And what was the definition of rhetoric, again?
SOPHISTICLES: In short, the study of the arrangement of the elements of writing or speaking so as to persuade the reader or listener.
GORGEOUS: So the Gorgias is a masterpiece of rhetoric the purpose of which is to demonstrate the unworthiness of rhetoric.
SOPHISTICLES: I suppose it is.
GORGEOUS: You'll forgive me if I don't find that very convincing.
SOPHISTICLES: Well, Gorgeous, that hardly seems fair. No one can avoid rhetoric--after all, we have to communicate in words. It's not like we can just fork over reality itself to our listeners without some kind of mediation.
GORGEOUS: Yes, we do have to use words. But which words? Wouldn't an advocate of the "short style of speech," a seeker of objective knowledge with as little distortion from language as possible, choose the most concise, most transparent language possible, perhaps even writing out the arguments of the book in concise syllogisms?
SOPHISTICLES: But the Gorgias wouldn't be nearly as good if he did that!
GORGEOUS: Agreed. But Plato shouldn't think so. For doesn't he say that flute-playing and poetry and tragedy and oratory are invented only for pleasure?
SOPHISTICLES: He does, Gorgeous.
GORGEOUS: And that thus they are a form of flattery?
SOPHISTICLES: That is so.
GORGEOUS: And that one should avoid flattery and seek only the truth?
GORGEOUS: Yes, Gorgeous.
SOPHISTICLES: And doesn't it follow that whatever in Plato's own dialogues is demonstrably rhetorical or dramatic or poetic, insofar as it is rhetorical or dramatic or poetic, should also be avoided as a form of flattery?
GORGEOUS: It does.
SOPHISTICLES: And would that not include the dialogue form itself, which is not and cannot be a genuine discussion, but is rather a rhetorical strategy in a long written text?
SOPHISTICLES: So it would seem, Gorgeous.
GORGEOUS: And cannot we go further? Can we not say that the Gorgias opposes philosophy to rhetoric, and that, just as Sarchett predicts of such binary oppositions, the former term, philosophy, is privileged as being essential superior, while the latter term, rhetoric, is taken to be non-essential and inferior?
SOPHISTICLES: Certainly that is so, Gorgeous.
GORGEOUS: And can we not also say that, insofar as the rhetorical element of the dialogue form supports Plato's argument in favor of philosophy, what is in fact the case is that philosophy, which is essential and superior, is dependent on rhetoric, which is non-essential and inferior?
SOPHISTICLES: You can say that, if you like. To me, it's beginning to sound like a hideous and intolerable deconstruction.
GORGEOUS: Sorry about that--those aren't on the schedule until Thursday. But I had to do it, it was in the script. But let us conclude. What is the lesson to be learned from this demonstration?
SOPHISTICLES: I don't know. Beware of Greeks bearing distinctions?
GORGEOUS: No, no. I mean, was Plato right or wrong?
SOPHISTICLES: Which Plato? For it seems that you have identified 2 Platos: Plato the philosopher, and Plato the rhetorician.
GORGEOUS: Well then, which Plato was right?
SOPHISTICLES: I would have to say Plato the rhetorician, Gorgeous, because the Gorgias really wouldn't be as good as it is if it were not a dialogue but a set of syllogisms. And because language matters. When we say things in different ways, they mean different things. And there is a great deal of meaning that can't be conveyed in short, transparent syllogisms. Consider the argument of this monologue! How empty it would be if we converted it to a syllogism.
GORGEOUS: Indeed. But ought we not also to say that Plato the philosopher was right as well? That, however we define 'the good' and 'the true,' whether they are something eternal and whole as Plato would have it, or something contingent and contradictory as the post-modernists would have it, we should certainly seek out the good and the true?
SOPHISTICLES: Yes, Gorgeous. At least twice a week.
GORGEOUS: Well, that's that, then. Clearly there's only one way to conclude.
SOPHISTICLES: And that is with a quote from Whitman--
ME: "Do I contradict myself?/ Very well then I contradict myself,/ (I am large, I contain multitudes.)"
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