Responding to Contemporary Sophism…Cloaked in Contemporary Platonism

In studying for my comprehensive exams in political theory, there’s a definite theme that seems applicable today. The debate between the Sophists and Platonists over truth and politics. This is obviously a perennial topic that comes up again and again throughout the history of political thought, but this converstaion is interesting as the debate seems to be somewhat timeless.

According to Reginald Allen:

“The sophists were wandering teachers of Greece in the latter part of the fifth century, traveling from city to city to lecture for a fee…[The] rise of democracy – direct, not representative, democracy – made skill in rhetoric important not only to those ambitious for political advancement, but to ordinary citizens concerned to safeguard before the law their property, their citizenship, and their lives. Sophism was not a doctrine, hardly even an attitude of mind, but a social movement…”

The sophists essentially rejected the idea of absolute Truths – in terms of both knowledge and morality – and elevated rhetoric to the art par excellence; teaching the unskilled, often poorly educated, how to “make the weak argument stronger and the strong argument weak.” In response, Plato (via Socrates) argues that highest human activity (the proper domain of politics) is the search for the enduring Forms that represent the Truth. This is done not by appealing to sensory experience (as the Sophists do), but to reason.

The reason I find this debate so interesting, is because it instantiates a dualism that persists today. On the one hand, it seems increasingly clear that FOX news and other right wing venues deploy sensory experience – so called “common sense” – in efforts to politicize events – and to manipulate perception of those events – in a way that is deleterious to the left. The “foreign” sound of the name Obama leads to facile claims about citizenship, the sight of Hispanic protestors waving Mexican flags are used to evoke unease over immigrant loyalties and potential terrorist ties, the fear and anxieties over economic distress are easily transformed into fears of socialism. Unfortunately, these efforts are resulting in increasing extremism and blatantly irrational behavior.

[See, for instance, this article] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/opinion/14rich.html?_r=1&em

On the other hand, however, the Platonic response is to elevate expert rule – the Philosopher King who alone has access to the world of Goodness and Truth – to an almost tyrannical position. The sheer idiocy of the opposing claims makes us want to scream out, “NO DAMMIT! Obama is a patriotic US citizen, the vast majority of immigrants are simply seeking opportunity for themselves and their families, and stabilizing the economy demands some government intervention.” And we aren’t wrong. The problem is that our opponents are just as certain that they have the truth as we are. Though there is a qualitative difference between their truths and ours, it is dangerous to assume that we have the objective Truth, and, were the country only ruled by us enlightened few, we would all be better off.

Both of our truths, it seems to me, are mediated by perceptions of “democracy,” political community, and justice. Resorting to Platonism – or, for that matter, its modern “empirical” counterpart, “science – is appealing because it gives us some solid ground beneath our feet (some privileged space on which to stand and proclaim our path of vision unique), but it’s arrogant, apolitical, and – above all – impractical. Both FOX on the right and MSNBC on the left have adopted the rhetorical tactics of the sophists, while proclaiming – in perfectly Platonic manners – that their Truth is objective (“Fair and Balanced”). Theoretically, I think that Foucault and Deleuze offer some tools that could point towards “another way,” but practically, the left has yet to formulate an adequate response. There seem to me to be two strategies that are making headway. The first, ironically, is found on the BBC and other outlets that make the attempt to be “objective (and in doing so serve to caricature stations like FOX). The second, is achieved through satire - Comedy Central/SNL and other efforts to reveal the absurdity of contemporary sophist/Platonists.