"Sophistry" is certainly all over the place in social media. It's a good reminder that phony expertise has been with us for a very long time.
I think of sophists as being somewhat equivalent to our lawyers. I read somewhere ("Trying Neaira", maybe?) that Athenians were a fairly litigious bunch, and you weren't allowed to use lawyers—someone paid to speak on your behalf—in court. You could pay someone to write a speech for you, and you could call upon a family member or friend to speak for you, but even then you had to stand up and speak for some portion of your defense—unless you were a woman, of course. Imagine having no microphone and getting in front of a crowd of jurors consisting of several hundred to a thousand (or more!) who were allowed to heckle you. Nowadays we don't have to worry about our public speaking skills or the art of persuasion—we just have to worry about having the money to pay for lawyers who do.
In many respects, the Ancient Greek city states operated in a much truer democratic spirit than contemporary countries, and especially the US. Of course, these roles and duties were still highly segregated for men who were Athenian citizens in this case etc.—but I’ve read many things that shows there was much more actual engagement with society and one another and “putting your skin on the line” etc. than we see nowadays. In many respects, the oligarchy that say, America has become, such that the rich always have an endless supply of servants at every level to do their work for them, never truly incurring personal penalties or struggles for them much of the time, resembles more the much more unequal military-state of Rome.
Rich Athenians had plenty of servants and slaves as well, as did the middle class, but every citizen, regardless of class, was more directly involved in politics than we are, and they were very proud of that fact (although, look where it got them).
Hah--speaking as someone who's Greek, there's probably no culture or country (or idea of a country) that's more spoken about and analyzed by certain groups of historians and philosophers etc. without any regard or awareness of the modern entity of Greece and the place where my recent ancestors are from. It's a bit of a strange dynamic. China probably occupied a similar position in the minds of many people up until relatively recently.
So true! And I have to admit, I know virtually nothing of modern Greek history, but I've never been much for history of any sort, except ancient Greece. I think the appeal for me is that it challenges any vague notions of progress I may have had. I love modern Greece too, though, what little I've seen of it, and I'm pretty sure when I'm on my death bed, that's where I'll be in my mind. I'd love to get back there someday.
Haha, oh really? I haven't been for 20+ years. To me, most of my Greek relatives, and encounters with Greeks there, is of a lot of depression, corruption, and too much emphasis on religious institutions, lots of ruins..probably quite different than the typical depiction of sunny islands.
I think progress is always a slippery idea. To switch cultural places with you, I myself have been a student of Chinese and ancient Chinese history and I greatly enjoy Tang dynasty poetry and things like that (with the help of bilingual editions) and the deep historical roots of Taoism, Buddhism, etc. Heck, I'll even give the Confucianists some credit even though I'm not a big fan of them. Definitely a bigger fan of ancient China in many respects though, than modern China, though I've only been to the latter, as I haven't yet invented time travel.
I went to Greece as a study abroad student (from France) about twenty years ago as well, then again with my husband in 2013. Looks like I’m due for another trip! Never been to China, though I imagine that would be one amazing trip. Now they need to get on with inventing time travel!
Hello and great entry! I occasionally bring up this very fact, that sophistry is all around us and thriving..and the usual response from most people is: “what is that?”
Like, they have never heard the word, “sophist.”
Which itself illustrates the peril we’re in—we’ve reached a point where there isn’t even a conflict about truth vs engaging in sophistry..I think the response of most people (as reflected by the masses of people making money and fake literally and unironically off of sophistry, as you’ve pointed out is)—so what? And what’s wrong with that? Truly sad times when people lack any type of spiritual, cultural, or truth-roots.
This is so interesting. As someone who studies criminal justice, I couldn't help but see how "forensic experts" influence the juries with their brand of pseudosciences such as tooth mark analysis and other controversial method of forensics. Many of them are simply a practitioner who is adept at applying forensic techniques, but lack the skills of an actual researcher. There's a big difference. Instead of this playing out on social media, it's in a courtroom--and they get paid a lot of money to do it.
You make an interesting connection between the time of Socrates and Plato and our modern age. The issues are the same: the search for truth versus the search for fame and wealth.
great points! So easy to get sucked in with emotion and persuasion. advanced degrees, experience, none of this is often shown as credentials. Just a "passion for blah blah blah." Which is fine, but no approach of humility.
Good stuff, thanks for sharing! I couldn't agree more about "people... enter[ing] into the digital arena with the sole goal of greed and power." I've known at least one person personally and heard many anecdotes of people who want to make their living as an "influencer," irrespective of any actual independent ideas or passions, and I think it's not a great way to think about career, influence, or society. To a certain extent I suspect it's just a function of the fact that you gotta make a living somehow, so on a certain level it's one career path out of many, but yeah, influencing other people just for the sake of influencing them and making money isn't likely to produce socially valuable outcomes, and it seems like that's borne out in some of the vapid "influencer" types you reference in this piece.
Re your statement that "the value of truth varies from person-to-person" I want to respectfully argue that the thing about the truth is that it has intrinsic value. I'm not sure if it's just a matter of phrasing here, and I'm not trying to be nitpicky, but to me the value of truth doesn't really vary from person to person. Some people may place less personal value in truth than others, but that's a cognitive error, imho. With the asterisk that of course we can't prove anything beyond the shadow of a doubt, so technically we don't know for sure that there even is such a thing as objective truth, I'll say that I'm as sure of the existence of objective truth as I am of anything. I give it a 9 out of 10, which is the highest level of certainty I give anything, for the reason I stated above. Not trying to be pedantic, but basically, we can be pretty darn sure that 2 + 2 does in fact equal 4, and that matters. When something is true, it has consequences in the real world. Just because someone doesn't value truth, doesn't mean truth isn't affecting them. Sorry if I'm being nitpicky here; it may be that you simply meant that some people place more value in truth than others, which is of course itself true, but again, I argue that anyone who doesn't value truth is making an error in judgement. I guess my argument is kind of meta: the objective truth is that objective truth is real, and that objectively matters.*
*As far as we can tell, since we can't know anything at all for 100% certain. 😂
As far as your statement that "I don’t know what the solution for this is," I don't 100% know the solution either, but I strongly suspect part of the solution is for our society to decide to ban surveillance advertising. We don't have to allow monopolistic companies like Meta and Google (and I strongly suspect that breaking up those monopolies would also be an important part of the solution) to track us across the internet. Their business models depend on them tracking us practically everywhere we go on the internet so they can feed us clickbaity material microtargeted to us specifically, so they can serve us as many ads as possible. The incentives this creates are incredibly toxic, and are at the root of many of the problems with social media and today's internet in general, or so it seems to me. I try to stay humble, and I'm still learning, but "Stolen Focus" by Johann Hari, as well as some podcast interviews I've listened to and articles I've read, have made some pretty compelling arguments that banning surveillance advertising is a great start if we want a better internet.
Definitely a parallel between sophists and social media influencers ... particularly given the fact that sophists argued to win, and not find an "objective truth." So when Socrates spars with Meletus in the Trial of Socrates, we see that, logically, Meletus's arguments (that EVERYONE in Athens educates and elevates the youth and that Socrates is the ONLY person who corrupts them) make no sense. A deeper way to look at it, however -- especially in relation to social media influencers -- is the idea of vanity. Being too concerned with how one appeared (both literally and figuratively) always obscured and impeded any quest for truth.
Thanks for subscribing to my Substack: the most relevant post for you would be "Coping With Disagreement and Being Wrong", (which is really about epistemology, mostly).
I also wonder if you've read "Zen and the Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance", where the author wraps up an obscure point he wants to make about Plato and Aristotle: brilliant book.
I would also recommend "Peace Revolution" podcast by Richard Andrew Grove, for background.
I loved that book. It’s not really about zen, persay, which is a very deep philosophy and way of being not understood by many (much less most academic philosophers), but it still has some great points. My personal favourite, and a quotation that does actually keep with the spirit of Zen is, “there’s very little zen at the tops of mountains, it’s all on the way up,” or something to that effect.
I remember enjoying the sophists way back when I read them. I now wonder if part of their bad rap was due to their constantly poking their fingers in the eyes and arguments of the powerful (something the Skeptics were also very good at...)
No, Sokrates did not know what a social media influencer is, ergo. We can make comparisons with the benefit of hindsight. However, as forward thinking Sokrates may have been, such comparisons for him are temporally impossible.
"Sophistry" is certainly all over the place in social media. It's a good reminder that phony expertise has been with us for a very long time.
I think of sophists as being somewhat equivalent to our lawyers. I read somewhere ("Trying Neaira", maybe?) that Athenians were a fairly litigious bunch, and you weren't allowed to use lawyers—someone paid to speak on your behalf—in court. You could pay someone to write a speech for you, and you could call upon a family member or friend to speak for you, but even then you had to stand up and speak for some portion of your defense—unless you were a woman, of course. Imagine having no microphone and getting in front of a crowd of jurors consisting of several hundred to a thousand (or more!) who were allowed to heckle you. Nowadays we don't have to worry about our public speaking skills or the art of persuasion—we just have to worry about having the money to pay for lawyers who do.
In many respects, the Ancient Greek city states operated in a much truer democratic spirit than contemporary countries, and especially the US. Of course, these roles and duties were still highly segregated for men who were Athenian citizens in this case etc.—but I’ve read many things that shows there was much more actual engagement with society and one another and “putting your skin on the line” etc. than we see nowadays. In many respects, the oligarchy that say, America has become, such that the rich always have an endless supply of servants at every level to do their work for them, never truly incurring personal penalties or struggles for them much of the time, resembles more the much more unequal military-state of Rome.
Rich Athenians had plenty of servants and slaves as well, as did the middle class, but every citizen, regardless of class, was more directly involved in politics than we are, and they were very proud of that fact (although, look where it got them).
Right, that's what I meant!
Hah--speaking as someone who's Greek, there's probably no culture or country (or idea of a country) that's more spoken about and analyzed by certain groups of historians and philosophers etc. without any regard or awareness of the modern entity of Greece and the place where my recent ancestors are from. It's a bit of a strange dynamic. China probably occupied a similar position in the minds of many people up until relatively recently.
So true! And I have to admit, I know virtually nothing of modern Greek history, but I've never been much for history of any sort, except ancient Greece. I think the appeal for me is that it challenges any vague notions of progress I may have had. I love modern Greece too, though, what little I've seen of it, and I'm pretty sure when I'm on my death bed, that's where I'll be in my mind. I'd love to get back there someday.
Haha, oh really? I haven't been for 20+ years. To me, most of my Greek relatives, and encounters with Greeks there, is of a lot of depression, corruption, and too much emphasis on religious institutions, lots of ruins..probably quite different than the typical depiction of sunny islands.
I think progress is always a slippery idea. To switch cultural places with you, I myself have been a student of Chinese and ancient Chinese history and I greatly enjoy Tang dynasty poetry and things like that (with the help of bilingual editions) and the deep historical roots of Taoism, Buddhism, etc. Heck, I'll even give the Confucianists some credit even though I'm not a big fan of them. Definitely a bigger fan of ancient China in many respects though, than modern China, though I've only been to the latter, as I haven't yet invented time travel.
I went to Greece as a study abroad student (from France) about twenty years ago as well, then again with my husband in 2013. Looks like I’m due for another trip! Never been to China, though I imagine that would be one amazing trip. Now they need to get on with inventing time travel!
We’re no modern day Athens - and I’m glad
Hello and great entry! I occasionally bring up this very fact, that sophistry is all around us and thriving..and the usual response from most people is: “what is that?”
Like, they have never heard the word, “sophist.”
Which itself illustrates the peril we’re in—we’ve reached a point where there isn’t even a conflict about truth vs engaging in sophistry..I think the response of most people (as reflected by the masses of people making money and fake literally and unironically off of sophistry, as you’ve pointed out is)—so what? And what’s wrong with that? Truly sad times when people lack any type of spiritual, cultural, or truth-roots.
This is so interesting. As someone who studies criminal justice, I couldn't help but see how "forensic experts" influence the juries with their brand of pseudosciences such as tooth mark analysis and other controversial method of forensics. Many of them are simply a practitioner who is adept at applying forensic techniques, but lack the skills of an actual researcher. There's a big difference. Instead of this playing out on social media, it's in a courtroom--and they get paid a lot of money to do it.
You make an interesting connection between the time of Socrates and Plato and our modern age. The issues are the same: the search for truth versus the search for fame and wealth.
you're a gem for this!
An excellent argument!
I like the parallels you’ve drawn between the two.
Good reflections.
great points! So easy to get sucked in with emotion and persuasion. advanced degrees, experience, none of this is often shown as credentials. Just a "passion for blah blah blah." Which is fine, but no approach of humility.
Good stuff, thanks for sharing! I couldn't agree more about "people... enter[ing] into the digital arena with the sole goal of greed and power." I've known at least one person personally and heard many anecdotes of people who want to make their living as an "influencer," irrespective of any actual independent ideas or passions, and I think it's not a great way to think about career, influence, or society. To a certain extent I suspect it's just a function of the fact that you gotta make a living somehow, so on a certain level it's one career path out of many, but yeah, influencing other people just for the sake of influencing them and making money isn't likely to produce socially valuable outcomes, and it seems like that's borne out in some of the vapid "influencer" types you reference in this piece.
Re your statement that "the value of truth varies from person-to-person" I want to respectfully argue that the thing about the truth is that it has intrinsic value. I'm not sure if it's just a matter of phrasing here, and I'm not trying to be nitpicky, but to me the value of truth doesn't really vary from person to person. Some people may place less personal value in truth than others, but that's a cognitive error, imho. With the asterisk that of course we can't prove anything beyond the shadow of a doubt, so technically we don't know for sure that there even is such a thing as objective truth, I'll say that I'm as sure of the existence of objective truth as I am of anything. I give it a 9 out of 10, which is the highest level of certainty I give anything, for the reason I stated above. Not trying to be pedantic, but basically, we can be pretty darn sure that 2 + 2 does in fact equal 4, and that matters. When something is true, it has consequences in the real world. Just because someone doesn't value truth, doesn't mean truth isn't affecting them. Sorry if I'm being nitpicky here; it may be that you simply meant that some people place more value in truth than others, which is of course itself true, but again, I argue that anyone who doesn't value truth is making an error in judgement. I guess my argument is kind of meta: the objective truth is that objective truth is real, and that objectively matters.*
*As far as we can tell, since we can't know anything at all for 100% certain. 😂
As far as your statement that "I don’t know what the solution for this is," I don't 100% know the solution either, but I strongly suspect part of the solution is for our society to decide to ban surveillance advertising. We don't have to allow monopolistic companies like Meta and Google (and I strongly suspect that breaking up those monopolies would also be an important part of the solution) to track us across the internet. Their business models depend on them tracking us practically everywhere we go on the internet so they can feed us clickbaity material microtargeted to us specifically, so they can serve us as many ads as possible. The incentives this creates are incredibly toxic, and are at the root of many of the problems with social media and today's internet in general, or so it seems to me. I try to stay humble, and I'm still learning, but "Stolen Focus" by Johann Hari, as well as some podcast interviews I've listened to and articles I've read, have made some pretty compelling arguments that banning surveillance advertising is a great start if we want a better internet.
Definitely a parallel between sophists and social media influencers ... particularly given the fact that sophists argued to win, and not find an "objective truth." So when Socrates spars with Meletus in the Trial of Socrates, we see that, logically, Meletus's arguments (that EVERYONE in Athens educates and elevates the youth and that Socrates is the ONLY person who corrupts them) make no sense. A deeper way to look at it, however -- especially in relation to social media influencers -- is the idea of vanity. Being too concerned with how one appeared (both literally and figuratively) always obscured and impeded any quest for truth.
Trumpism is Peak Sophistry.
Very apt comparison!
Thanks for subscribing to my Substack: the most relevant post for you would be "Coping With Disagreement and Being Wrong", (which is really about epistemology, mostly).
I also wonder if you've read "Zen and the Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance", where the author wraps up an obscure point he wants to make about Plato and Aristotle: brilliant book.
I would also recommend "Peace Revolution" podcast by Richard Andrew Grove, for background.
I loved that book. It’s not really about zen, persay, which is a very deep philosophy and way of being not understood by many (much less most academic philosophers), but it still has some great points. My personal favourite, and a quotation that does actually keep with the spirit of Zen is, “there’s very little zen at the tops of mountains, it’s all on the way up,” or something to that effect.
Patriots and Paytriots.
I remember enjoying the sophists way back when I read them. I now wonder if part of their bad rap was due to their constantly poking their fingers in the eyes and arguments of the powerful (something the Skeptics were also very good at...)
No, Sokrates did not know what a social media influencer is, ergo. We can make comparisons with the benefit of hindsight. However, as forward thinking Sokrates may have been, such comparisons for him are temporally impossible.
Why have we ignored his warning about democracy?