Imagist
Worshipper of Athe.
Bad ideas are often sold using good marketing. The entire Bush administration was sold on catchy slogans and clever renamings. Think "swift boat veterans for truth" or "enemy combatants". The Project for the New American Century had an entire article on selecting terminology.
The practice of manipulating language and rhetoric rather than logic to get what you want is known as sophistry. Politics and the English Language describes many sophist techniques. Neuro-linguistic programming is a small-scale application of sophistry. Pick-up and con artists depend on it as the core of their craft.
It's obvious that sophistry has negatives. In the Greek times, the Sophists (the group from which the word comes) were accused of pursuing power rather than truth or justice.
My concern, however, is that truth and justice cannot exist without power. There is a perception among intellectuals that good ideas will be enacted as policy simply because of their virtue as good ideas, but time and time again, these ideas fall to bad ideas that are better advertised. Often when good ideas are enacted, it is only after the opposing bad ideas have catastrophically failed, costing millions of lives and billions of dollars.
The reason seems to be that the average population doesn't recognize the difference between good and bad ideas. Instead, swayed by rhetoric, they vote for the one with the slickest slogans and best buzzwords.
It seems to me that there is nothing inherently wrong with sophistry. Rhetoric is not in opposition to truth or justice, it is ambivalent to it. Rather than focusing on communicating their ideas clearly, perhaps people with good ideas should try to advertise them better, using wordplay, slogans, buzzwords: the tools that an honest intellectual often scorns.
It needs not be dishonest. A car salesman selling a lemon may lie about the engine, but a car salesman selling a good car can honestly say that the engine is good. Rhetoric is a common cover for poor logic, but rhetoric can cover good logic just as easily.
My question is, is there any moral reason why intelligent people can't use rhetoric to better advertise good ideas?
The practice of manipulating language and rhetoric rather than logic to get what you want is known as sophistry. Politics and the English Language describes many sophist techniques. Neuro-linguistic programming is a small-scale application of sophistry. Pick-up and con artists depend on it as the core of their craft.
It's obvious that sophistry has negatives. In the Greek times, the Sophists (the group from which the word comes) were accused of pursuing power rather than truth or justice.
My concern, however, is that truth and justice cannot exist without power. There is a perception among intellectuals that good ideas will be enacted as policy simply because of their virtue as good ideas, but time and time again, these ideas fall to bad ideas that are better advertised. Often when good ideas are enacted, it is only after the opposing bad ideas have catastrophically failed, costing millions of lives and billions of dollars.
The reason seems to be that the average population doesn't recognize the difference between good and bad ideas. Instead, swayed by rhetoric, they vote for the one with the slickest slogans and best buzzwords.
It seems to me that there is nothing inherently wrong with sophistry. Rhetoric is not in opposition to truth or justice, it is ambivalent to it. Rather than focusing on communicating their ideas clearly, perhaps people with good ideas should try to advertise them better, using wordplay, slogans, buzzwords: the tools that an honest intellectual often scorns.
It needs not be dishonest. A car salesman selling a lemon may lie about the engine, but a car salesman selling a good car can honestly say that the engine is good. Rhetoric is a common cover for poor logic, but rhetoric can cover good logic just as easily.
My question is, is there any moral reason why intelligent people can't use rhetoric to better advertise good ideas?
