Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
Plato and Socrates heavily disapproved of spin (or rhetoric, as it was referred to back then). Aristotle and the Sophists had a different point of view.
Your first choice is by Plato, which I guess means spin is not just a 20th-century invention, but goes back a long way and has been causing controversy for a long time …
Right. The word “spin” for this phenomenon is new, and there are ways that contemporary political spin is different from what Plato wrote about. But it’s essentially the same problem that Plato and Aristotle were arguing about when they argued about rhetoric. And in the Gorgias, Plato – or really Socrates – deplores rhetoric, which is the ancient version of spin: an artful, skilled effort to persuade people in politics, as well as in other areas, of a particular conviction. Plato objects to it because it’s designed to induce a certain feeling or conviction regardless of whether that conviction is truth. So for Plato spin or rhetoric is the antithesis of philosophy. Philosophy aspires to truth and Plato, of course, wants the philosophers to run the Republic.
Today we wonder, “Who is to say who has truth on their side?” And that was the position of some of the Sophists, who were relativists. So, back then this was a battle. And I think Plato’s attitude towards rhetoric has very much carried over into our own day. And I’m still trying to figure out how to characterize our current position towards spin. I think what it is is that we are superficially Platonists, but that deep down we’re Aristotelians.
Which means?
Aristotle took a much more practical view of rhetoric. He thought that sometimes it could be used for good ends, sometimes for bad ends: it depended on the particular rhetorician, how honest he was, and there are all of these situational variables that affected how we might regard any use of rhetoric. For Plato it was all corrupt. It was all designed to induce something other than truth. And he makes the comparison: rhetoric is to philosophy as beauty and cosmetics are to health. A doctor aims to induce health and keep you well and that will make you look good physically. The corrupted version, the superficial version that’s only concerned with outward appearances, is the branch that focuses just on cosmetics and beauty.
And your view is that spin can be good, that it can be put to good use: it all depends what you’re trying to do with it.
Yes, I’m more of an Aristotelian. And, while I fully admit that there are politicians and handlers who misuse spin, who deceive us, I think that a lot of what we complain about is simply spin by the other side, spin by people we don’t agree with. I don’t think it’s the arts of persuasion – even our advanced, technologically refined arts of persuasion – that are really the problem in our politics. Partly the problem is just an ancient resistance to different viewpoints, our insistence that we can arrive at a single truth from which all political and policy decisions can flow.
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David Greenberg is an associate professor of history and of journalism and media studies at Rutgers University. His first book, Nixon’s Shadow: The History of an Image, won a number of awards. He has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker and Foreign Affairs and writes the “History Lesson” column for online magazine Slate. He held editorial positions at The New Republic and also worked for Watergate journalist Bob Woodward. He is currently writing a history of political spin.
