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Discussing an Argument for the Merits of Rhetorical Garbage
Ben Wiley
Gorgias's “Encomium of Helen” presents a beautiful argument ahead of its time: that an individual can be blameless in a situation due to the fact more or less everything can be construed as beyond control. While this argument for Helen's innocence is actually quite sound and its verdict more than acceptable, the argument itself is less than important. Gorgias's work embodies the very faults he lays on the table in his four arguments. In doing so, it becomes a perplexing and beautiful work of art that demonstrates everything wrong, and perhaps right, with the world of rhetoric.
The layered comedy lodged throughout the “Encomium of Helen” is inescapable. Gorgias's longest and most substantive argument, claiming Helen is blameless in the face of the evils of speech, suffers itself from the bad rhetoric and unethical persuasion of which it speaks. His first great argument in this vein states that because poetry (speech) can be unbearable to listen to (an empirically verifiable claim), it makes full sense that Paris's wooing speech caused Helen to suffer, with her being whisked off in a manner she would not have chosen otherwise. The logical fallacy here, clearly self-aware, is not one that needs elaborating.
G does assert that language can cause suffering. Is he then asserting that Helen was persuaded by being made to suffer, or is the example of poetry simply an illustration of the power of speech generally, not specific to Helen?
The remainder of strategies employed to villainize speech are not so much incorrect as they are ironic. Persuasion (speech) is built upon falsehood. Speech is based on opinion justifying opinion. Speech is witchcraft (here, debatable). No wonder Helen was victimized so! Nevermind Helen, look at Gorgias—is his essay not rife with persuasion? Are his own premises not opinionated? Are we really sure that Gorgias is not a witch?
The truly profound part of all this is the volume Gorgias gets away with. To the audience, the trivialness of his arguments is of little concern, since they are appealing regardless. His opinions are not wrong, so they may as well be right. Persuasion, be it right or wrong, works. The poetry argument, even, can be passed over, or seen as valid. The premise (that poetry can induce suffering) is so appealing that the means of reaching conclusion is of lesser consequence.
Much of this appeal is resultant of ridiculous but attractive speech patterns, used throughout the essay to communicate little or nothing at all. For instance: “Who [Paris] was and why and how he sailed away, taking Helen as his love, I shall not say. To tell the knowing what they know shows it is right but brings no delight.” Neither this withholding of information nor the subsequent explanation add anything to Gorgias's work, but each serves to add some amount of delightful fluff. Other instances of heaped words with little meaning occur—though Gorgias of course makes valid points, he also makes a point to adorn those arguments with trivialities. Perhaps he is trying to reach a word count?
I am very happy you raised this issue – yours is the first essay I’ve read to do so. G’s style may appear ridiculous to you, but he saw it as his signature achievement. His ideal of rhetoric is one which not only has plausible arguments but also sounds/reads well.
Whatever the case, Gorgias here uses something else he references in one his arguments—his fourth, which says sight is powerful and manipulative, and therefore its victims must be excused. Gorgias takes this opportunity to hold his audience victim as he woos them with his words. They are not logical, but they draw the audience in and help to convince that audience of Helen's innocence.
It seems fair to assume that as a rhetorician himself, Gorgias would not be crafting this essay as a true work of satire. But it is also fair to say that this defense is not necessarily sincere. And since our defender presumably wishes to paint his reputation as a rhetorician in a fair light, he would certainly not be aiming to present rhetoric as a joke, a facade for an unethical game of manipulation. What, then, is this essay? If it is not satire, it is at least aware of the logical fallacies present in rhetorical argument—either that, or Gorgias is painfully oblivious to the things he is communicating, and one should assume that is not the case. Perhaps this doesn't matter—perhaps what does matter is that Gorgias makes an argument that people want to listen to. No one is contesting that.
What he also does, wittingly or not, is lump a number of excuses for innocence together in a pile. Victim of speech, victim of sight—and two earlier excuses, victim of rape and victim of fate, two we wouldn't necessarily accuse Gorgias of exploiting but which are grouped nonetheless—are seen as roughly equal in terms of validity by the time the arguments are done. That much is clear—it is harder to tell what exactly is being said by this association. One potential position would be that Gorgias genuinely believes in the innocence of Helen. A contrary view would be that he wishes to use existing stigma against Helen as a crutch for a silent argument that excuses in general are invalid. Either viewpoint is probably pointless to argue, but the implications are still notable. It is difficult to come away feeling that Helen is anything other than completely guilty or completely innocent.
This is a good criticism, I think. Perhaps the basis for your revision?
The central moral to this story is that Gorgias can write well and make someone think pretty much what he wants them to. By not exactly defining what he wants people to think, he has turned the notion of rhetoric on its head and spun it, intentionally or not, as an art of fallacy. More importantly, rhetoric does not matter, as he demonstrates by making the more important revelation in his audience's eyes that he can sustain an argument on no merit at all, which, in the great world of capitalism, is a good thing.
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