Gorgias on the power of rhetoric
GorgiasIf only you knew it all, Socrates: that, so to speak, it has gathered together all the powers and holds them under itself. And I will give you a strong proof of it: many times before now I have gone in with my brother and with the other doctors to see someone who was ill and was not willing either to drink a drug or to let the doctor cut or burn him, and when the doctor could not persuade him, I have persuaded him myself, by no other art than rhetoric. And I say, too, that if a rhetorician and a doctor came into any city you want and had to compete in speech, in the Assembly or in some other gathering, over which of the two should be chosen as doctor, the doctor would be nowhere, but the one with the power to speak would be chosen, if he wanted.
And if, too, he competed against any other craftsman whatever, the rhetorician, more than anyone else at all, would persuade them to choose him; for there is nothing about which the rhetorician would not speak more persuasively in a crowd than any other craftsman whatever. So great, then, and of such a kind is the power of the art; one must, however, Socrates, use rhetoric as one uses every other kind of combat. For the other kinds of combat, too, are not to be used against all people for this reason—because one has learned to box and to compete in the pancration and to fight in armour, so as to be superior to friends and enemies alike—not for this reason must one beat one’s friends, or stab and kill them.
Nor, by Zeus, if someone has gone regularly to a wrestling school, is in good bodily condition and has become good at boxing, and then beats his father and his mother, or anyone else among his household or his friends, must one for this reason hate the trainers and those who teach fighting in armour, and banish them from the cities. For they handed these things on to be used justly against the enemy and against those who do injustice, in self-defence, not to strike first; but the pupils turn them the other way and do not use their strength and their art rightly. So those who taught are not wicked, nor is the art either to blame or wicked for this reason, but rather, I think, those who do not use it rightly. The same argument, then, holds for rhetoric too.
For the orator has the power to speak against everyone and about everything, so as to be more persuasive in crowds, in a word, about whatever he wants; but this is no more a reason why he should rob the doctors of their reputation—because he would be able to do it—or the other craftsmen either: rather, he should use rhetoric justly, as he should use combat too. And if someone becomes a rhetorician and then does injustice with this power and this art, it is not, I think, the one who taught him that one must hate and banish from the cities. For he handed it on for just use, while the other uses it in the opposite way. So it is the one who does not use it rightly whom it is just to hate and banish and kill, and not the one who taught him.