The dialogue in Plato’s, Gorgias, seemed very confusing and repetitive at first. However, once I slowed my pace and really absorbed Plato’s words, I became extremely interested in the thoughts and ideas that were presented. The topics that really made me think were the discussions on rhetoric, morality, and what is “good”.
When the argument narrows down to the topic of morality, or the “good”, Socrates believes that if you are truly a moral person then you must know what morality is and behave that way. You must be able to connect the universal claims and individual claims about any situation to really know the “good”. I definitely agree with Socrates here. If you really understand and know that committing a crime is the wrong thing to do, you wouldn’t do it. Why would you ever want to do something that you could get fined, thrown in jail, or even be sentenced to death for? I think that if you really know the “bad” then you must understand its consequences, and avoid them. So if you are capable of executing these things then you are a moral person.
Socrates main argument in the dialogue is on the definition of rhetoric, which he believes is a branch of “flattery”. And he uses this to say that politicians, or those in power, are “the least powerful of the community,” (467 c) because they use this type of flattery. This shocks Polus and Gorgias. Socrates thinks that to have power means that you have to do what is good for you, not what is good for everyone else. I disagree with Socrates here because, in my opinion, if you are able to persuade a community to believe a certain thing, then you have a lot power. And this is how our leaders and politicians gain their power, by telling people what they want to hear.
