Is there a cure for disinformation, propaganda and other attacks on the truth?
Twitter’s response was to add fact checks to misleading statements, a move that led to a confrontation with President Donald Trump. Although this fight was presented as an issue of free speech, ancient Greek philosophers, deeply concerned about what “fake news” meant for their own societies, would say it is much deeper and more urgent than that.
As technologically advanced as the fight between Twitter and Trump seems today, this dilemma is not at all new. The world’s very first democracies – in ancient Greece – had their own difficult debates about truth, knowledge and democracy. If ancient philosophers were alive today, they would say that this is not a simple fight over Tweets, but a moment that asks us to make a fundamental choice: whether we want to live in a society that values truth. The Athenian approach to this issue shows why allowing propaganda and disinformation to continue, without any questioning or testing, could destroy democracy itself.
Long before “fake news,” the Greeks had a set of very vivid ideas about the truth. The philosopher Socrates held that absolute Truth (Sophie) is knowable and that we communicate best when we communicate only this Truth. His student, Plato, went further to say that Truth can be arrived at by the method of dialectic, which involves a process of questioning and testing. Taken together, Socrates and Plato proposed that wisdom rests not solely on the possession of “truth”, but – rather ironically – on the awareness of one’s own ignorance of it.
Although we remember Plato as a great philosopher of democratic Athens, in reality he did not like democracy because he believed that not everyone could reach the Truth through dialectics. He also disliked oratory skills – rhetoric – for a related reason: he feared that people without knowledge of the Truth would use manipulation and “low rhetoric” to persuade an audience who could not do the talking. difference.
Unlike Plato’s quest for philosophical Truth, the Sophists’ goal was Phronesis— practical truth. They learned to make stronger arguments by debating competing narratives. And rather than seeking the absolute knowable Truth of Socrates, the Sophists viewed Truth as whatever a community of equals of diverse opinions convinced themselves to believe was true.
For these reasons, Plato was particularly skeptical of the teachers of rhetoric known as the Sophists, who included Greek rhetoricians like Gorgias– self-proclaimed “wise men” who charged fees to educate the aristocracy on morality and speaking out. In Plato’s view, the sophists used clever rhetorical tricks that won them customers but did not advance the Truth. Plato believed that the Sophists were people who did not know the Truth themselves but nevertheless made their living by educating others, who also did not know it.
Plato’s criticism contained some truth, but in a broader sense it was unjust.
The Sophists, despite their weaknesses, proved to be necessary actors in the creation of a functioning democracy. For what? Because most political decisions could not be resolved with Plato’s dialectic. The Truth was not already available, nor easy to find. The Sophists therefore taught the skill necessary for practicing democracy: how to achieve consensus on the truth. They taught people how to create arguments, persuade the public to believe their point of view, and solve thorny political problems.
Unlike Plato’s quest for philosophical Truth, the Sophists’ goal was Phronesis— practical truth. They learned to make stronger arguments by debating competing narratives. And rather than seeking the absolute knowable Truth of Socrates, the Sophists viewed Truth as whatever a community of equals of diverse opinions convinced themselves to believe was true.
Of course, seen from the point of view of absolute Truth, Phronesis looked fishy. When you hear people today use “fallacy” as a synonym for a fallacious or misleading argument, you are hearing Plato speaking to us through the ages.
So are modern propaganda and disinformation just sophistry? Not enough. Our democracy welcomes, and even values, modern sophists. By the standards of the ancient Greeks, today’s professors and lawyers—the two professions that we, the authors of this essay, represent—would be considered more sophists than philosophers. Professors offer their own interpretations of the evidence in their academic disciplines. Lawyers use their logical and oratorical skills to present the most compelling arguments possible on behalf of their clients. (And like the Sophists, both make money from their efforts.)
To defend ourselves against Plato superfans, we must point out that lawyers and professors also place equal importance on the search for truth. In college classrooms, students question their professors and are encouraged to challenge them with their own arguments. (Law professors actually teach using the Socratic method!) In courtrooms, witnesses are cross-examined and jurors, chosen because they are witnesses, are subject to cross-examination. blank slate (a blank slate) – are supposed to arrive at a “truth” that lies somewhere between the competing parties.
America embodies a version of democracy espoused by Aristotle, which combines the best of Plato and the sophists. Aristotle explained that rhetoric (Phronesis) is the counterpart of the dialectic (Sophie). Both methods of truth-seeking are necessary to resolve political problems and arrive at the truth.
But the problem is that propaganda and disinformation fall outside of either of these models. When we encounter propaganda and disinformation, its origins – the sources that produced it and the method used to arrive at the result – are usually obscured. Propaganda and disinformation neither offer convincing arguments nor invite rigorous testing. Propaganda and disinformation are persuasion without consent: in fact, by proposing new versions of the “facts”, their authors try to hide that they are persuading us. These forms of communication result in a conclusion based on manipulation rather than reason. Propaganda and disinformation create an area where disbelief is disloyalty rather than a common attempt to seek the truth.
In short, the goal of propaganda is not persuasion, but rather obedience: it employs neither Sophia nor Phronesis. This is why it is the preferred form of communication for authoritarians. It simply requires that we believe, rejecting all other claims to truth. It’s like claiming the existence of an absolute truth, but without using the dialectical method to achieve it, and instead claiming a secret method for finding the truth. The accusation that something is “fake news” – without proof or substantiation – is itself the ultimate demand, in the words of George Orwell, of 1984“reject the testimony of your eyes and ears.”
The implicit demand for obedience contained in deliberately false information is what is most destructive to democracy. When we share a commitment to discovering the truth and agree on how to discover it, we establish important democratic ground rules. Not only do these shared values and belief in process help us find collaborative solutions, they also give us a connection that supports our society when our governments make decisions or develop policies that we might disagree with.
So when Twitter tries to insert facts into Trump’s tweets, it is using a very old and democratic method that dates back to the ancient Greeks. It reminds us that we have a responsibility to ourselves and to our fellow citizens to seek and debate the truth. It encourages us to be true to our shared values and higher principles, not to one person or party.
But when decision-making is based on “choosing sides” rather than reasoned argument and uncovering the truth, these basic rules are eviscerated. Studies show that beliefs based on loyalty – to, say, a person or a partisan affiliation – are particularly impervious to facts this question or refute them. Without a shared factual reality as a starting point, the Aristotelian ideal of debating ideas and reaching consensus on our common problems becomes impossible.
When propagandists, whether presidents or otherwise, reject any attempt to provide facts in the face of lies, they reject the pillars of truth-seeking on which a democratic society rests: curiosity and debate. Accusations – rather than arguments – and compliance – rather than persuasion – are incompatible with democratic dialogue. The ancient Greeks also rejected unquestioned propaganda and disinformation outside of democratic norms. We should do it too.
