A Little on Gorgias...And My Philosophy as a Speechwriter

Yes, I know this is a speechwriting blog, and you have got to be wondering why in the world I would be writing about some guy named Gorgias. I just cannot help myself, though, because I am actually one of those writers who think that writing is more than typing words on my laptop. For me, it is an extension of who I am which directly affects the way I write and how I approach the art. So, to share with you my art, I feel the urge to get into my pulpit and preach the ways of Gorgias.

You cannot talk about Rhetoric without starting with Gorgias. 2,400 years ago, Gorgias was considered a rock star in Greece because he was the greatest speechwriter and orator anyone had ever heard. Stadiums were filled just to hear him speak, and people lined up to have him teach their children this very new art called Rhetoric. He was the man, and everyone knew his name. Even all the politicians begged him to write their speeches for them because they knew his speeches shaped public opinion. His words, it was said, changed the course of Greek history!

What made him so popular? Well, prior to his arrival in Athens, most speeches were dull, drab, and dignified. And long; like eight hours long. Gorgias had fresh ideas. He was not Greek, and he brought with him a tradition of storytelling that translated well to the stump. Instead of vomiting word after word of aristocratic garbage, he chose his words for the people, and he filled his speeches with poetic devices such as alliteration, rhyming, descriptive terminology, antithesis, metaphor, and cadence. People listened to what he said, and he used that to take them down a path of persuasive reasoning that wowed them. His audiences became enchanted, and they believed what he said and were moved to follow him.

There is no question why Gorgias likened speech to the virtues of medicine and love. To him, speech was as important as those two things, and maybe even more so since one speech can heal thousands of people of their ills at one time while medicine and love had to work one person at a time.

But confine Gorgias to only being a popular orator, and he would just be another flash in the pan that our history books would soon leave out. It was not his speeches that made him famous. It was his philosophy of speech and language that defined him through the ages. And it is this philosophy that I hang my hat on today, and is what drives my approach to writing, especially when I write a speech.

In his On Being, Gorgias described what we now call his Trillema. Basically, it states:

Nothing Exists;
If Existence Existed, We Could Not Know It;
If Existence Existed, and We Knew It, We Could Not Communicate It To Others.

Do not think about it too much, or it will blow your mind away. He was not getting wacky with this because you have to look at it from a speechmaker’s perspective. He was not saying that we do not physically exist. I mean, that would be bizarre, and I would not be a disciple of the man if that were the case! What he was driving home, though, is that the public is a fickle bunch of folks. We are. You have to admit that. And fickle as we are, we can be persuaded to change our minds about anything.

Say it ain’t so, Joe!

But it is true. The idea, Nothing exists, means that there is nothing that we hold dear to ourselves that is a tall T Truth. The fact that you may believe the Republicans speak the truth does not mean they do. Your neighbor may think the Democrats speak the truth. Therefore, there is no tall T truth to be had. It is all perception. Your perception and my perception! Perception (and all things) is defined by our minds, and being that we all have different minds, we all have different truths. They should be called small t truths.

Different truths mean that we are not set firmly in our belief system: meaning that we can be persuaded to see things differently, meaning that we can be encouraged to throw away one belief to accept another belief, meaning that we may believe one thing today and, if new information emerges, believe something different tomorrow.

This thought-process was AND is radical, and it fostered a host of philosophical theories such as Post-Modernism, Humanism, and even the belief system of Nietzsche. In fact, Gorgias’ philosophy is the basis for the acceptance of regional dialects and colloquialism in the United States’ English curriculum. What a guy, this Gorgias! In explaining why his speeches worked so well, he hit on something very big about our psyche. He defined his audience, and it gave him freedom and flexibility to experiment with new ways of preaching his message.

To him, the best way to bring someone from one opinion to another was to capture their heart and wow them with beautiful words and well-focused arguments. Engage them to listen to what he said, and to say things powerfully without having to spend four hours making the point. Images and poetics, in his opinion, made people see his argument much better than logical discourse. Hmm…. do we not have a politician today who bears the Gorgianic banner? I think so.

Eloquence was more important than grounded authority. An eloquent speaker could move the masses, while the authority could barely get a few experts to gather around. An eloquent speaker could punish the opponent with kindness while brutally beating him down without his knowing. And an eloquent speaker could speak on all things with authority without being the authority. Delivery and crafted poetics were the forces behind mass appeal, and the masses, he found, thirsted for his words and gulped them down while accepting his small t truths as their own.

So, as a speechwriter and speech enthusiast, I tip my hat to Gorgias. His teachings have been embraced by the greatest orators in history, and it is my goal to emulate his style in every speech that I write because I know his way is the best way to move the masses!