Sophistry and sophistication both derive from the same Greek root Sophia or Sophos, both of which mean "wisdom" or "wise". However, both words now have a entirely different connotation--sophistry is derogatory and implies a devious, disingenuous or knowingly insincere form of argument to achieve some ends, while sophistication is complimentary and denotes a sense of culture and knowledge and advanced understanding.
Wikipedia offers a pretty good account of the evolution of the term "sophism" and "sophistry", detailing how the practice of the Sophists in ancient Greece turned into something detached from the true virtue of wisdom and knowledge, and into something more sinister:
Plato is largely responsible for the modern view of the "sophist" as a greedy instructor who uses rhetorical sleight-of-hand and ambiguities of language in order to deceive, or to support fallacious reasoning. In this view, the sophist is not concerned with truth and justice, but instead seeks power. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle all challenged the philosophical foundations of sophism.
Ambiguities of language? "It depends on what the meaning of is is."
Rhetorical sleight of hand? "Even Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in 1984 and 1988." See this Daily Show clip to examine the ridiculousness of that argument:
Supporting Fallacious Reasoning? Hillary Clinton needs every single automatic superdelegate, add-on delegate and all six Edwards pledged delegates to reach the magic number of 2025.5 at this point in the campaign, yet she still has a "chance to win" if she can just get votes cast in Puerto Rico and South Dakota.
This campaign has shown plenty more examples of such sophistry to push a point on behalf of Senator Clinton's campaign:
- From "We all know this election is not going to count for anything" to "Seat the Michigan/Florida delegation as is based on the election in those states".
- Pushing a popular vote argument when the election is decided by delegates, after each state made a decision on their form of election with the implicit understanding that popular vote was not important
- Arguing that caucus states are undemocratic when it was those very caucus states that helped give Bill Clinton the Democratic Nomination in 1992, and when no argument was made about them until she lost Iowa and other caucuses.
- Embracing the "every vote must count" mantle despite openly campaiging to win the nomination by Super Tuesday and thus "disenfranchise" all states afterwards like Pennsylvania, Texas, Ohio, Indiana and North Carolina.
- Telling the public that if they want a candidate that didn't vote for the Iraq war, they should vote for someone else, and then complaining that her lack of voter support is sexist when the voting public decides that they want an anti-war candidate for the Democratic nomination.
- Claiming that her winning a state in the primary means that she will win it in the Fall and Obama cannot, even though both will win California, Massachussetts and New York (which she won) and Illinois and Hawaii (which he won), and even though there is no scientific link of causation involved with a primary win and a national election win.
- Positing as her electability argument that the Democratic superdelegates should award her the nomination because she has more electoral votes than Obama in a hypothetical, poll-based matchup with John McCain six months before the November election, while simultaneously making the argument that a long drawn-out contentious primary doesn't hurt the party because Bill Clinton was able to move from third place in the polls in June of 1992 to winning it all in November.
- Claiming that her remark about Bobby Kennedy being assassinated in June of 1968 is a good example of how a primary season went into June, when that primary started months later in the calendar than this year's primary and Kennedy had only been a candidate for three months.
- And many more...
The Daily Show again provides a good-humored but eviscerating look into the dazzling, evolutionary sophistry of the Clinton's attempt to spin and to justify their minority stake of delegates into a majority stance of nomination:
All of this is crystallized nicely by today's Dick Morris article featured on TheHill.com:
For the Clintons, the ends justify the means in this case. For the Clintons, it is easier to beg forgiveness afterwards than to seek permission beforehand.In January 1998, right after The Washington Post revealed President Bill
Clinton’s relationship with Monica, I spoke with him about his predicament.
Shell-shocked and stunned at the calls for his impeachment, he knew he was
facing the fight of his life. At first, he was vintage Bill Clinton: maudlin,
sad and full of self-pity. But as we talked, he gradually changed his tone.
Admitting that he was not innocent, but recognizing his diminishing support, he
then told me defiantly: “Well, we’ll just have to win.”Several years later, I was surprised to read in Sidney Blumenthal’s memoirs that then-first lady Hillary Clinton had used the exact same words on the exact same day in a conversation with the White House aide. “We’ll just have to win.”
That’s how the Clintons think — no matter what, they have to win. Winning is everything, and how you do it is not determined by any inner sense of values or ethics, but by a resolve to do whatever needs to be done, no more and certainly no less.
Many have called the Clintons (or their behavior) "narcissistic"--and whether it is a personality defect or a calculated course of action, it is not difficult to see why this term applies.
From the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition (DSM-IV), these are the Diagnostic Criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder:
A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:
(1) has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)(2) is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
(3) believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by,
or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)(4) requires excessive admiration
(5) has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable
treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations(6) is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or
her own ends(7) lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
(8) is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
(9) shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes
Wow. Within the past year, you can see how the Clintons have exemplified multiple signs of narcissistic behavior:
- Hillary Clinton's Bosnia exaggeration
- The arrogance of the "inevitability argument"
- The desire for the highest office in the land (again)
- The argument that being First Lady in the White House and in Arkansas translates into 35 years of hard-earned experience to be President
- The lack of empathy for Obama supporters and the Democratic Party being put through the end of this campaign with a hardening of racial and gender lines
- The pervasive sense of entitlement that they deserve the Democratic Nomination
- Taking advantage of latent racial tensions in the Democratic Party base to capture votes and find a supportive constituency
If the term "appeasement" had any application in this entire election, beyond the failed attempt by President Bush to use that term in the Knesset in a way that proved inconsistent with the actual historical meaning, it would be the DNC's treatment of Hillary Clinton.
No matter how many times the DNC acquiesces and gives in on a Clinton demand to keep them in the race, the Clintons keep pursuing the larger goal of winning the nomination despite the obvious collateral damage to the party.
When the Clintons talk about the popular vote as the decisive metric and harshly discount caucus states as "undemocratic", and the DNC does not act, they are appeasing Hillary Clinton's flagging campaign's need for a new metric to justify their candidacy.
When the Clintons blast the DNC for not approving the Michigan/Florida results when her own campaign staffer Harold Ickes voted to strip those two states of their delegates, and her other staffer Terry McAuliffe wrote profusely about how the potential sanctions facing Michigan in 2004 if they moved their primary up in the calendar were necessary because this movement would destroy the Democratic nominating process, and the DNC takes no action but lets her continue on her haphazard path to a nomination, this is appeasement.
By conceding seemingly innocuous and small half-truths and dissembled information to the Clinton campaign in the hopes that she'll be a "good sport" in the end, instead of drawing the line in the sand and telling her campaign that they are damaging the Democratic Party as an institution and as a viable party in 2008, the DNC appeases Hillary Clinton.
The lack of a party elder, a Churchill, to step in and end the sophistry, the narcissism and the appeasment of the Clintons has contributed greatly to the current state of affairs in the Democratic Primary, which may end with an otherwise formidable candidate in Barack Obama hamstrung by Clintonian whispers of an illegitimate victory and a suppression of support from Clinton's constituencies during the primary race.
While Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid may be able to step up and end the process before it goes to the Convention and restore a sense of order to the Party, it will take an elder to step up and restore a sense of morality and soul to the Party to counter the poison the Clintons have injected into the Democrats' bloodstream.
Al Gore is that elder, and it is my hope that he steps forward after June 3rd and declares the race over, restores the moral legitimacy of the contest and provides Barack Obama with the foundation and mended fences to mount his campaign for the White House.
If you need any sense of how Gore can do this, I suggest you (and the Clintons) watch the HBO movie Recount.
In the most poignant moment at the end of the movie, Ron Klain (Kevin Spacey) is on the phone with Vice President Al Gore the day after the Supreme Court decision with a plan to go after the Florida State Legislature's certification of the vote and awarding of the Electoral Votes. Gore says to Klain the very sophia that Klain gave to Gore during the contesting of the Florida vote: "Even if I win, I can't win."
Simply stated, the very actions, the sophistry, that Gore would have needed to make--trashing the Supreme Court's decision publicly, delegitimizing their importance, overturning the certification of Electoral Votes from Florida, filing lawsuits left and right, sending out surrogates on all the news channels, and dragging the country into a no-man's land of a leaderless future or threats of a shadow presidency--would have by their own weight destroyed any hope that Gore would have to govern the United States effectively, even if he was somehow successful and pulled it off.
Gore's sense of awareness of how his actions would affect the larger good for America shows a stark display of anti-narcissitic behavior that the Clintons should learn and learn quickly.
As the Gospel of Mark (8:36) admonishes, "What does it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, but lose his own soul?" In the present situation, perhaps this verse should read "What does it profit a candidate to gain the nomination, but destroy the party in the end?"
The scary thing is that this particular narcissist just might answer, "Everything, " because for the Clintons their actions can easily be seen within a win/win strategy: Either take the nomination this year, or damage Obama so much that a 2012 run becomes possible.
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