Socrates, one of the most renowned philosophers in human history, was considered an outsider, alienated from the Athenian culture that surrounded him. This culture was that of the Sophists, who saw debate in its most romanticized form. They saw truth not as an absolute, but as relative, dependent on individual perspectives. Arguments did not need to be real, only convincing, and it was this beauty of an argument that stood at the forefront. If the argument looked beautiful, felt empowering, it could substitute a more "rational" argument. Life was about how things felt, and was inherently flexible. If a decision felt persuasive and appealing, that's all it needed to be; why regret decisions of the past when decisions were subjective anyway? To the sophists, "Man is the measure of all things."

To Socrates, the soul was nourished by teachings. And one "must take care" to avoid being deceived by sophists "as both merchant and dealer do in the case of our bodily food." Just as our body is nourished by food, our mind must be nourished by truth. This use of rhetoric as embodied by the Sophist "guesses at what is pleasant with no consideration for what's best", a mere "knack." The argument was not defined by its practical ability, but its beauty. Sophists "do not care about the truth of the matter in dispute", only to "persuade their audience that their own view is the right one."

These two types of debate can be seen as the dialectic debate and the performative debate. The goal of the former is to learn and reach a common, mutual truth. To Socrates, in the dialectic debate, one should be "glad to be refuted if [they] say anything untrue", and glad to refute anyone else in the same way, a "greater good" we should all take part in. But to the Sophists who see debate only through rhetoric, debate only existed to capture the minds of the audience, and for the sake of its own rhetorical beauty.

In this piece, I want to analyze these mechanisms of debate in the context of the "culture of competition" that permeates through it. The notion of the performative debate, where truth is inherently relative, and all that matters is the persuasive function, is an effective mechanism for this culture of competition. Ideas themselves become a stage for the game to take place in. You can read this independently if you so choose, but it'll definitely feel much more grounded with that context in mind (especially the last section.)

The Socratic Method is built upon the principles of cooperation and fallibility: that it is best for people to work together towards the common truth and expand the pool of knowledge, and that any individual person can be wrong. It is inherently a more egalitarian philosophy, hinting at a communal aspect of the pool of knowledge. This notion is inherently not individualistic, focusing on collective realization of truth rather than the mechanisms of competition. To teach one another is not just to persuade someone else, but to let them discover the truth through common ground and questions; a "dialectical method" which "does away with hypotheses in order to establish principles."

Yet the Socratic Method is typically viewed in its own right, without the context of the culture it took place in. The Athenian culture with a flair for the dramatic, demonstrated through the Sophists, stood largely unopposed until Socrates. Understanding Socrates' views to their fullest can only be done with that context in mind, seeing it as a rebellion against Sophism. To Socrates, there was the philosopher who sought truth, and the lawyer who sought to persuade.

Sophism was about persuasion, about competing over the minds of the autism. Truth is inherently relative, and only matters with respect to the minds that preside over it. In this way, truth goes from being objective to a finite resource. When beliefs only matter with respect to who believes in them, beliefs are a resource that can be competed over. Persuasion is the art of this competition, the game that must be played.

In any such game, there are winners and losers. To Socrates, it did not matter if his words were "inharmonious" with "the whole world" at odds with him, but only if those words in it of themselves were true. The goal of the sophist was victory in a competition for ideas, and the object of this competition was the beauty of the argument. Instead of chasing merit or truth, they chased this rhetorical beauty, and competed over it; there would be winners and losers. This was antithetic to the search for truth, even at the expense of it.

Aristotle, who built upon the ideas of Socrates, expanded on this notion. It was the sophist who wanted to wanted to "win the mere victory" who was "contentious and quarrelsome", immoral actors. Perhaps the Sophist only wanted glory in the moment, or perhaps they employed arguments for the pursuit of more selfish means like fame, money, or power. He spelled such notions out loud, describing how "the art of the sophist is the semblance of wisdom without the reality, and the sophist is the one who makes money from an apparent but unreal wisdom."

A debate with no audience, however, was pointless for a Sophist. Sophists are those who are "naturally clever at dealing with men" according to Socrates, with a nature of "flattery." The persuasive debate was only for the audience, to trade in the currency of beliefs instead of truth in the pursuit of rhetorical beauty. Why would a Sophist ever try to learn or grow from their own beliefs, when beliefs were inherently subjective to an individual? As opposed to the dialectic debate where individuals grow, the performative debate was a mechanism for the competition of ideas, a stage for the culture of competition to express itself from.

The philosophies of the ancient Greek philosophers who explored the notions of dialectic truth take a new meaning in the societal systems of the game we play, though. This rhetorical beauty has itself new meanings in the game. In one of these games is the free market, where players compete for control in the capitalist economy to realize their own personal interests. In the other is that of the sovereign, the totalitarian state that empowers the supreme leaders to govern those below. In both of these systems does this rhetorical beauty take new functions.

Let's start with the free market embodied by Hayek, where individuals compete to realize their interests to the fullest. Burke himself places high emphasis on the function of the market to facilitate a compromise between the interests of the consumer and producer. Through this correspondence between the two parties, these interests can be realized to their fullest. But wouldn't whichever party who can better persuade or support their interests through rhetorical beauty be better able to realize them? The philosophy of persuasion can quite trivially enable players in the game to secure better deals for themselves, and play the game more aptly.

Hayek and Mises both expand on this notion, not just implicitly leaving it unsaid but formalizing the rigorous use of persuasion. Hayek believed that the "most effective way of making people accept the validity of the values they are to serve is to persuade them," specifically by framing it as an extension of values they already hold. In this sense, it was "the intellectuals" who would "decide what views and opinions are to reach us." Mises too believed a similar thing, finding that "there is no such things as interests independent of ideas." These economic means and values that people chase are influenced by culture itself, interwoven directly with rhetoric. The game of the free market that would define society was interwoven of that of persuasive debate.

In a similar way, the realism embodied by Hobbes in the game of the sovereign also formalizes the use of this persuasion as counsel. "Counsel is where a man says, 'Do,' or 'Do not do this,' and deduces his reasons from the benefit," Hobbes writes, adding onto it that this counsel could be trusted due to how intertwined the interests of the counselor were with the one being counseled. But Hobbes recognizes the power of persuasion, describing how this "eloquence" that makes "good and evil, honest and dishonest" and etc "appear to be more or less than indeed they are." Persuasion was by design, the enemies of truth and reason. Yet it is an inherent aspect of the game in of itself, as players compete over the interests of those with power, aligning that persuasion and competition towards seemingly just ends. Persuasion would be funneled towards better ends, but its beauty not hidden.

The performative debate loathed by Socrates and his philosophers finds itself best realized in the culture of competition. Because when players in the game must compete instead of cooperate, manipulating one of another becomes a new mechanism of such competition. Deception is not just tolerated but expected, even endorsed. The vehicles of this persuasion change throughout, from counselors to public speakers, and from influencers to advertising. Yet this game runs contrary to our beliefs in objective truth, in learning more and gaining more knowledge. And it's not so trivial to remove it, when the notions of persuasion itself are built on the sturdy pillars of competition that are so deeply ingrained in our society.

Because when contestants play to win, telling the truth can mean losing.