Flattery

What is flattery?

FLATTERY: to willfully abandon, impersonate, obstruct or conceal by any method of persuasion or oratory including but not limited to, by mask, by illusion, or by hypnosis, provable universal principles of understanding and a pursuit of the good, for the sake of momentary, immediate or instant gratification, without ever considering the wider consequences or an act or series of actions.

“Oh yes, Socrates, if only you knew all of it, that it encompasses and subordinates to itself just about everything that can be accomplished. And I’ll give you ample proof. Many a time I’ve gone with my brother or with other doctors to call on some sick person who refuses to take his medicine or allow the doctor to perform surgery or cauterization on him. And when the doctor failed to persuade him, I succeeded, by means of no other craft than oratory. And I maintain too that if an orator and a doctor came to any city anywhere you like and had to compete in speaking in the assembly or some other gathering over which of them should be appointed doctor, the doctor wouldn’t make any showing at all, but one who had the ability to speak would be appointed, if he so wished. And if he were to compete with any other craftsman whatever, the orator more than anyone else would persuade them that they should appoint him, for there isn’t anything that the orator couldn’t speak more persuasively about to a gathering than could any other craftsman whatever.”

— Gorgias, Dialogue of Gorgias

Socrates on flattery

“These then are the four parts (justice, legislation, gymnastics, medicine) and they always provide care, in one case for the body (gymnastics and medicine), in the other for the soul (legislation and justice), with a view to what’s best. Now flattery takes notice of them and - I won’t say by knowing, but only by a sort of guessing - divides itself into four, masks itself with each of the parts, and then pretends to be the characters of the masks. It takes no thought at all of whatever is best; with the lure of what’s most pleasant at the moment.”

— Socrates, Dialogue of Gorgias

All flatterers can be identified by their dogmatic rejection of the following 3 principles of Ideal Judgement.

The universe is lawful.

The forms we observe are reflections of that lawfulness with a tendency toward it.

All lawful change must reflect a tendency toward the forms which themselves reflect universal lawfulness.

If these three premises stand, no flatterer could ever make themselves King by the power of their oratory, the prejudice of the people or any combination of the two.

Generally, flattery is best defined in opposition to philosophy. Just as every form has a lawfully identifiable tendency, so does Flattery.

Philosophy versus Flattery

Power

For the philosopher is understanding, of form, of lawful change, and of the necessity of having a tendency toward that lawfulness.

For the flatterer is deception, illusions and hypnosis, prejudice and ignorance

The Standard

For the philosopher is the eternal ideal

For the flatterer is impossible to reach or define (So in the words of Aristotle "we must choose the lesser between two evils")

Measurement

For the philosopher is your understanding of lawful change measured against an ideal

For the flatterer is arbitrary change measured against an arbitrary ideal (Conclusion: Morality is Arbitrary)

Tendency

For the philosopher is toward the good

For the flatterer is toward a never ending struggle between compelled order and total chaos

Magnitude

Wisdom brings abundance

Flattery brings excess

Up Against

For the philosopher the energy and dedication require to acquire understand, mass ignorance, mass prejudice, the flatterer

For the flatterer the time required to maintain illusions, the lawfulness of the universe, the lawfulness of change, that the enemy of your enemy becomes your friend

Faith in

For the philosopher it is the form and lawfulness of the "unhypothesized" highest good

For the flatterer it is his own ability to proposed the prevailing view

Value

For the philosopher it is the future

For the flatterer it is the moment

Judgment

The philosopher uses understanding to name things lawfully

The flatterer uses prejudice to label things arbitrarily