Hate is a strong word, and it wasn’t categorical. He was just very wary and suspicious of it. This is one example of where Aristotle differed from his teacher quite sharply.

We must distinguish between rhetoric and sophistry. In our sloppy speech today, we have taken on the bad habit of calling vapid or dishonest or rabble-rousing political speech “rhetoric”…which it isn’t. Sophistry is a much better term, as the sophists were master bullshitters. Their aim was the same as that of our politicians and ad men: to say things that produce desired effects with total indifference to the truth of what’s being said. Language as an instrument of domination and manipulation rather than communication.

Rhetoric is not like that, strictly speaking. Rhetoric is the skillful use of language to communicate and persuade someone of the truth, at least as the speaker sees it. The presupposition is that what you wish to communicate is true, hence the emphasis on logos, ethos, and pathos. Sophists don’t care about logos. True rhetoricians do.

John Locke called rhetoric “that powerful instrument of error and deceit.” I agree.

Rhetoric is to persuasion what the greasy used car salesman is to advertising. The rhetoricians only care enough about logos to use it as a cudgel against their foes.

The folks that portray it in a positive light overlook the fact that it is ALWAYS used to persuade, by definition.

They convince themselves that this manipulation is a noble thing to do because THEIR truth is the ONE truth and that by manipulating others they serve some higher ideal. Meanwhile their opponents attempts at manipulation are still held in disdain. Humbug.

They serve mammon more often than not.

I think the author confuses multiple issues.

Yes, what is beautiful does please. But why should it do so? Because beauty is good and true. Indeed, in classical philosophy, while truth is being as known (the epistemic stance; as it relates to the intellect), and the good is being as desired (the ethical stance; as it relates to the will), beauty is being understood as pleasing (the aesthetic stance; as it relates to perception and to contemplation).

In short: True -> known by the intellect; Good -> desired by the will; Beautiful -> contemplated with delight.

The trouble is not beauty, but the author’s lack of discernment. Is a sentence really beautiful if it is untrue? What about if it is written using beautiful calligraphy? Well, under the artistic aspect of handwriting, yes, it is truly beautiful and true in that respect; but the meaning of the sentence is different from its expressed form (which also has content). The two can vary in truth and beauty independently.

Perhaps this is why we take a certain kind of greater offense at lies told to use sweetly. A course vulgarian is already low and hideous in his speech, and his lies will more closely correspond to the coarseness of his manners in proportionality. But a lie spoken with refinement almost suggests duplicity, between the promise of truth in the beauty of the medium - an honor that is proper to truth - and the ugliness and untruth of the message. The truth should be honored with beautiful expression, but here, it is almost as if we’ve been lied to twice: in the content per se and in the form of the content as a promise of the truth of the content by implication. It is a perversion, which already reveals that there is a normative relation between truth, goodness, and beauty that has been violated. We presume it for this reason.

Now, if someone is undiscerning, he will fail to discern the various elements in play and fail to judge them accordingly as distinct elements. If a man lacks taste, he might even consider beautiful what is actually mediocre or gaudy or ugly. If he lacks what we might call perseverance or a kind of stamina - in short: if he is weak - then he might be unwilling to let go or refuse something pleasing or seemingly pleasurable that is attached to something that may not be so good (for instance, the glutton who cannot refuse the pleasure of good food, even though the excess is killing him).

It’s good that the author at least recognizes his own weakness, but the conclusion at the end simply does not follow. Ugliness is not “authentic” or virtuous or honest. Indeed, by casting it as a virtue, one falls into the same or even worse trap: the presumption of goodness or truth on the part of what is ugly. One will presume that a slovenly interview candidate must be good, because he is slovenly, which is ridiculously stupid. So now you face a new possibility: the slovenly mediocrity. A double blow. And if beauty can work in the favor of a candidate, then why can’t ugliness work against him? It goes both ways.

If we had more beauty - in dress, in manners, in speech, in our surroundings - I think perhaps the “seductive” power the author cannot seem to resist would be less, well, seductive. He would not be so starved for beauty. It would not be such a rarity that he would feel compelled to latch onto the occasional occurrence. What we need is more beauty not less. In the 1950s, no one thought a man in a suit was remarkable. Today, wearing a suit is much less common. In some industries like tech in the last couple of decades, suits may even be viewed with disdain and hostility. The “dress code” forbids them.

W.r.t. poetry and prose, in either case, a fully beautiful piece of poetry or prose does shine forth with truth. In the former case, the beauty of the form takes on a greater significance, but the meaning is still its lifeblood. The form is there to relay the meaning through skillful appeal to pathos and use of imagery, metaphor, simile, analogy, rhythm, and wordplay. The peculiarities of the language used to write it becomes a source of delight. There is more room for flirtation and play and implication. In the latter case, immediate clarity and directness of a more literal shade dominate. The particular purpose of each determines the basis for the beauty of each.

I have long viewed that the True and the Good require Beauty to make them appealable to the people. For since injustice is more profitable (in wealth) than justice, the good thing appears more hideous by compare. Plato makes quite well the case that the just person will be the recipient of much misgivings in their life, though still holds that the just life is still the best one. To do this he paints Socrates as a precursor to Christ, as the wisest man of all, of good character and honest word, and of being a man of virtue and love - though his physical appearance is markedly not beautiful.

Socrates as created by Plato acts as a sort of aesthetic beauty which adds strength to Plato's words by the seduction of Socrates. Just as Alcibiades is attracted to Socrates because of his character, so too are we the readers supposed to be. Plato attempts to elevate our conception of Beauty from the beauty of a particular (like the good looks of Alcibiades) to Beauty itself (as in the form).

In this way, Beauty is a tool which can make more attractive certain ideas by its association. The history of advertising is testament to such utility. In this way I do not think that beauty is linked to goodness or truth as a requirement, but bares only the right relation to them when it is used in their service. That is, the value of beauty is determined by goodness and truth, such that if something is beautiful but lacking in goodness and truth, though it remains beautiful, the value of beauty above all else is shown absurd. All values seem to work like this, where any value held as the highest value will in time negate its own value by the relative excess of itself to other values.

All that is to say, that the wise person utilizes beauty as a means of reifying the value of the true and the good. From this perspective, it is true knowledge that redeems the tactic of beauty (such as rhetoric) from sophistry. For the good word to not fall upon deaf ears, one must compete with the sophist and provide the same level of beauty but with right ideas. Of course, claims to true knowledge must be justified, and we should not appeal to beauty for their verification.

I think more that beauty is a sign of intellect, and intellect is a prerequisite for true knowledge. To create beauty requires knowledge of patterns and skill enough to weave those patterns together into something greater than the sum of those patterns. True knowledge cannot be known for certain we might say, but if one has it, it will be knowledge of true patterns of Nature, and so such a person would be in possession not only of true knowledge, but also of beauty since the patterns of beauty would be derivative of the patterns of Nature.

Thus, in writing of what is true and good, it is very likely to be beautiful, since the knowledge necessary to apprehend beauty is the same knowledge that is capable of producing it, and beauty flows most naturally where it is most welcome. But beauty fails in its virtue if the underlying content does not reflect reality.

I think we're mostly saying the same things but I find it a bit weaselly to say that something loses beauty when it loses truth or goodness, when what it loses is simply the truth/goodness. That our value of beauty changes in proportion to its relation to goodness/truth, does not mean that the beauty itself has changed. It is not beauty alone which will save the world, but goodness and truth delivered in the guise of beauty.

Not quite...

Medieval kings were considered the embodiment of the government, but that didn't make them autocratic. Indeed, they were not only bound by a thicket of obligations and customs, but authority itself is only legitimate when it is just, a view that is traditional; it is modern legal positivism that roots authority in fiat, making it inherently tyrannical.

> Indeed, they were not only bound by a thicket of obligations and customs, but authority itself is only legitimate when it is just, a view that is traditional;

Ultimately they were bound not by tradition, but by the reality that they may lose their heads, often at the hands of a competing relative, but also at the hands of starving subjects.

And even more to the point: this is a website. What is he afraid of this website doing that all the other websites don't already do? Why single this one out?

WARNING: YOU ARE ABOUT TO OPEN A WEBPAGE.

Exception: -1 Page already opened. Time can only flow forward.

The main point of childhood is to develop a solid basic humanity with good habits and a good moral compass. That means moral, intellectual, spiritual, and physical development. Good parenting and a good social environment support these. As such, these goods should be prioritized.

We know that children and teenagers are vulnerable to all sorts of filth that the internet makes available very easily, and indeed even inflicts without consent onto users. Porn, for example, was something that was more difficult to encounter before the internet, and when you did encounter it, it was in smaller amounts. Today, you are a URL away from an unlimited sea of it, and the ubiquity of mobile devices means restricting access is difficult. This makes parenting more challenging. And that's a more pernicious even if common problem. Social media and SFV cause all sorts of developmental harm without suffering the same stigmas as pornography or violence, and so its use continue with the full approval of the social environment.

(And age range here is not so important to discuss; pornography consumption and social media/SFV use is bad for everyone, including adults.)

> Be aware of unintended consequences when you (try to) cut a child off from computer use.

A corollary of what I wrote about is that you have to understand what matters. Becoming a "hacker" isn't the priority of childhood, and it's odd to prioritize that. It isn't worth anything if you are left screwed up by consuming bad content. (Nor does most of the most fruitful experimentation require constant and unfettered internet access. Without maturity and discipline, the internet easily becomes an enabler of shallow and superficial engagement. Deeper exploration is often best facilitated by disconnecting.) It's also senseless to appeal to exceptions.

However, I do think that the most important factor isn't parental controls, but the family environment, what parents teach their children, and the social groups your family and your children move around in. If parents are relying on technology as a substitute for their job as parents, then children will easily fall prey to all sorts of trash. But if children have parents who communicate clearly what they should and should not be doing, maintain a healthy and active family life, and model good behavior by example while penalizing bad behavior, then children will generally stick to good behaviors.

I think law has an important role to play. The former should support the latter. And more fundamentally, this requires a certain backtracking from the anything goes/do what feels good ethos of the contemporary moral landscape. Moral confusion is the biggest factor. Law is effectively a determination of general moral principles within certain socially and culturally concrete circumstances. As the old expression goes, lex iniusta non est lex (an unjust law is not a law). The point of the law is to guard the common good (which is what makes a society) and help steer people away from the bad and toward the good. We all need these to live good lives, and we need to finally put to rest the pernicious notion that the law is not about moral guidance and that all it exists for is to secure our "rights" to whatever we want, where the understanding of rights entails a destructive do what thou wilt relativism. True freedom is not the ability to do whatever you damn well please. It is the ability to do what is good, and to be able to do the good, one must be virtuous - a proper formation - that enables you to be good. Vice cripples our ability to be. A legal system and a society that is supportive of virtue and the good is good for its individual members. One that embraces a bullshit "neutrality" is an easy target for predatory exploitation. There is a great deal of money to be made from vice and stupidity. We become morally defenseless in the face of the wolves. Might becomes right, and in a culture of moral relativism, we internalize this tyrannical false principle.

Also a provocation that forces a reaction that is difficult to modulate. Activating Article 5 demonstrates NATO solidarity and that it means business, but it would be disastrous. Doing nothing demonstrates fecklessness and impotence of NATO. The reaction needs to be measured and proportionate.

But outright hostility is not necessarily the goal. Hybrid warfare is more “subtle”. Its targets are more diverse and the aim is less overt defeat and more war of attrition in a broad sense. You want to wear your enemy down.

The evil of attacking civilians is not determined by their stance on genocide. Even disarmed combatants who pose no threat cannot be licitly attacked. Civilians cannot be legitimate direct and intentional targets, period.

> War is inherently immoral.

That’s not true. War as such is undesirable, but fighting one is not categorically immoral. Just war principles determine when it is morally acceptable or even a duty to wage war. Is it immoral to repel an invading army if you have a reasonable chance of success using licit means? No. Indeed, it might be immoral not to do so.

> That’s not true. War as such is undesirable, but fighting one is not categorically immoral.

Do you know one war where either side hasn't resorted to immoral activities? Everywhere from WWI allied power to modern day wars, the western nations have resorted to spine chilling crimes that nobody in the west wants to talk about. Just because the other side commits even bigger crimes doesn't mean that it absolves you of all sin. Even in the modern day wars like in Afghanistan, the allied forces have resorted to killing of unarmed civilians including children. I'm not even going to start with the other crimes.

The western nations have this delusion that they fight some sort of righteous war where they can do no wrong. But go to those countries and ask why they're so hostile towards the west. This is why whenever I talk about Nazism in its historical context, people in here become uncomfortable and downvote even recorded historical facts. They don't want to admit that they were not always the righteous side. I gave the examples of Hamburg and Dresden. And like I said, even Churchill was critical of it. If you say it was moral, then I see the same attitude on both sides of the war. Such activities may have been inevitable during the war. But denying its immorality now is just misguided moral chauvinism.

If it's secret, then how would you know?

The word "salad" doesn't imply "healthy".

It has plenty of green vegetables, and croutons, sauce, and chicken nuggets are all optional. (Ask me how I know.)