Shut up.
(What to tell people who don't know they've lost an argument)
Sophists are people who argue for the sake of arguing, If you are not a sophist, you already know that the real reason for argumentation of any kind is getting at the truth. This was point of Socrates’ dialogues. It was the point of Charlie Kirk’s debates.
A dialogue has a beginning, a middle, and an end. The beginning is when the parties state their positions. In the middle, arguments defending those positions take place. A conclusion is reached at the end, when one side or the other has clearly won the argument.
Sophists do not recognize the last step. If an antagonist in dialogue with a sophist makes a definitive case for his position, the sort of thing that used to be crowned with the words Quod Erat Demonstrandum (QED) or “that which was to be demonstrated,” he will be ignored, and words will continue to roll from the sophist’s mouth. The only time a sophist will acknowledge the end of an argument is if the opposition surrenders, not because the sophist has a superior argument, but out of exasperation at the sophist’s unwillingness to cease talking when nothing else remains to be said. Kamala Harris was said to utter “word salads,” but all she did was what everyone else in her party does: throw out emotionally charged phrases to try to make themselves look good and the opposition bad.
Sophism is mother’s milk to the Left, especially the Woke Left.
Want examples? How long do you have? Choose from the profound and the absurd:
A new law in Colorado will allow abortions at 38 weeks. Now, at 38 weeks, there can be no doubt that this is a baby, not a “fetus,” that this baby can survive outside the womb, and that therefore killing him/her would be murder. QED. The sophist: “Wrong, you see, the right of the woman to choose not to raise the baby supercedes….”
Stop. Shut up. The argument is already over, and you lost it.
Iryna Zarutska, 23, was riding the light rail back from work in Charlotte, North Carolina, when she was stabbed to death by a black man who chose her, the only white woman in the car, to murder. As the killer exited, public transit surveillance recorded him saying, “I got that white b****.” That statement, and the choice of target, make it clear that this was a racially motivated killing, QED. The Sophist: “To call this incident racially motivated is racist!”
If the races were reversed, you’d be screaming “Racially motivated!” Shut the hell up.
Zohran Mamdani, the Democrat candidate for mayor of New York City, is on the record saying that the ultimate goal of the Democratic Socialists, a group with which he is affiliated, is “to seize the means of production.” This is the definition of communism: State-owned factories and businesses. Mamdani is a communist — QED. The sophist: “You are politically uneducated. You misunderstand the theoretical basis of socialism, not as communism per se, but as…..”
Shut up. I won’t allow you to do a verbal tap dance on the truth.
Previous U.S. presidents have added personal luxuries to the White House, including a bowling alley (Nixon), and a basketball court (Obama), all at taxpayers’ expense. Pres. Trump is adding a privately funded ballroom that will reduce the costs previously incurred when spaces outside the White House had to be rented to accommodate events for visiting dignitaries. Trump’s act is an authentic, altruistic enhancement of the White House, QED. The sophist: “He’s destroying the East Wing!” But the East Wing is nothing more than a few offices. “It doesn’t matter! The integrity of the White House, blah, blah.…”
Shut up. You’re moralizing instead of reasoning. You have no case except indignation over the loss of some offices of no historical significance. That’s all you have. Just. Shut. Up.
Find your own cases of Left-Sophists refusing to admit that 2 + 2 = 4. They’re everywhere.
I used to think that Leftists suffered from bad ideas, and that all we had to do was present them with better ideas, cogent arguments, and convincing trains of thought. But when they refuse to consider those arguments, or even to entertain the possibility that objective truth exists and can be grasped by an open mind, when they use words to deceive, answering reason with indignant moralizing, I have to admit I was wrong. Leftists don’t suffer from bad ideas. They suffer from being bad people.
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I don't think I agree with your definition of 'sophist' nor your second example.
I always thought that a sophist is *clever*. Smarter than me. Yes, as per the definition at dictionary.com, it might be 'generally fallacious', but it is also 'subtle, tricky'. In other words, it takes brains, there's something to admire in the intelligence of the rhetoric, of the sophistry.
But you define a sophist instead as someone who simply refuses to give in. And your example #2, in particular, shows no 'intelligence' at all, simply a refusal to accept facts.
(I'd argue #1 has just reached a sick impasse, with the lefty believing in an axiomatic truth which is simply at right angles with the right of a baby to live. And #3 probably has lots of political nuances; with him you'd need to get a blackboard, write down the definition of 'communism' and then tick off the criteria one by one.)
> But when they refuse to consider those arguments, or even to entertain the possibility that objective truth exists and can be grasped by an open mind ... They suffer from being bad people.
I have my own problems with 'adults' being equally belligerent and close-minded. It's just a case of them being dishonest in any conversation, because they're simply unwilling to change their mind from the start. And that's because they're immature, selfish, or they don't have the moral courage to admit that they might be wrong. As simple as that.
I don't know what the precise word for that sort of 'man-child' behaviour is, but it isn't 'sophistry'. It's disingenuous intransigence. It's dogmatic ideology pretending to be open-minded and rational. If the prose is clever and the argument embellished and nuanced then it might be sophistry as well.