The Antidote to Sophistry

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Duped Again: Why Sophistry Works by Marc Rudov, branding advisor to CEOs, seeks answers to “Why do people lie—to others and themselves? Why are they so gullible to allow themselves repeatedly to get duped?” He underscores what society becomes when critical thinking is not exercised in everyday life. Rudov notes,“The act of believing is predicated on an alchemy of one’s knowledge, critical-thinking skill, biases, emotions, influences, coercions, motives, purpose and direction, and self-delusions.” He later adds, “Sophistry requires stupidity…colleges are advocating and excusing laziness and stupidity, which lead to poverty…Subverting competence hurts every group: the schools, the students, and our society. What enables widespread deceit? The lack of critical thinking.”

Rudolf describes the book’s underlying kernel of truth, “Deception is an emotional Rorschach test: in it, the duped one feels what he wants and needs to feel…People lie and believe/accept lies to get what they want or keep what they have.” Rudov defines sophistry as “the use of fallacious arguments to deceive others” and further clarifies that it “is reasoning that seems plausible on a superficial level but is actually unsound, or reasoning that is used to deceive.” 

The author uses examples of such intentional prevarication, statements, and circumstances throughout history (mostly 20th-21st centuries) involving a number of actions or declarations by “Biden, Kamala, Jacob and Essau, Fauci, Madoff, Bankman-Fried, the Clintons, Santos, Moderna, education, Ukraine, climate change, Ozempic, and Theranos” to illustrate sophistry is deeply embedded in both past and current news cycles, often with tragic implications for those involved, raising concerns about the vulnerability of our nation’s Constitutional tenets under constant attack, as well as what the future holds for civil liberties and the welfare of humanity throughout the world. 

The book’s scope is enough to demonstrate that sophistry is a part of humanity’s personal baggage based on the frequency with which it’s seen, both by disseminators of self serving stories crafted in preparation for telegraphing by partisan communication carriers, as well as the constancy of omnipresent herds of human sheep ever ready for their corporate, institutional, and criminal fleecing. Rudov doesn’t leave you hanging at the end, but provides a prophylactic frame of reference for a less gullible outlook, among those suggestions: “Cease making ‘feeling good about yourself’ your #1 aim in life. Focus on productive achievements…Always be skeptical, and do your own research.” This is a cautionary tale that allows readers to learn from the mistakes of others, lest we and those we care for end up suffering the consequences, potentially for generations.

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