Larry King Does Plato

Larry King is like Greeks in Egypt learning something deep from their teachers.

Last night Larry did an episode on Tiger's infidelities and what he should do to repair his public image. I don't get the assumption that it's necessary for Tiger to worry about his public image. The man is a great golfer and makes plenty of money from golf itself. And as far as endorsements go, he's obviously not losing them. But even if he were in danger of losing the endorsements, why should he care? Why is there this assumed, oddly quasi-moral imperative for the guy to maintain his brand at all costs? He has other sources of income and even if he didn't he could live on what he's made. Who's to say that Tiger even likes being a huge brand? I have no idea, but the way Larry's guests talked about Tiger you'd think that the real thing he'd done wrong wasn't cheating on his wife, but harming his brand and violating some sort of trust we had in him, a trust he has an ethical duty to repair via carefully coached and phonily sincere interviews. (One even said that he shouldn't come out with his wife because that's such a cliche and would detract from the appearance of sincerity. Well what if he sincerely wants to make a statement with his wife, and she with him?) Anyway, Larry had a surprisingly Platonic moment with his panel of damage control doctors last night. They're all saying what Tiger should do and suddenly Larry asks:

Do you teach remorse? You're either remorseful or you're not. Or do you guys teach it?

BRAGMAN: You teach him how to show it, I mean, you know... (LAUGHTER)

KING: Would the old George Burns thing, the secret of sincerity -- if you can fake it, you've got it made?

Compare this to this exchange from Plato's dialogue, Gorgias:

Soc. Let me tell you then, Gorgias, what surprises me in your words; though I dare say that you may be right, and I may have understood your meaning. You say that you can make any man, who will learn of you, a rhetorician?
Gor. Yes.
Soc. Do you mean that you will teach him to gain the ears of the multitude on any subject, and this not by instruction [by which Socrates means the teaching of actual knowledge] but by persuasion?
Gor. Quite so.
Soc. You were saying, in fact, that the rhetorician will have, greater powers of persuasion than the physician even in a matter of health?
Gor. Yes, with the multitude-that is.
Soc. You mean to say, with the ignorant; for with those who know he cannot be supposed to have greater powers of persuasion.
Gor. Very true.
Soc. But if he is to have more power of persuasion than the physician, he will have greater power than he who knows?
Gor. Certainly.
Soc. Although he is not a physician:-is he?
Gor. No.
Soc. And he who is not a physician must, obviously, be ignorant of what the physician knows. Gor. Clearly.
Soc. Then, when the rhetorician is more persuasive than the physician, the ignorant is more persuasive with the ignorant than he who has knowledge?-is not that the inference?
Gor. In the case supposed:-Yes.
Soc. And the same holds of the relation of rhetoric to all the other arts; the rhetorician need not know the truth about things; he has only to discover some way of persuading the ignorant that he has more knowledge than those who know?
Gor. Yes, Socrates, and is not this a great comfort?-not to have learned the other arts, but the art of rhetoric only, and yet to be in no way inferior to the professors of them?