The Art of Persuasion

Plato has, it seems, had his fictional gorgias say something the real gorgius was careful not to say. He said that the whole point of rhetoric is to make a speaker persuasive - whether or not they know what they are talking about. The rhetorician can flatter and please an audience, but he can't tell the audience what is really good for them. If you ask people to vote on who they'd rather have feeding them, they'll take the pastry chef over the dietician any time.