In Aristotle’s book on rhetoric, he makes the claim that “truth does not always persuade.” This is an interesting question to bring up. I believe that many find this claim confusing because most want to believe that no matter what, truth will always prevail. However, this is not always the case. In the reading Aristotle notes that “knowledge is teaching, but teaching is impossible [with some audiences].” I believe what he meant by this is that not everyone wants to learn. Some just want to hear a good story that’s exciting and interesting and then believe it to be true. Because the truth is not always what you want to hear. Take Hitler for example. He pulled off one of the biggest lies in history. The German people were in a depression and Hitler started blaming the Jews for all of their problems. This was not truth but Germany believed it because they wanted to have someone to blame for what they were going through. This just shows how even though consciously we want to believe the truth, it doesn’t always turn out that way. If one can persuade someone through false, pretenses it can be very easy to alter their beliefs without them knowing.    

Help Received: Word spell check, Aristotle’s book 1, google to look up lies that Hitler told.

Tucker V. Olshove