“Professional communication” and the “odor of mendacity”: the persistent suspicion that skilful writing is successful lying

From the time that rhetoric first differentiated itself from philosophy there has been a widespread belief that the craft of rhetoric is, to a considerable extent, the art of deception with impunity. As early as Plato´s Gorgias dialogue and as recently as a proposed rule from the Food and Drug Administration, one finds those who argue that even the skills of technical and scientific communication are, in effect, artful forms of misrepresentation. These critics indict not only those who sell and apologize-easy targets-but also those those avowed purpose is merely to make messages clearer. Can it be true that all forms of communication skill, even those that enhance clarity and precision, are merely elegant forms of lying? Does the word “rhetoric” deserve its tainted historical connotation? Or, even worse, is writing itself an inherently self-serving (i.e. misleading) way of adapting to one´s environment?