Voice and hypocrisy

The statement by Michael Wolff quoted above about Trump’s “absolute belief that his voice alone has reality-altering powers” is in the tradition of Plato insofar as the ‘mere voice’ is the limit value of language at which, from a Platonic perspective, it loses its actual, i. e. truth-telling, function. As a ‘sound’, the ‘mere voice’ is nothing but a linguistic surface and therefore at best of a ‘purely’ musical quality.

Here too, Aristotle thinks differently from Plato, and here too his argument is similar to that of Sennett’s “performer”. “A trace” of the old, pre-Platonic mimesis⁷⁶ can be found once again with Koller, “in Aristotle’s Rhetoric 1404.20”, where Aristotle refers to the position of Glaucon of Teos (1404a). “As in poetry,” says Koller, “there is also in rhetoric an ὑπόκρισις [hypókrisis], an art of performance.” In Koller’s translation, Aristotle says: “‘The ὑπόκρισις is in the voice, as it must be used for each pathos, whether loud or medium-strong, for the pitches, whether high, low or in the middle register, and which rhythms are suitable for each pathos. There are three’”—here I would point out: musical—“‘points [...]: namely strength, harmony, rhythm’.” Shortly afterwards, Aristotle says, and one can hardly believe one’s ears: “[‘]words are means of expression [...], but the voice is the most important of all our means of expression’”.⁷⁷

It is important to realize what kind of assertion Aristotle is making here. “Voice” or “sound” is more important than “words” or their truth or meaning. This is the logic of the concept of mimesis referred to by Aristotle in the sense of ‘hypókrisis’, which stands for ‘performance technique’ in a completely value-neutral way. In view of what has been said so far, it is therefore obvious that it was only with Plato’s question about the truth in mimesis that the word ‘hypocrisy’ could take on its meaning of ‘feigning’ and ‘dissimulation’, which is still valid today, and then be used against Donald Trump, for example.⁷⁸

Platonically speaking, hypocrisy is an ethical accusation. In pre-Platonic terms and still understood with Aristotle, it is a descriptive term for ‘performance technique’. But this is precisely what Sennett is concerned with when he looks at Louis XIV: “At the very pinnacle of power [...] the performer had to draw on a repertoire of non-verbal expression.”⁷⁹ “The concept of truth”, once again with Koller, “finds no starting point here”.⁸⁰

Notes

1. ⁷⁶Cf. note 68.
2. ⁷⁷Koller, Die Mimesis in der Antke, pp. 55f. Koller’s interpretation depends heavily on the wording of his translation. Gernot Krapinger translates the last sentence as follows: “Words are imitations, and we also have the voice, the part of the body that is most capable of imitation of all.” Aristotle: Rhetoric. Translated and edited by Gernot Krapinger, Stuttgart 1999, p. 154 (1404a). The Aristotelian wording is: “τὰ γὰρ ὀνόματα μιμήματα ἐστίν, ὑπῆρξεν δὲ καὶ ἡ φωνὴ πάντων μιμητικώτατον τῶν μορίων ἡμῖν”; Aristot. Rh. 3.1.8 (Ars Rhetorica. Aristotle. W. D. Ross. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1959); www.perseus.tufts.edu (6/6/2025). The word ‘ὑπόκρισις’ is used by Aristotle ibid. in Rh. 3.1.8 (1404a), Krapinger translates “manner of delivery” (p. 153).
3. ⁷⁸Jan-Werner Müller: “Yes, Trump is a hypocrite. But is pointing that out an effective attack? Charges of hypocrisy do not land if the supposed hypocrite is not committed to any kind of consistency in the first place”;
   www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/04/trump-hypocrisy (6/6/2025).
4. ⁷⁹Sennett, The Performer, p. 119.
5. ⁸⁰Koller, Die Mimesis in der Antike, p. 56.