The return of sophism...if it ever left

The use of the phrase, "rhetoric of democracy," by Boorstin reminds me of ancient Greek sophism. As a philosophy Sophism is one that is not directly built upon knowing anything concretely. Instead, the foundation of it is that people can't know anything for sure but one can observe other cultures, bring back the knowledge, and teach their knowledge through the use of rhetoric for a very high cost. The problem with Sophism is that it isn't a complete philosophy, it doesn't give any principles to live by or any form of government to serve. At best, it seems like a cliff notes interpretation of philosophy. By now anyone reading this has probably fallen asleep. To you, person who has fallen asleep, I say wake up!!!! Back to the blog report (imagines saying the phrase like a newsman). Democracy like sophism is based upon having charismatic leaders, who can bring whatever knowledge they have to a posistion and then try to convince the rest of the country what they believe works best with the use of speeches. To make the situation worse, the views they espouse are hidden beneath the "advertisement" of republican or democrat so that one never knows what's really there or what's really true. Eventually, the entire system gets tangled up in the sophism of politics instead of its duty to the people and as a result people become disenchanted. The question of democracy has become is there any knowledge behind the speeches? Will this question always exist because the system is reflection of its own changing nature that can't be put into concrete knowledge? Advertising embodies the same problems of sophism and democracy and more concretely shows their shared problems. When insomnia hits on a Sunday night after a sleepy weekend and informercials come on with the promise of a vitamin that the, "Chinese have been using for centuries to cure Cancer." Tell anyone at school the next day about your nobel prize winning find at 2 a.m. and the inevitable result will be laughter, squinting, loss of respect, or presumption of being gullable (practical jokes will ensue). The truth is that no one actually believes any advertisement anymore, everything has to be taken with a grain of salt, because it is corrupt by its complete loss of a basis in truth or context. There, is the connection with the device paradigm, which hides the context and the meaning from its' consumer. No longer is it possible to know everything about democracy and the devices we buy because there is no more pride in the work that we do or the knowledge that we gain, it's all about getting home at the end of the day to rest. Essentially, our society has become symbolized by that person who tries to get to the end of a book as fast as possible without taking any meaning from it---a book becomes simply an end (with hesitation goes back to reading Japanese novel...slowly).