Body Slim Down pretty much everybody knows that Socrates changed into negative about Rhetoric, as proven through Plato in his Gorgias dialogue. In it, Socrates concludes, "Rhetoric is mere flattery and disgraceful declamation." What most do not know is that even proponents of Rhetoric have had a variety of terrible things to mention about it.negative Statements from PROPONENTS of Rhetoric as an instance, the historic Roman truth seeker and statesman Cicero (106-43 B.C. taught Rhetoric to the sons of nobility in Rome.