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The thing that always annoyed me about the Gorgias is that rhetoric is a tool, like a hammer, rather than something containing inherent moral value, positive or negative. A hammer can be well made or poorly made. It can be used to build houses and furniture or hang art. It can be used to murder or harm someone if you hit someone with it. A hammer's value is judged on what the person using it does or how well made it is. It isn't good or evil; it's a tool. Rhetoric is like that too. If people of good will stop using it, that leaves a really powerful tool only in the hands of people out for money or personal power. This seems to me to be dumb, honestly. It also pisses me off that Socrates characterizes himself as frank, when he always has a set agenda and he only wins because he's up against the foolish or worshipful generally. Grrr. no wonder i dropped out of philosophy school.