A taxonomy of bad rhetoric
May. 11th, 2010 11:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snousleI appreciate an earnest political discussion as much as anyone, but there are a few rhetorical habits that are so toxic that they need to be called out. Seeing them so commonly, even righteously deployed, never fails to depress me. Here's some just off the top of my head:
- Generalizations about "liberals" or "conservatives". While there are a few generalizations about political aptitude that are supported by actual data, pretty much any sentence that begins with "Conservatives are..." or "Liberals are..." can be assumed to be unreflective bullshit. Can we stop doing this, please? Everyone? Because when I read this, regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum, I have to assume it's because you are covering for your own lack of substance.
- Unsubstantiated assertions about other people's motives. Otherwise known as "reading" people. The blog "Pandagon" is perhaps the worlds most prolific source of such projections. These are almost always pot-and-kettle situations, most often taking the form of pre-emptive accusations defending against the actions of the accuser himself. Without direct evidence of ulterior motives, such accusations admit no defense, and are thus offensive, counterproductive, and devoid of content.
- Anecdotes without quantification. It's a big world out there, and every story you might imagine is true somewhere. Without answering questions like "how much" or "how often", anecdotes have no value whatsoever. Zip, zero, nada. It's a popular habit because numbers are the killers of ideology; the more you actually understand about a question, the harder it is to hang on to black-and-white political positions. (This is related to the observation that "people who know don't talk, and people who talk don't know".) In practice, very few associations between measurable factors, such as guns and crime, or regulation and economic growth, actually hold up under quantitative analysis. The few that do - the important ones - get drowned out by noise. The more emotionally charged the anecdote - things like "if only my daughter had a gun, she wouldn't have been raped!" - the more likely it is that the point being illustrated is, in fact, an illusion.
Yeah, I know, in a country where politics has devolved into a team sport, there isn't much hope of raising the standard of discourse. These strategies are used because they have actual persuasive value among the electorate, so it's not surprising that they're especially popular among TV personalities. But do TV talking heads make appropriate role models for political discussion? No, they do not; their concerns are completely different from ours, and in imitating them, we try to assume their mantle of authority, but instead end up looking like idiots. And I say "we" because the imitation of what we see on TV is a very hard habit to overcome, insofar as it's deeply rooted in our emotional makeup and largely below the level of conscious control. It is in order to free myself of such influences that I have stopped watching TV news entirely. Even so, and even going to great efforts to dissect the purpose of political discourse, I feel I'm still very far from making the best possible use of my own words.
In cataloguing and identifying these types of empty rhetoric, we can at least become aware of them and avoid using them ourselves. Personally, I'd rather be honestly ineffective than be a persuasive fool. Anyone can rabble-rouse and seek emotional rewards from like minded folks. But my sense that the people one really needs to influence, people with responsibility and decision-making power, can see right through it, and will silently dismiss you.
- Generalizations about "liberals" or "conservatives". While there are a few generalizations about political aptitude that are supported by actual data, pretty much any sentence that begins with "Conservatives are..." or "Liberals are..." can be assumed to be unreflective bullshit. Can we stop doing this, please? Everyone? Because when I read this, regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum, I have to assume it's because you are covering for your own lack of substance.
- Unsubstantiated assertions about other people's motives. Otherwise known as "reading" people. The blog "Pandagon" is perhaps the worlds most prolific source of such projections. These are almost always pot-and-kettle situations, most often taking the form of pre-emptive accusations defending against the actions of the accuser himself. Without direct evidence of ulterior motives, such accusations admit no defense, and are thus offensive, counterproductive, and devoid of content.
- Anecdotes without quantification. It's a big world out there, and every story you might imagine is true somewhere. Without answering questions like "how much" or "how often", anecdotes have no value whatsoever. Zip, zero, nada. It's a popular habit because numbers are the killers of ideology; the more you actually understand about a question, the harder it is to hang on to black-and-white political positions. (This is related to the observation that "people who know don't talk, and people who talk don't know".) In practice, very few associations between measurable factors, such as guns and crime, or regulation and economic growth, actually hold up under quantitative analysis. The few that do - the important ones - get drowned out by noise. The more emotionally charged the anecdote - things like "if only my daughter had a gun, she wouldn't have been raped!" - the more likely it is that the point being illustrated is, in fact, an illusion.
Yeah, I know, in a country where politics has devolved into a team sport, there isn't much hope of raising the standard of discourse. These strategies are used because they have actual persuasive value among the electorate, so it's not surprising that they're especially popular among TV personalities. But do TV talking heads make appropriate role models for political discussion? No, they do not; their concerns are completely different from ours, and in imitating them, we try to assume their mantle of authority, but instead end up looking like idiots. And I say "we" because the imitation of what we see on TV is a very hard habit to overcome, insofar as it's deeply rooted in our emotional makeup and largely below the level of conscious control. It is in order to free myself of such influences that I have stopped watching TV news entirely. Even so, and even going to great efforts to dissect the purpose of political discourse, I feel I'm still very far from making the best possible use of my own words.
In cataloguing and identifying these types of empty rhetoric, we can at least become aware of them and avoid using them ourselves. Personally, I'd rather be honestly ineffective than be a persuasive fool. Anyone can rabble-rouse and seek emotional rewards from like minded folks. But my sense that the people one really needs to influence, people with responsibility and decision-making power, can see right through it, and will silently dismiss you.
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no subject
Date: 2010-05-11 06:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-11 06:41 pm (UTC)I'm kinda over the whole ineffective-ranting-about-politics thing. It's shaped by forces far larger than "reason", and getting worked up about it is about as sensible as yelling at a cloud for raining on you. But I do think that pointing this out can help people on the ground in their day to day life. Not just in rejecting bad politics, but in getting by at work or with friends. Our role models are really shitty, and their style is far removed from our true concerns, so they need to be unmasked as such.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-11 06:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-11 06:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-11 07:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-12 02:19 am (UTC)So would The Church of Snousle have a turban requirement?
no subject
Date: 2010-05-12 02:49 am (UTC)Well I don't really see where "turbaned" fits into that so perhaps you could take on being the first heretic?
no subject
Date: 2010-05-12 05:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-12 06:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-12 06:59 am (UTC)Do I vote liberal, which will not bash gays, but will insure that I have a helmet for life?
Or do I vote conservative, which will bash gays but eventually remove the helmet law?
made me think of
Date: 2010-05-11 06:49 pm (UTC)Memory-foam mattress topper is expanding in the guest room, it'll be ready for you!
Re: made me think of
Date: 2010-05-11 07:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-11 07:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-12 02:39 am (UTC)What do you think?