George M. Middius[_4_]
May 7th 09, 02:09 AM
Through the ages, Smart People have pondered and analyzed the elements of
rhetoric. Many have written down their thoughts, some with great clarity
and persuasiveness. These thoughts are captured in "books", which are
printed and widely distributed at nominal cost. (Of course, books deal
with every subject one could possibly imagine, but the topic at hand is
rhetoric.)
Broadly speaking, rhetoric is the use of language to persuade or induce
others to accept logic or beliefs. For most of us, using and understanding
language is a byproduct of "education". Others choose to skip education as
a means of learning about language, instead relying on ... something else,
I guess. It's not for me or anyone else to say that eschewing education as
a means of learning language is a bad idea. Perhaps some who make this
choice are ... um ... "differently abled", to use a recent euphemism.
As a result, a divergence exists between those who rely on logic,
coherence, and clarity to convey ideas and those who try to achieve the
same result by increasing the volume. The latter group both shout louder
and dump more words, making full use of all their volume controls. They
also try to diminish the volume of what the Smart Guys say by biting off
part of their statements. We all know that behavior reveals immaturity and
mental weakness, but they do it anyway. Oh well.
Anyway, the art of rhetoric in a text-only environment has five
underpinnings. They are the following: logicality, acknowledgement,
acceptance, divergence, and (for the benefit of our lesser-abled brethren)
faith.
Logicality is the use of logic to connect facts into coherent thoughts.
Surprising that it even needs mentioning, but there it is.
Acknowledgement encompasses understanding differing thoughts and
reconciliation of inconsistencies. This is a very difficult concept for
some individuals. As an example, suppose somebody argued that our national
interest is served by reducing our use of petroleum by 50%. Even if we all
agreed with that proposition, implementing it as a policy would run into
several problems. Acknowledgement requires a rhetorician to integrate
those problems into the plan for success. One who rejects acknowledgement
would say that because the problems are large in scale, the plan should be
abandoned.
Acceptance denotes the act of publicly abandoning a position that has been
undermined with logic. Acceptance is not a problem for those who have
participated in the aforementioned process of education, since education
emphasizes that learning is heuristic. For those who are slaves to their
emotions, however, accepting that one is "wrong" seems to pose an
insuperable challenge.
Divergence is the complement to acceptance. It occurs when a position is
shown to be mostly, but not entirely, logically untenable. Divergence is
largely the province of out-of-the-box thinkers who are content to accept
long odds in their search for truth. One example is in the debate over
man-made global warming. The preponderance of the evidence indicates the
phenomenon is real, but incontestable proof has not yet been promulgated.
Reasonable human beings accept that the cost of being wrong is much higher
if we deny that global warming is occurring, and so we embrace the call to
action to counteract it. The divergent viewpoint requires adherents to
have faith that the random occurrences of nature will correct the
problems. The position is unlikely to be viable, but not impossible.
Faith is the province of those who disdain logic altogether. Extreme
examples are those who believe that some humans know what "God" wants or
that certain social traditions are inherently superior even if they're
based on hatred. It's axiomatic that trying to argue logically with the
faithful is inherently pointless, since the latter are unwilling or unable
to accept logical premises and conclusions.
I submit that RAO would be better if all participants observe limits in
how far they will pursue arguments. The line between divergence and faith
is pretty easy to recognize.
rhetoric. Many have written down their thoughts, some with great clarity
and persuasiveness. These thoughts are captured in "books", which are
printed and widely distributed at nominal cost. (Of course, books deal
with every subject one could possibly imagine, but the topic at hand is
rhetoric.)
Broadly speaking, rhetoric is the use of language to persuade or induce
others to accept logic or beliefs. For most of us, using and understanding
language is a byproduct of "education". Others choose to skip education as
a means of learning about language, instead relying on ... something else,
I guess. It's not for me or anyone else to say that eschewing education as
a means of learning language is a bad idea. Perhaps some who make this
choice are ... um ... "differently abled", to use a recent euphemism.
As a result, a divergence exists between those who rely on logic,
coherence, and clarity to convey ideas and those who try to achieve the
same result by increasing the volume. The latter group both shout louder
and dump more words, making full use of all their volume controls. They
also try to diminish the volume of what the Smart Guys say by biting off
part of their statements. We all know that behavior reveals immaturity and
mental weakness, but they do it anyway. Oh well.
Anyway, the art of rhetoric in a text-only environment has five
underpinnings. They are the following: logicality, acknowledgement,
acceptance, divergence, and (for the benefit of our lesser-abled brethren)
faith.
Logicality is the use of logic to connect facts into coherent thoughts.
Surprising that it even needs mentioning, but there it is.
Acknowledgement encompasses understanding differing thoughts and
reconciliation of inconsistencies. This is a very difficult concept for
some individuals. As an example, suppose somebody argued that our national
interest is served by reducing our use of petroleum by 50%. Even if we all
agreed with that proposition, implementing it as a policy would run into
several problems. Acknowledgement requires a rhetorician to integrate
those problems into the plan for success. One who rejects acknowledgement
would say that because the problems are large in scale, the plan should be
abandoned.
Acceptance denotes the act of publicly abandoning a position that has been
undermined with logic. Acceptance is not a problem for those who have
participated in the aforementioned process of education, since education
emphasizes that learning is heuristic. For those who are slaves to their
emotions, however, accepting that one is "wrong" seems to pose an
insuperable challenge.
Divergence is the complement to acceptance. It occurs when a position is
shown to be mostly, but not entirely, logically untenable. Divergence is
largely the province of out-of-the-box thinkers who are content to accept
long odds in their search for truth. One example is in the debate over
man-made global warming. The preponderance of the evidence indicates the
phenomenon is real, but incontestable proof has not yet been promulgated.
Reasonable human beings accept that the cost of being wrong is much higher
if we deny that global warming is occurring, and so we embrace the call to
action to counteract it. The divergent viewpoint requires adherents to
have faith that the random occurrences of nature will correct the
problems. The position is unlikely to be viable, but not impossible.
Faith is the province of those who disdain logic altogether. Extreme
examples are those who believe that some humans know what "God" wants or
that certain social traditions are inherently superior even if they're
based on hatred. It's axiomatic that trying to argue logically with the
faithful is inherently pointless, since the latter are unwilling or unable
to accept logical premises and conclusions.
I submit that RAO would be better if all participants observe limits in
how far they will pursue arguments. The line between divergence and faith
is pretty easy to recognize.