http://www.unlikelywords.com/2006/09/05/abstraction-and-empathy/ A blog with delusions of grandeur. Mon, 13 Oct 2008 13:14:30 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.2 http://www.unlikelywords.com/2006/09/05/abstraction-and-empathy/#comment-613 Robust McManlyPants Thu, 14 Sep 2006 23:37:35 +0000 http://www.unlikelywords.com/abstraction-and-empathy/#comment-613 Setting aside entirely the fact that what she says is ridiculous and that she's utterly wrong - she's clearly never had to choose between rent and groceries - anything she had to say was, IMO, cancelled out entirely by the phrase "thought experiment" and the fact she was making her case on a blog, a decidedly more-than-low-income arena. Maybe it's naive of me, however, but it seems like those might, in themselves, be ways by which she's trying to make her argument more appealing: she thinks she's preaching to the choir, trying to find some common class ground with her audience to sway them to her way of thinking. I say it's naive because maybe Randroids don't actually care about the usual methods of persuasion because, you know, A=A and it's all self-evident and everything, but if that is her goal - to build that sort of conversational bridge, stake out that shared territory in the class spectrum in hopes that by appealing to people who are like her in one way already she can make them more like her in others - then it is also a blatant manipulation, an argument that attempts to create a fear in the reader that one day The Redistribution Police may show up and take the reader's own stuff away and give it to the poor, the liberal and other heathens and then <i>use that artificial fear to support her argument</i>. It's not just "this is a dumb idea," it's "they're coming to get you!" wearing a conversational disguise. It's a sampling of the very worst sort of fear-mongering we've come to enjoy as part and parcel of right-wing rhetoric. Setting aside entirely the fact that what she says is ridiculous and that she’s utterly wrong - she’s clearly never had to choose between rent and groceries - anything she had to say was, IMO, cancelled out entirely by the phrase “thought experiment” and the fact she was making her case on a blog, a decidedly more-than-low-income arena. Maybe it’s naive of me, however, but it seems like those might, in themselves, be ways by which she’s trying to make her argument more appealing: she thinks she’s preaching to the choir, trying to find some common class ground with her audience to sway them to her way of thinking. I say it’s naive because maybe Randroids don’t actually care about the usual methods of persuasion because, you know, A=A and it’s all self-evident and everything, but if that is her goal - to build that sort of conversational bridge, stake out that shared territory in the class spectrum in hopes that by appealing to people who are like her in one way already she can make them more like her in others - then it is also a blatant manipulation, an argument that attempts to create a fear in the reader that one day The Redistribution Police may show up and take the reader’s own stuff away and give it to the poor, the liberal and other heathens and then use that artificial fear to support her argument. It’s not just “this is a dumb idea,” it’s “they’re coming to get you!” wearing a conversational disguise. It’s a sampling of the very worst sort of fear-mongering we’ve come to enjoy as part and parcel of right-wing rhetoric.

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