| | Joe, In some ways, the language is an attempt to sneak in a conclusion. True. And I suspect that sometimes it is two layers deep. They want to sneak the conclusion into the mind of their audience, but on a deeper level, it may be an attempt to convince themselves that universe can be reordered by their language - so that people can be freed from the reality of effort and logic and causality. If they can convince others with this sneaky language, then that, in the twisted logic of a social metaphysician, makes it a step closer to being true. It is like many of the political arguments that take the form of a trojan horse. The drive to establish control over others is packed inside of something like environmentalism or some 'social justice' position. The politics becomes about abusing language to achieve control, and an unrelenting sense that without moving towards more control, terrible things will happen. Political positions as emotional defenses. And the pattern of the arguments will often resemble what you described in that article you wrote on Rationalizations. Another give away that neither the premises nor the conclusions are the real end they are being driven by.
|
|
