Im not exactly sure where the word meme" came from or when it came or through what door. Composition instructors used to chatter a lot about enthymemes" because the word appears so often in Aristotles Rhetoric... and even Aristotle frankly left me scratching my head. I think the idea was that certain manipulative arguments go straight from major premise to conclusion without examining an essential supporting premise. Would shoddy or exploitative reasoning" be an adequate paraphrase?
At any rate thats not a bad description of activity on our unsociable social media" if not strictly a definition of enthymeme" or meme". Yet shoddiness and exploitation both perfectly suit whats going on in the meme" I scrolled across Thursday morning on Twitter (reproduced above). Now I ought to have passed on without comment. I knew that the humming in the hive before me wasnt seven musical munchkins and that sticking my head in would therefore be ill-advised. But I couldnt resist: the shoddiness was so... shoddy! Especially when I viewed the responses to the post I felt compelled to exercise of my First Amendment rights.
Respondents were all high-fiving Danielle" for trolling" idiot Trumpers. She and they were back-and-forthing about how the stupid Deplorables were loving on her meme rather than recognizing it as a slap in their droopy gob. Yes all Trump supporters are morons." They have no education." The right is full of idiots." That kind of thing... like the U.S. Womens Persons? Soccer Team Gang? having a very private no-Americans-allowed celebration after a goal.
Well... all in the world I wanted to point out was that the analogy was incoherent. I understand that humor hath a kind of license in it (as Isabella says to Angelo of his lewd hypotheticals). I wasnt trying to kill the joke. I didnt bother to observe that Native Americans did not represent a unitary cultural front to the invading" culture and that many native groups were indeed engaged in trying to enslave or exterminate other native groups; I didnt carp that in Virginia at least most early settlers gave no hint of seeking asylum in the wilderness and fully intended to return home ASAP. Accept the jibe within its own parameters. So... what does it say?
It says that already settled cultures have a right to protect their boundaries and send away invading cultures to clean up their own mangled garden. I actually agree with that. I believe that the Potato Famines for instance would have been managed much better if native Irish hadnt massively accepted landowners bribes to sail for Quebec and New York (during which passages tens of thousands died in shipboard conditions that made slave ships look like luxury liners). Public opinion in England would have had its collective nose forced into a malodorous reality just as restless masses of abused poor in Mexico and Central Americaif they remained in situwould force change upon certain outrageously corrupt governments. That has always been my position... and the Trumpers too (a political clan which isnt strictly mine but in which I recognize a strong ally). Individuals have a right to self-defense... and cultures have the same right. They dont have to commit suicide just because aliens want their stuff and their turf.
This argument was made a month or so ago on Peter Helmes conservo.wordpress.com German website (I havent yet retrieved the precise article). Its equally valid for us... isnt it? All I wished to say about the memein telegraphic Twitterspeakwas that it supported our position not that of Danielle" and her admiring minions. In the analogy the chieftain is Donald Trump. If the Pilgrims should shuffle on back to Plymouth then the MS-13 family unit should make its way back to Honduras. Or if adventurers looking for a better life" (free Medicaid police protection public schooling etc.) have a right to go wherever pickings are most plentiful then... then why didnt the Pilgrims have the same right to come cash in on the New Worlds wood beavers and tobacco?
In trying to find a Twitter-trimmed way of referring to leftist subversives I passed on Dems" as needlessly provocative and coined open-borderers" since it didnt tar millions with one brush and also indicated the central issue. Danielle" (surprise!) did not like my tweetbut she took minute care to avoid the issue of her memed analogys ineptitude. Instead she riveted upon open-borderers". No one seriously advocates for an open border she generalized sweepingly of my generalizing term; if I wanted to have a conversation" with her I would have to abandon such obtuse nonsense" (and embrace her prickly nonsense I suppose).
To condense the conversation even beyond Twitters thimble-small capacity I willingly dropped all mention of the faulty analogy and answered simply that obtuse" doesnt frame a very friendly invitebut that my current minister for instance was not no one (much as I might wish otherwise). Her answer: my personal acquaintance aside what elected policy-maker advocates open borders? My answer: none of coursejust as none in 2009 openly advocated gay marriage. And I added that my wife and I had left Texas partly because of the growing crime rate in our neighborhood thanks to political refusal to secure the border. Her answer: by secure" did I mean build the Wall"? My answer: never a big fan of the Wallthe lunar stretch from El Paso to Yuma needs funded guards allowed to do their job... and btw withholding funds was de facto open-border advocacy.
But perhaps my reply ever exited through the thunderstorm that was passing over our hillbilly retreat; in any case I received no further answer. And yes I really didnt condense the conversation to smaller-than-Twitter size. Thats just not possible.
As I recover today from my wrestling match with prickly nonsense Im struck by how utterly dismally typical of leftist thinking were the volleys aimed at me from the other side of the net. We might start with the meme itself: very poorly evaluated yet considered by its designers to be oh-so-clever-and-keen. The original tweeter and scores of retweeters were so absorbed in chortling over stupid right-wingers who didnt get it" that they hadnt left themselves time to study just what they were transmitting to be gotten". The meme was an occasion to heap scorn on the other side. Its logical validity was irrelevant. In fact Ive no doubt that all the merry high-fivers would have regarded my objections as more evidence of stupidity. If I were smart (like them) I wouldnt have allowed myself to be snared in the jokes inconsistencies. Sneering epithets electronically spat at me this week from the left side of the aisle (though not in this exchange) included... lets see... self loathing" (without hyphen) pathetic" afraid" girl" (hmm) andnaturallywhite". These are the descriptors chosen by elite minds to characterize their stupid" adversaries.
Next notice that the debate" immediately shifted to an irrelevancy when my main point offered no obvious holes to leap through. Open borders... how obtuse! What a careless vulgarly undiscriminating remark! No one is for an open border!" In a single brief comment we see a crime alleged in terms that actually commit the crime. Cute. Then when no one" turns into someone" names are required. (Remember the old joke? Johnny eat your spinach. Millions of children in China would love to have just a bite of it." Name one.")
But the argument from personal experience always troubles the leftistwho after all is likely a leftist precisely because he or she has no personal experience. And I didnt even give Danielle" the details about the stranger I found in my garage who through his English-competent adolescent son (Im so glad we kept that family together!) offered me a wad of bills for my truck. My adversary was already nervous merely at the mention of our having to relocate thanks to the not-open border. So...
Another shift. Rivet on another word. Secure"... bet you mean wall" by secure" right? Its like a dog whistle with you people.
Obviously our conversation" wasnt going anywhere. Does it ever these days? Distant are the days when you could have a spirited even heated discussion of capital punishment or eminent domaina discussion which might actually budge one of the participants to a modified position. Now its all thrust retreat regroup ambush... anything but surrender. Never surrender. In an extreme case torch the terrain from which you must withdraw so that no one can possibly survive on it.
Example.
X says Abortion is baby-killing." Y answers No idiot. Theyre not babies theyre fetuses." X: Oh so when the doctor/governor describes a quiet conversation with the mother thats a fetus awaiting the verdict as it writhes on the table." Y: Youre sensationalizing one careless remark. Name a single legislator in the federal government who takes that view." X: Careless is right! A career politician would be subtler. Name one time in 1939 that Hitler spoke publicly of exterminating the Jews." Y: Ah now youre going to try the Nazi move on the Pro-Choice movement! Everybody knows that your side is the one that wants the nation lily-white!"
Danielle" by the way describes herself (beside a smirky picture) as receiving five dollars from George Soros for every message she tweets. Im sure shes just trolling" those Soros-obsessed Deplorables (for George well knows that what makes useful idiots so useful is their work-for-no-pay ethic). On the other hand if you and I wrote that the Koch Brothers gave us a fiver for every post the Danielles of the world wouldnt hesitate to swallow it hook line and sinker. This e-world of hit-and-run meme selfie quote-without-context hashtagging signal-flashing red-flagging andto top it all offquarantined-then-vaporized hate speech" is a swampy miasma of factlets adrift in stinking illusion. And theres no shore to which we can return home" to escape it all. Were quickly being reduced to passwords repeated in the mist... and anyone who mauls one in a bid for humor or questions its pronunciation will get a spear in the throat.
Ugly world. About to get much uglier.
Im not exactly sure where the word meme" came from or when it came or through what door. Composition instructors used to chatter a lot about enthymemes" because the word appears so often in Aristotles Rhetoric... and even Aristotle frankly left me scratching my head. I think the idea was that certain manipulative arguments go straight from major premise to conclusion without examining an essential supporting premise. Would shoddy or exploitative reasoning" be an adequate paraphrase?
At any rate thats not a bad description of activity on our unsociable social media" if not strictly a definition of enthymeme" or meme". Yet shoddiness and exploitation both perfectly suit whats going on in the meme" I scrolled across Thursday morning on Twitter (reproduced above). Now I ought to have passed on without comment. I knew that the humming in the hive before me wasnt seven musical munchkins and that sticking my head in would therefore be ill-advised. But I couldnt resist: the shoddiness was so... shoddy! Especially when I viewed the responses to the post I felt compelled to exercise of my First Amendment rights.
Respondents were all high-fiving Danielle" for trolling" idiot Trumpers. She and they were back-and-forthing about how the stupid Deplorables were loving on her meme rather than recognizing it as a slap in their droopy gob. Yes all Trump supporters are morons." They have no education." The right is full of idiots." That kind of thing... like the U.S. Womens Persons? Soccer Team Gang? having a very private no-Americans-allowed celebration after a goal.
Well... all in the world I wanted to point out was that the analogy was incoherent. I understand that humor hath a kind of license in it (as Isabella says to Angelo of his lewd hypotheticals). I wasnt trying to kill the joke. I didnt bother to observe that Native Americans did not represent a unitary cultural front to the invading" culture and that many native groups were indeed engaged in trying to enslave or exterminate other native groups; I didnt carp that in Virginia at least most early settlers gave no hint of seeking asylum in the wilderness and fully intended to return home ASAP. Accept the jibe within its own parameters. So... what does it say?
It says that already settled cultures have a right to protect their boundaries and send away invading cultures to clean up their own mangled garden. I actually agree with that. I believe that the Potato Famines for instance would have been managed much better if native Irish hadnt massively accepted landowners bribes to sail for Quebec and New York (during which passages tens of thousands died in shipboard conditions that made slave ships look like luxury liners). Public opinion in England would have had its collective nose forced into a malodorous reality just as restless masses of abused poor in Mexico and Central Americaif they remained in situwould force change upon certain outrageously corrupt governments. That has always been my position... and the Trumpers too (a political clan which isnt strictly mine but in which I recognize a strong ally). Individuals have a right to self-defense... and cultures have the same right. They dont have to commit suicide just because aliens want their stuff and their turf.
This argument was made a month or so ago on Peter Helmes conservo.wordpress.com German website (I havent yet retrieved the precise article). Its equally valid for us... isnt it? All I wished to say about the memein telegraphic Twitterspeakwas that it supported our position not that of Danielle" and her admiring minions. In the analogy the chieftain is Donald Trump. If the Pilgrims should shuffle on back to Plymouth then the MS-13 family unit should make its way back to Honduras. Or if adventurers looking for a better life" (free Medicaid police protection public schooling etc.) have a right to go wherever pickings are most plentiful then... then why didnt the Pilgrims have the same right to come cash in on the New Worlds wood beavers and tobacco?
In trying to find a Twitter-trimmed way of referring to leftist subversives I passed on Dems" as needlessly provocative and coined open-borderers" since it didnt tar millions with one brush and also indicated the central issue. Danielle" (surprise!) did not like my tweetbut she took minute care to avoid the issue of her memed analogys ineptitude. Instead she riveted upon open-borderers". No one seriously advocates for an open border she generalized sweepingly of my generalizing term; if I wanted to have a conversation" with her I would have to abandon such obtuse nonsense" (and embrace her prickly nonsense I suppose).
To condense the conversation even beyond Twitters thimble-small capacity I willingly dropped all mention of the faulty analogy and answered simply that obtuse" doesnt frame a very friendly invitebut that my current minister for instance was not no one (much as I might wish otherwise). Her answer: my personal acquaintance aside what elected policy-maker advocates open borders? My answer: none of coursejust as none in 2009 openly advocated gay marriage. And I added that my wife and I had left Texas partly because of the growing crime rate in our neighborhood thanks to political refusal to secure the border. Her answer: by secure" did I mean build the Wall"? My answer: never a big fan of the Wallthe lunar stretch from El Paso to Yuma needs funded guards allowed to do their job... and btw withholding funds was de facto open-border advocacy.
But perhaps my reply ever exited through the thunderstorm that was passing over our hillbilly retreat; in any case I received no further answer. And yes I really didnt condense the conversation to smaller-than-Twitter size. Thats just not possible.
As I recover today from my wrestling match with prickly nonsense Im struck by how utterly dismally typical of leftist thinking were the volleys aimed at me from the other side of the net. We might start with the meme itself: very poorly evaluated yet considered by its designers to be oh-so-clever-and-keen. The original tweeter and scores of retweeters were so absorbed in chortling over stupid right-wingers who didnt get it" that they hadnt left themselves time to study just what they were transmitting to be gotten". The meme was an occasion to heap scorn on the other side. Its logical validity was irrelevant. In fact Ive no doubt that all the merry high-fivers would have regarded my objections as more evidence of stupidity. If I were smart (like them) I wouldnt have allowed myself to be snared in the jokes inconsistencies. Sneering epithets electronically spat at me this week from the left side of the aisle (though not in this exchange) included... lets see... self loathing" (without hyphen) pathetic" afraid" girl" (hmm) andnaturallywhite". These are the descriptors chosen by elite minds to characterize their stupid" adversaries.
Next notice that the debate" immediately shifted to an irrelevancy when my main point offered no obvious holes to leap through. Open borders... how obtuse! What a careless vulgarly undiscriminating remark! No one is for an open border!" In a single brief comment we see a crime alleged in terms that actually commit the crime. Cute. Then when no one" turns into someone" names are required. (Remember the old joke? Johnny eat your spinach. Millions of children in China would love to have just a bite of it." Name one.")
But the argument from personal experience always troubles the leftistwho after all is likely a leftist precisely because he or she has no personal experience. And I didnt even give Danielle" the details about the stranger I found in my garage who through his English-competent adolescent son (Im so glad we kept that family together!) offered me a wad of bills for my truck. My adversary was already nervous merely at the mention of our having to relocate thanks to the not-open border. So...
Another shift. Rivet on another word. Secure"... bet you mean wall" by secure" right? Its like a dog whistle with you people.
Obviously our conversation" wasnt going anywhere. Does it ever these days? Distant are the days when you could have a spirited even heated discussion of capital punishment or eminent domaina discussion which might actually budge one of the participants to a modified position. Now its all thrust retreat regroup ambush... anything but surrender. Never surrender. In an extreme case torch the terrain from which you must withdraw so that no one can possibly survive on it.
Example.
X says Abortion is baby-killing." Y answers No idiot. Theyre not babies theyre fetuses." X: Oh so when the doctor/governor describes a quiet conversation with the mother thats a fetus awaiting the verdict as it writhes on the table." Y: Youre sensationalizing one careless remark. Name a single legislator in the federal government who takes that view." X: Careless is right! A career politician would be subtler. Name one time in 1939 that Hitler spoke publicly of exterminating the Jews." Y: Ah now youre going to try the Nazi move on the Pro-Choice movement! Everybody knows that your side is the one that wants the nation lily-white!"
Danielle" by the way describes herself (beside a smirky picture) as receiving five dollars from George Soros for every message she tweets. Im sure shes just trolling" those Soros-obsessed Deplorables (for George well knows that what makes useful idiots so useful is their work-for-no-pay ethic). On the other hand if you and I wrote that the Koch Brothers gave us a fiver for every post the Danielles of the world wouldnt hesitate to swallow it hook line and sinker. This e-world of hit-and-run meme selfie quote-without-context hashtagging signal-flashing red-flagging andto top it all offquarantined-then-vaporized hate speech" is a swampy miasma of factlets adrift in stinking illusion. And theres no shore to which we can return home" to escape it all. Were quickly being reduced to passwords repeated in the mist... and anyone who mauls one in a bid for humor or questions its pronunciation will get a spear in the throat.
Ugly world. About to get much uglier.