Language Is A Virus (was Re: Beyond The Politics of Cancer Alone)

Paul Henry Rosenberg rad at gte.net
Thu Jan 28 15:19:16 PST 1999


Carrol Cox wrote:


> Paul Henry Rosenberg wrote:
>
> > They're much
> > happier being big, meta-politically-correct fish in mighty small ponds.
>
> Paul, I agree with your post, but I don't think leftists should *ever*, for any
> reason, use the rhetoric of "PC." (It is, incidentally, an anciently identified
> rhetorical ploy which has always been condemned for good reasons: it is called
> poisoning the well of discourse."

The term "PC" was an invention of the left that served an excellent self-critical purpose -- attacking self-serious narrow- and literal-mindedness particularly around identity politics.

The theft of the term by the right and its re-selling through the corporate media was a back-handed compliment to the wit that created it.

I'm simply trying out an act of re-appropriation here.

As for "poisoning the well", well, well, well, I'm the one who's claiming that pollution matters, now aren't I? But it's hardly poisoning the well just to use a particular term at the end of presenting an argument. The Nizkor Fallacy has this to say about it (just the beginning of the entry):

+++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++ Fallacy: Poisoning the Well

Description of Poisoning the Well

This sort of “reasoning” involves trying to discredit what a person might later claim by presenting unfavorable information (be it true or false) about the person. This “argument” has the following form:

· Unfavorable information (be it true or false) about person A is presented. · Therefore any claims person A makes will be false.

+++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++

A far cry from what I did.

-- Paul Rosenberg Reason and Democracy rad at gte.net

"Let's put the information BACK into the information age!"



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