There's a joke that a "Rawlsian theorem" -- an argument by the philosopher John Rawls -- goes like this: I will show . . . I will show . . . I will show . . . I will show . . . As I have shown. In a more sinister vein, didn't Goebbles call demonstration by repetition the foundation of his Big Lie technique? jks
Michael Pollak <mpollak at panix.com> wrote: I'm beginning to get intrigued by how much credence it seems any assertion can gain purely through repetition, quite apart from every other mechanism used to persuade. The modern finesse on the big lie technique seems to be to mix in the word "might" which makes almost every assertion true. And then to imply that anyone who doesn't take this "possibility" seriously is dumb and a pansy, the two things every person who aspires to importance fears. And then repeat, repeat, repeat, knowing full well the "might" which is so useful in the early stages will eventually drop out.
There seems to be some kind of socio-linguistic background assumption that anything that has "stood the test of time" is assumed to be true. The campaign of constant repetition seems to play on that. And of course putting it in the mouths of figures of authority helps. But it also holds true for urban legends.
I'm kind of dazzled at how simple it seems to be. And how effective. It seems there must be some classic work that discusses this somewhere, no? But outside of some famous quotes, I can't think of anything that addresses this directly. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Michael
--------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <../attachments/20021124/8746a9dc/attachment.htm>