A new rhetorical device to analyze

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Wheylous Posted: Mon, Jan 2 2012 12:55 AM

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This Redditor performs a masterful analysis of the idea of wage slavery that hinges on the word "compel":

http://www.reddit.com/r/Anarcho_Capitalism/comments/nv8f1/how_different_are_anarchocapitalism/c3c8vt6?context=1

This is a remarkable analysis because (regardless of its implications for economic theory) it catches a rhetorical device that may sometimes prove pivotal to arguments: the passive voice. We can speak of people compelling others, but when a person "is compelled", the two meanings of the word are accidentally conflated due to the passive voice into one to come to an erroneous conclusion.

Do read the analysis. I find it to be of the same rank as some of JJ's best analysis of some articles.

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AJ replied on Mon, Jan 2 2012 1:10 PM

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+1 This is wonderful. I'm so glad people are catching on to the semantic sleights-of-hand that permeate the intellectual landscape.

Equivocation, folks. If there's one thing I've tried to eradicate in my 2,000 posts to this forum, its this. And this guy does a fantastic job at it. The labor theory of value rests on a similar equivocation. So do many of the other fallacies. In the extant example:

Rudd-O:
...two different meanings of "to compel": a person having to work to avoid hunger (first meaning) is entirely different from a person having to work to avoid being brutalized, kidnapped or killed at the hands of another person (second meaning).

The key here is that equivocation is a form of doublethink. The person taken in by and wedded to such an equivocation will systematically equivocate between, for example, compel-1 and compel-2, without realizing they are doing it. They are inveterate word-based thinkers, so they simply assume "I'm using the same words, so I must be talking about the same things."

In an argument with an AnCap trying to disabuse them of such notions, they will actually constantly have to switch the referrent of the word "compel" back and forth between compel-1 and compel-2 in their thinking process. They are forced to equvocate continually to maintain this illusion, because they absolutely need both referrents handy to switch between at liberty in order to keep the cognitive dissonance away. This is the mechanism by which doublethink operates. Look for it in your next debate!

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John James replied on Mon, Jan 2 2012 1:16 PM

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Yeah that was a great piece. Thanks for sharing

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