Subject:
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Re: John Leo's opinion of "The West Wing"
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Fri, 4 Oct 2002 14:40:15 GMT
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Viewed:
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737 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Koudys writes:
> Larry's point was that he would never accept ideas and concepts coming from
> the idiot box...
Yeah, that is probably an overly broad statement.
About the Caesar quote...
The importance of getting the cite and who said it correctly has to do with
a rhetorical technique called an appeal to authority. The person making the
quote is saying, "Here is this statement made by so-and-so. If you don't
believe me then surely you would consider the words of this wise authority
figure." If the quote is incorrect, or if the quote is attributed to the
wrong person, or if both are incorrect -- the whole point of making the
appeal to authority falls apart. Such a rhetorical faux pas, BECAUSE it IS
so easy to check a source, has the effect of making the speaker seem
entirely unreliable, ignorant, and maybe like they are trying to pull a fast
one.
Babs wasn't discussing something casually, she didn't preface her statement
with a vague qualifier like "someone once said"; she was speaking in front
of an important group of people and made a very particular attribution as to
the original source of the quote. She tried to imbue the quote with the
wisdom of Shakespeare; and however good the quote may be it was not written
by the bard. And citing the incorrect author matters because Shakespeare is
one of those authorities whose words are generally so clever that they are
hard to refute. Plus, when people hear that the quote is from Shakespeare
there's a tendency to simply give up any possible debate in favor of
something like, "O wow, Shakespeare -- that guy was brilliant. What DIDN'T
Shakespeare know about human relationships and politics...?" Getting the
quote all wrong had the effect of making Babs seem unreliable, ignorant, and
like she was trying to pull a fast one (see above).
When we have discussed the Constitution and other early american freedom
documents I like to cite guys like Jefferson, Franklin, etc. Why? Because
they wrote and argued over the precise meanings of the words in those very
documents. Don't believe little ol' Hop-Frog, argue with Jefferson instead.
Quotes from authority can be very powerful if used correctly.
If one doesn't know the source of a quote, and unless it is a well-known
quote from an anonymous source; stylistically speaking, one might as well
put the argument into one's own words.
-- Hop-Frog
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: John Leo's opinion of "The West Wing"
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| (...) And I agree with everything you have stated above, and I love to find someone who is 'smarter than me' to cite. I would add, however, if I get the source wrong, and the source is refuted, it in no way diminishes what the point was, it just (...) (22 years ago, 4-Oct-02, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: John Leo's opinion of "The West Wing"
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| (...) As I may have mentioned before, we have to look at, struggle with, refute, and generally deal with the *issues*, and not the person. Larry's point was that he would never accept ideas and concepts coming from the idiot box, or specifically (...) (22 years ago, 4-Oct-02, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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