justice

August 23, 2024

The Right(eous)ness of the Wronged: A Powerful Tool of Persuasion.

Righteous anger motivates personal crusades just as it does a march of thousands, even hundreds of thousands. *Herein, I use rhetor, orator speaker and writer interchangeably. Likewise for the words hearer, audience, judger, and reader. An overview of what Aristotle means by rhetoric and some of its features is helpful here. Aristotle defines rhetoric as, Continue reading

Philosophy, Political Rhetoric, Social and Political Commentary

anger, aristotle, campaign, emotion, ethos, God, good, harris, Hobbes, injustice, justice, karma, oratory, pathos, persuasion, Philosophy, political, politics, revenge, rhetoric, right, righteous, speaker, Trump
February 24, 2022

Saturday Morning Pam-toons. And from this, an entire political theory.

Thomas Hobbes, A.P. Martinich and Brian Battiste, Eds, Leviathan, Broadview, 2011.Part I, Chapter XIII, 3. (p 122) Continue reading

Pam-Toons

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March 4, 2021

Why is Revenge Sweet?

I can’t imagine there’s a saint among us who’s never wished for a snappy comeback to an insult, never brooded on this failure of words, and never delighted by reimagining herself the victor when she finds them. If only I said … Ha! That would have been ssooooo good! Next time I’ll be ready. It’s Continue reading

Philosophy, Political Rhetoric

aristotle, cosmic justice, fantasy, function, Hugo, Hume, indignation, insult, just desserts, justice, palliation, pleasant, revenge, righteous, schadenfreude, sweet, unpleasant
January 12, 2021

‘Freedom’ is Not a Well-Formed Formula

Freedom! is a common rallying cry that some pledge to fight to the death to defend. And do. So it might be a tad unseemly to point out that ‘freedom’ is not a well-formed formula. By which is meant ‘freedom’ requires an indexical, as in freedom-to and freedom-from. And then to-what and from-what or from-whom, Continue reading

Philosophy

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justice

The Right(eous)ness of the Wronged: A Powerful Tool of Persuasion.

Saturday Morning Pam-toons. And from this, an entire political theory.

Why is Revenge Sweet?

‘Freedom’ is Not a Well-Formed Formula