Of Metaphor, Rhetoric, and Delusional Disorders. And Crybabies.

Let's set the baselines.


Metaphor:
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels."



Rhetorical Fallacies
Rhetorical fallacies, or fallacies of argument, don’t allow for the open, two-way exchange of ideas upon which meaningful conversations depend. Instead, they distract the reader with various appeals instead of using sound reasoning. They can be divided into three categories:


1.Emotional fallacies unfairly appeal to the audience’s emotions.

2.Ethical fallacies unreasonably advance the writer’s own authority or character.

3.Logical fallacies depend upon faulty logic.



Keep in mind that rhetorical fallacies often overlap.


We tend to call rhetorical fallacies, "Rhetoric," for short, even if the proper academic meaning of rhetoric encompasses a greater swath of the persuasive arts.


Delusional Disorder has a technical definition, under the DSM IV:
Delusional disorder is an uncommon psychiatric condition in which patients present with circumscribed symptoms of non-bizarre delusions, but with the absence of prominent hallucinations and no thought disorder, mood disorder, or significant flattening effect.[1] For the diagnosis to be made, auditory and visual hallucinations cannot be prominent, though olfactory or tactile hallucinations related to the content of the delusion may be present.[2]

Suffice it to say, few people really have a clinical delusional disorder. But some people are so stubborn with their rhetoric, they seem to be truly mentally ill. One person's passionate conviction is another person's evidence of a profound need for very powerful anti psychotic drugs.

Now for the real discussion. Following the Tea Bagger Terrorist-caused artificial Debt Ceiling crisis, where such people used the small but effective leverage they had over the debt ceiling bill to advance their minority agenda over the whole of the Nation, a lot of metaphor and rhetoric was thrown their way. And that hurt some of their feelings. And I am not sorry about that. I have said it before. I'm surprised they even have feelings (rhetoric.) Maybe it's not really a matter of feelings per se, but one of subconscious shame (analytical supposition.) Or maybe they are just a bunch of whiny assholes (metaphor, intended insult.) Bunch of crybabies (metaphor, intended insult.)

But their response to the patently obvious metaphoric and rhetorical arguments levied against them, while not meeting the DSM IV's definition for Delusional Disorder, clearly, and from the common man's understanding of it, has been quite delusional, and particularly hypocritically rhetorical itself. Let's take inventory, shall we?

Bullshit wind bag Jonah Goldberg (metaphor, deliberate insult,) went on a tear regarding the anti teabagger terrorist rhetoric, on several lines of attack. First he delusionally (rhetoric,) equated calling teabaggers terrorists and such with the odious "gun sights" map that Palin got raked over the coals for (metaphor.) Jonah. You drooling, post lobotomy patient on crack (accurate description. No. I'm being rhetorical and insulting, and enjoying it immensely.) If you are so stupid you can not tell the difference between violent rhetoric and merely insulting rhetoric, you go to hell (ironically that's how he ends the column in question.) That's the case, generally. Specifically he brings up, several times, Rep. Giffords, who took a bullet round to the head, and indirectly equating her level of victim hood to tea baggers being rhetorically insulted? That's some of the sickest shit I have ever read that was not details of an actual violent crime, or some sick and twisted violent fantasy (true present opinion and belief.) What a crybaby (yes, rhetorical. But it has more than a grain of truth.)

I have likely gone so long here that I should stop now. But there are many other examples of this sort of insane hypocritical rhetoric coming from the teabagging terrorists and their enablers. Let them whine about "The New Civility." Let 'em. My thought earlier this morning -- I was specifically thinking of that over paid college drop out (accurate) Hannity. He's such a hypocrite (truth) that if he were forbidden from ever employing rhetoric on either his radio or TV show, they would consist of nothing more than reading AP or UPI wire stories. Because between his bullshit, his usual guests' bullshit, and his callers' bullshit, there's not much there but for rhetoric. And that my friends is the baseline of the right wing. (Special note here. "Bullshit," is not necessarily a rhetorical device. At least according to Professor Harry Frankfurt. See his long form essay,"On Bullshit.")

Now before anyone says,"Your team uses rhetoric too." I will admit. Yes. Everyone does. But discourse on that other side of the fence is at such a low level that there really is not much substance there. It's nearly all rhetoric, nearly all the time. And that is why anyone on the right who is bitching and moaning about the tea bagger terrorists being called terrorists? All I have to say to them is the following:

Could you be MORE hypocritical? (Sarcastic rhetoric, but not a rhetorical question, there.)

Edit to add:

My follow up, as I watched a clip of some bullshit discussion on Fox from yesterday, where the hypocrite Fox host and the hypocrite wing nut radio host continued with the false equivalence. And oddly enough the wing nut radio head said Allen West was "accurate" with his personal attack on Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (way to prove being a hypocrite.) That execrable performance led me to formulating the following rule of thumb.

The two prongs of the "If Not Going Too Far, Per Se, at Least Worth Complaining About," rule are as follows. Either something should be (1) such a blatant, non sequitur of a cheap shot personal attack, or worse, or (2) some violent rhetoric that is so far outside the plebian lexicon that it could not pass for (qualitatively, comparably) a line in a high school cheer, in order to be considered complaint-worthy.

I am recognizing two important realities about the American Lexicon. All insults are not created equal. And even if violent rhetoric is the worst, by class, some of that stuff is so deeply entrenched in the lexicon, that to whine about it makes one a crybaby. For example, if a rival calls you a crybaby, that’s no foul. And whining about it is per se evidence of being an actual crybaby. If your election rival says they plan to whoop ya, that is not a foul. Whining about that is evidence of being a crybaby.

See how it works?