Comments on: It’s not a game…

By: Resident Harriden

Resident Harriden — Mon, 04 Oct 2004 09:31:58 +0000

OK – here’s the original Op-Ed – I don’t know if the link is still good, or is behind the Times firewall: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/24/opinion/24fish.html

By: Tim

Tim — Mon, 04 Oct 2004 08:03:55 +0000

The Republicans are good at boiling this stuff down to culturally-approved images. Actually, I would rewrite that to say "media-approved cultural images." It's important to recognize that "simplistic" is defined today by the media's structural bias, and ergo the Republicans media savvy success. I would argue, from a very unscientific and biased viewpoint, that it has been honed by necessity in the face of a skeptical, if not sometimes hostile, ideological press. Where the message of the sixties had to be honed to overcome the conservative media culture from the 50s, the Goldwater Republicans learned to hone their message to overcome the generational media culture of the 60s and 70s. Simplicity is just a nice word for Jefferson's intent to "place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled to take." (OK, it's a phrase that's big again in the blogoshpere)

By: acline

acline — Mon, 04 Oct 2004 07:17:51 +0000

RH– True enough. But he does say “an idea or policy.” Did he qualify this remark, i.e. did he limit io certain ideas and/or certain policies?

By: Resident Harriden

Resident Harriden — Mon, 04 Oct 2004 06:32:28 +0000

Mmmmm, OK, except Fish didn’t say EVERYTHING could be reduced to a couple of sentences, but nevermind – you got what you wanted out of the quote.

By: acline

acline — Sun, 03 Oct 2004 05:00:30 +0000

Keith…

hahahaha! Man, you just made me snort coffee all over my computer screen.

There are a whole bunch of things that can’t be explained in one or two sentences. My own discipline is one of them. On Rhetorica I cite four definitions of rhetoric; try cramming all of that into two sentences

That said, RH’s question is still a good one because the Republicans are better at boiling down their message–they’ve been perfecting this for more than a generation. I would point my readers to George Lakoff’s book “Moral Politics” for an answer. That answer can’t be stated in one or two sentences, so I leave it to you to buy the book. It’s worth your money and time.

By: Keith Sader

Keith Sader — Sat, 02 Oct 2004 17:40:14 +0000

I have to agree with the good Dr. Anyone who can’t explaing quantum physics in two sentences obviously doesn’t own it.

By: acline

acline — Sat, 02 Oct 2004 13:33:47 +0000

Stanley ought to stick to literary criticism and leave the rhetorical/political analysis to others. His assertion is nonsense.

By: Resident Harriden

Resident Harriden — Sat, 02 Oct 2004 09:12:03 +0000

Even Stanley Fish, no right-winger, says that “If you can’t explain an idea or policy plainly in one or two sentences, it’s not yours..” In view of that, why can’t Democrats do this? Is it because they don’t have an idea or policy? And BTW, not only is Stanley Fish not a Republican, he’s not “simplistic” either.

By: george.h.williams

george.h.williams — Sat, 02 Oct 2004 07:12:10 +0000

post-debate chatter

Just a collection of links I’ve collected for my American Dialogues course: The first round. I’m mixing commentary from bloggers with that of columnists for the “traditional media,” as well as overview news articles. More later, ac (after coffee). Mich…

By: Tim

Tim — Fri, 01 Oct 2004 15:27:27 +0000

The post-debate spin seems to be shaping up into Republicans using the "global test" and Democrats using visual rhetoric.