Rhetoric

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About

Rhetoric, in the modern political sense, is the art of verbal manipulation to convince others of a predetermined conclusion. It typically consists of appeals to emotion packaged in memorable wording, often backed by logically fallacious reasoning.

Uses

While rhetoric can be used positively, as a tool to convey difficult new ideas and get past existing cognitive bias in situations where a rational argument may be ineffective, but unfortunately it is more commonly used antiepistemically – i.e. to induce erroneous beliefs in others. When amplified by the memetic power of the mainstream media (either explicitly – paid advertising – or complicity, in support of the plutocratic agenda of the mainstream media's consolidated ownership) this often leads to popular support for extremely harmful actions.

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