PatriciaRobertsMiller.com

September 06, 2016

How does rhetoric contribute to train wrecks in public deliberation?

I’ve been more than less arguing on the digitally connected world since the mid-80s, with a tendency to see if it’s possible to persuade extremists (extremists all over the very complicated spectrum of policy options). I’ve been worried about demagoguery since 2003, because of my realizing that people were in the same kind of informational enclaves that had led to train wrecks in the past.

This blog has long been an attempt to do four things. First, to provide explanations of rhetorical concepts (fallacies, demagoguery, history of European rhetoric) that would be helpful for my undergraduate classes. Second, to describe to people who aren’t extremist why extremism is attractive—to explain how that rhetoric works. Third, to give resources to people who are trying to persuade extremists to be less extremist. My hope is that people will share these posts (which is why many of them don’t use Trump or contemporary politics as examples). Fourth, (and to be blunt, the most important to me), to try to persuade people (scholars, teachers, critics, politically active rhetors) to abandon the frames that fuel demagoguery.

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