I don’t usually post twice in a day, but this one needs to go out while it’s fresh.
I learned a new term this morning in the wake of the appalling spectacle of last night’s presidential debate: the Gish Gallop.
The Gish Gallop is a rhetorical technique in which a debater attempts to overwhelm his or her opponent with a blizzard of arguments without regard for the accuracy or strength of those arguments, prioritizing quantity of verbiage over quality of argument. The term was coined in 1994 by anthropologist Eugenie Scott, who named it after American creationist Duane Gish and argued that Gish used the technique frequently when challenging the scientific fact of evolution.
The format of last night’s “debate” allowed Der Furor - unburdened by real-time fact checking and hammering at lightning speed at an opponent with a known stutter - to, in the immortal words of Steve Bannon, “flood the zone with shit” in the knowledge that he could not be effectively challenged. Sadly, all too many people will ignore … or even celebrate ,,, this shameless and ugly display of rhetorical cowardice, or forget it by the time the election rolls around.
Don’t be one of them. Don’t allow yourself to be trampled by the Gish Gallop.
Have a good day. More thoughts coming.
Bilbo
Interesting.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop
Knew the technique but not the name. It's a favorite trick of those that are delusional and/or liars. Trump is in both categories, from my perspective
ReplyDeleteHe's a seriously mentally ill man. Many, if not most, in that business know that he is. I am and think it's obvious. A series of real psychiatric evaluations would be invaluable. Exact diagnosis is difficult with an uncooperative person, even with the DSM-5. He meets lots of different criteria for at least several diagnoses.
I'd love for some kind of McCarthy like implosion from something like "At long last sir, do you have no shame?" Seems unlikely but I hold out hope, if only for my own mental health!