Why the Use of Rhetorical Questions Is an Iffier Tactic Than You Think

[dr_pretentious]

It's not that I wish I were still teaching freshman comp. I just wish I could send this stunning example of Rhetoric Gone Wrong back in time to myself, so that I could use it with my undergrads. The kids I teach now are young enough, I can't use an example like this in any way, for any purpose, without stepping on their parents' toes. It's amazing how early the astute kids start using rhetorical questions in their writing.

From this article, I excerpt the following:

Rep. D.J. Bettencourt, a Salem Republican, tried unsuccessfully to bar women under 18 from obtaining the drug without a prescription.

"Would you want your 12-, 13-, 14-, 15-year-old daughters getting emergency contraception as easily as they can get Advil?" he said.

To which the very obvious answer is, yes. Duh. If I had a 12-year-old daughter, and she had occasion to use emergency contraception, I would fervently hope she would be able to get what she needed without delay or hassle. What kind of sadistic, fanatical, idiotic parent would prefer that his 12-year-old daughter carry to term a pregnancy she didn't want?

Open Memorandum to the Hon. Rep. Bettencourt:
When using rhetorical questions, it's advisable to load them with inflammatory modifiers, lest the reader think for herself.

Comments

sweep, sweep

[twoeleven.livejournal.com]

yeah, but *which* first principles? and how to apply them?

reasoning from, say, notions like "the greatest good for the greatest number" (which i'm fond of), gets you there eventually. but it's not clear that this applies to children, as they're not very good ethical agents.

but istr the stoics -- and i'd guess we'd call them early secular humanists¹ -- viewed sexual desire as an appetite which leads men away from the true virtues. while i don't think stoicism is as powerful as utilitarianism, i do think the world would be a better place if folks practiced the tweleve(?) aurelian virtues (honesty, courage, etc).

1: they believed in a divine force (logos) but there was no need to worship it or expect that it would do anything for you.

so, it's hard to talk about "religion" and "first principles" in such sweeping terms. iirc, marriage rites are believed to be (almost) as old as death, burial, and mourning rituals, which are neolithic. so, since the dawn of time™, people have made some distinction between sexual relations w/in and w/out marriage. and sex does tend to get tied to ideas of the sacred because of sympathetic-magical ideas of purity thru asceticism and self-denial on the one hand, and religious ecstasy on the other.

but... then it becomes a question of which religion. davidic judaism, for example, solved the extra-marital sex question by the expedient of saying that people sleeping together are considered married. and there's some fragmentary evidence that the song of songs is the last surviving piece of a larger body of erotic poetry from the period, suggesting that folks had no objections to chasing their passions. but by the rabbinic period, that all had blown away.

one book i read on the early american colonial period mentioned an interesting custom among the puritans: young men were often paid for a day's work by allowing them to spend the night. not because the puritan elders were blissfully unaware of what they were likely doing with their daughters, but because they figured it gave them a better chance of knowing who was siring their grandchildren. (and giving them some voice in the decision, cause the parents got to hire the fieldhands.) yes, *those* puritans: black clothes, conical hats, and free love. :)

Re: sweep, sweep

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't call that free love. I wouldn't even assume it involved consent. In the scenario you describe, the girl's parents are pimping her out to pay for yardwork to whichever males they like. Okay, my interpretation is a redaction of a redaction, but by law daughters were their fathers' chattel, to be dealt with as their fathers pleased until they were married off and became their husbands' chattel. The literature of the time is full of husbands pimping their wives against the wives' will, with full approval of the law--in colonial cities, it wasn't an infrequent occurrence. This sounds like a minor variation on the same deal.