The Rhetoric of Manipulation
Unmasking Semantic Perversions
1st Edition
Published on 20. March 2025
216 pages
979-8-7651-0082-0 (ISBN)
Description
A provocative and timely look at how language is used to manipulate the truth, how our gullibility leaves us susceptible to manipulation, and what we can do to reverse these trends.
The Rhetoric of Manipulation looks behind the curtain of political and social communications in the age of "fake news" and the "post-truth" to show how the perversely engineered semantics at work today shapes culture and undermines reality. While language has always been manipulated to direct or anesthetize thought, today's semantic perversions orient opinion and subdue political action to an alarming degree. Under such conditions, we are particularly susceptible to demagoguery.
Arguing that too many of us have let our critical faculties wither, Robert Harvey opens our ears and eyes to an insidious impediment to free thinking by unflinchingly examining five realms of semantic perversion: the contemporary vocabulary of war; the recently evolved language tool known as scare quotes; the terms used to peddle white supremacy; the phenomenon of so-called cancel culture; and the jargon deployed in the corporatization of higher education.
The wager of The Rhetoric of Manipulation is that a frank exposé of bad faith discursive practices and our accompanying gullibility can contribute to reversing the trend, remedying the current situation in view of a far more ethical immediate future, and remediating some of the damage already done.
The Rhetoric of Manipulation looks behind the curtain of political and social communications in the age of "fake news" and the "post-truth" to show how the perversely engineered semantics at work today shapes culture and undermines reality. While language has always been manipulated to direct or anesthetize thought, today's semantic perversions orient opinion and subdue political action to an alarming degree. Under such conditions, we are particularly susceptible to demagoguery.
Arguing that too many of us have let our critical faculties wither, Robert Harvey opens our ears and eyes to an insidious impediment to free thinking by unflinchingly examining five realms of semantic perversion: the contemporary vocabulary of war; the recently evolved language tool known as scare quotes; the terms used to peddle white supremacy; the phenomenon of so-called cancel culture; and the jargon deployed in the corporatization of higher education.
The wager of The Rhetoric of Manipulation is that a frank exposé of bad faith discursive practices and our accompanying gullibility can contribute to reversing the trend, remedying the current situation in view of a far more ethical immediate future, and remediating some of the damage already done.
More details
Edition
1. Auflage
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
ISBN-13
979-8-7651-0082-0 (9798765100820)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
03/2025
Bloomsbury Academic USA
€25.50
Shipment within 10-20 days
Person
Robert Harvey is Distinguished Professor Emeritus in Philosophy, Stony Brook University, USA. His publications include Sharing Common Ground: A Space for Ethics (Bloomsbury, 2017), Parmi les gisants: penser le cimetière (2024), and Witnessness: Beckett, Levi, Dante and the Foundations of Ethics (Continuum, 2010).
Content
Introduction: Handedness and Underhandedness
1. Fighting Words
2. Scare Quotes
3. White Whine
4. "Cancel Culture" ...
5. College, Inc.
Bibliography
Index
1. Fighting Words
2. Scare Quotes
3. White Whine
4. "Cancel Culture" ...
5. College, Inc.
Bibliography
Index
