Objections to this statement seem to be 1) the highly loaded descriptions of the rich and the poor and 2) the juxtaposition of the descriptions without an explicit relationship.
While an examination of word choice might allow you get to a less loaded formulation of its content. eg. The rich, who have much, enjoy luxury while the poor suffer. It doesn’t get to the fact that the statement is an attempt to draw us into an implicit connection between the two descriptions. The statement is only connected by a “while”, which might connect any two facts, but in practice we only bring the facts together in order to contrast or compare them. This is a nice set up for the rhetorician because the connection we make is ultimately our own, and often not explicitly known to ourselves. The capitalist objects, but is not sure to what, precisely, because he can’t find it in the statement.
Now if I object to the statement of the grounds that it is emotionally loaded, I am not directly addressing this implicit point of the statement. I could fall into the trap of being seen as an apologist for the rich if I only object to their description but not the implication.
But I wonder if I should object that statement is not untrue as such, but that the point of it isn’t clear, would that be taken to mean that I just don’t get the implicit point of it? That I’m simply unsympathetic to the emotions of the statement?
Why not make the implicit explicit (as it can be)? Why not treat the statement as if was an explicit statement of what it tried to be implicitly?
I think that point of the statement is to assert either that the rich are directly responsible for the condition of the poor, or at least that the rich fail in their moral obligations toward the poor; response:
Sorry, are you saying that the rich are directly responsible for the condition of the poor, or just that the rich fail in their moral obligations toward the poor?
Objections to this statement seem to be 1) the highly loaded descriptions of the rich and the poor and 2) the juxtaposition of the descriptions without an explicit relationship.
While an examination of word choice might allow you get to a less loaded formulation of its content. eg. The rich, who have much, enjoy luxury while the poor suffer. It doesn’t get to the fact that the statement is an attempt to draw us into an implicit connection between the two descriptions. The statement is only connected by a “while”, which might connect any two facts, but in practice we only bring the facts together in order to contrast or compare them. This is a nice set up for the rhetorician because the connection we make is ultimately our own, and often not explicitly known to ourselves. The capitalist objects, but is not sure to what, precisely, because he can’t find it in the statement.
Now if I object to the statement of the grounds that it is emotionally loaded, I am not directly addressing this implicit point of the statement. I could fall into the trap of being seen as an apologist for the rich if I only object to their description but not the implication.
But I wonder if I should object that statement is not untrue as such, but that the point of it isn’t clear, would that be taken to mean that I just don’t get the implicit point of it? That I’m simply unsympathetic to the emotions of the statement?
Why not make the implicit explicit (as it can be)? Why not treat the statement as if was an explicit statement of what it tried to be implicitly?
I think that point of the statement is to assert either that the rich are directly responsible for the condition of the poor, or at least that the rich fail in their moral obligations toward the poor; response:
Sorry, are you saying that the rich are directly responsible for the condition of the poor, or just that the rich fail in their moral obligations toward the poor?