In mathematical and scientific exposition, these are of necessity rife, and generally used
wisely. You simply can’t spell out
every step, for cognitive reasons.
But in political rhetoric, the hidden premise becomes the smuggled
assumption.
So consider the current ad campaign, remarkable in its
audacity:
 |
| Take the A train |
The first statement contains no hidden assumptions, nor can
it be false, for it is simply an imperative, like “Eat your vegetables” or
“Don’t forget to floss”:
IN ANY WAR BETWEEN
THE
CIVILIZED MAN AND THE
SAVAGE,
SUPPORT THE CIVILIZED
MAN
Now, you might find that sound advice, or not; so far the logician, or the
semanticist, has nothing to say.
But for the sake of the logical argument -- for the modus
ponens aut tollens -- let us take this recommendation -- call it
“Proposition A” -- as sound.
(Those constitutionally incapable of comprehending the role
of counterfactuals, assumptions, deductions, and refutations, in logical argument, will
scarcely follow me here, and may conclude that I am rattling the sabre of
imperialism; but these are not our
audience: to them we have nothing
to say.)
The ad continues, in a surprising direction:
SUPPORT ISRAEL
DEFEAT JIHAD
Now, strictly grammatically, these are two further
imperatives -- call them respectively Propositions B and C -- with no explicit
connection to Propostion A. Thus,
in terms of mere syntax, the ad is semantically isomorphic to the following
(which, indeed, by rights, should be posted in every bus and subway station):
EAT YOUR VEGETABLES
DON’T CUSS
DON’T FORGET TO FLOSS
Wise advice! --
or rather: Three separate,
independent, and unrelated pieces of wise advice.
But the actual strategy -- the subterranean intent (appropriate, that the ad appears in
the NY subway) -- is quite otherwise, as every sociopolitically citizen will
instinctually realize …
* * *
~ Commercial break ~
We now return you to your
regularly scheduled essay.
* * *
Now, the
structure of the ad as far as Propositions A and B, is: Support X; (therefore -- by Grice) Support Y; and by simple set-theory, it follows that Y needs to be a
subset of X, or the syllogism does not go through. (Likewise -- to take a simpler example, “Everyone in Florida
is retarded; therefore everyone in
Boca Raton is retarded” is a valid inference only if Boca Raton is in Florida.)
Hence, observance of the Relevance maxim here requires the enthymeme,
=> Israelis are (in
general) civilized <=
And with this, surely, no-one can legitimately quarrel. Though marred by occasional barbarous
behavior in Gaza or Lebanon (or Damascus, or in international waters against
the U.S.S. Liberty), as a nation they are -- like the Germans and the French,
for all their historical Ausschweifungen
and incartades -- undoubtedly
civilized. -- As are the
English; as are the Dutch. As are many in Egypt and Morocco. Indeed, even in the United States, you
will find great numbers of civilized people, so long as you exclude places like
Florida, Nevada, and Texas.
Indeed, whereas ten thousand years ago, pockets of civilization were
hard to find (this assertion will be baffling to Texans, who maintain that the
planet itself is not even that old), nowadays they are as plentiful as
gooseberries. I mean srsly, folks -- It’s getting so
you can’t so much as swing a cat without hitting some opera-goer, or
NPR-listener, or New Yorker-subscriber
(O where are the Pecos Bills of yesteryear?) So why pick Israel,
in particular, to illustrate this well-populated superset?
Again applying the Maxim of Relevance, we seek the solution
in Proposition C …
* * *
~ Commercial break ~
We now return you to
your regularly scheduled essay.
* * *
By now old-hands at unearthing enthymemes, our readers will
instantly identify the next one, necessary to the pragmatic coherence of the
ad:
=> Jihadis are savages <=
Now -- here things do get a bit sticky. Not because the very word “savage” is now taboo -- the term
is perfectly well defined and exemplified in history, along with troglodyte, hunter-gatherer, subsistence-farmer
… and Tory and Whig and Jacobite and what-have-you; nor do we reck such taboos a half-whit. Rather the problem is the simple
descriptive adequacy of the term, given the historical facts concerning savages,
and the empirical affordances of jihadists today. For -- historically --
Savages don’t proselytize, nor
cross major geopolitical boundaries. The Koran-quoting, djellaba- or burka-clad
religious fanatics now pulullating in Pakistan, or Azawad, call up all all
sorts of negative images, if you wish, but hardly that of naked cannibals with
bones through their noses, chowing down around the missionary-pot. It simply doesn’t fit. Indeed, for a closer analogy, you would turn, not to pre-Colonial Africa,
but to, say, Israel: to the Torah-spouting,
payess-sporting, shtreimel-topped Haredim
zealots who call for nuking the Aswan high dam. Like the takfiri terrorists in Islam, the Haredim zealots
and settlers are a sort of fungus-infection in their larger (largely liberal) society,
claiming every sort of special privilege, while withholding military service to
their own country, and religious recognition of anyone else.
(For the CT connoisseur, we add the following: al-Zarqawi, and Hassan Ghul, could
fairly be described as barbarians --
not “savages”, really, but halfway there -- whereas UBL and AAZ -- nay, al-`Awlaqi and Abu-Basir -- however
you might disagree with them, decidedly not. They -- like Mephistopheles -- are quite civilized; they
have simply taken a wrong turn.)
Indeed, this right-wing attempt to establish (or rather,
smuggle-in via presupposition) an equation “jihadi = savage”, recalls the
rhetoric immediately post-9/11, where the right wing bizarrely called the
hijackers “cowards”, one thing they most certainly were not, and … savaged any commentator who denied the
equation.
* * *
~ Commercial break ~
For a book-length
semantic investigation,
in Arabic and the
European languages,
click here
We now return you to your
regularly scheduled essay.
* * *
[Note **] And indeed, predictably, many readers cannot even follow the argument politically, let alone logically -- they instantly foam at the mouth at the sight of the forbidden badword “savage”, and get no farther. Thus, a reader comments:
A truly
civilized attitude rejects the racism behind the term "savage." That
was merely the rationalization for the wars of colonization that Europeans
waged on Asians and Africans, and for the wars that the US waged on Indians.
Those acts of slaughter for land and natural resources were the real savagery.
And another replies:
Which
race was identified in the ad? Your utter ignorance of the meaning of the word
belies your inattention to the facts. Europeans and Americans are hardly the
only groups that have waged wars and colonized other lands. Asians and
Africans, and yes even Native Americans, waged their own wars against one
another and against "foreigners." The existence of the country of
Turkey is the result of the invasion of what was once Greek lands by Central
Asian marauders.
All of which is well and good -- but quite irrelevant to the
whole point of the ad, which is to smuggle in support for Israel.
[Please notice that the observation in the previous sentence
has nothing whatever to do with politics per se; it is a matter of logico-linguistic hygiene, nothing more.
Aargh -- plus! The English-teacher in me cannot refrain from saying:
the second poster misused belies; he meant betrays.]
Aargh -- plus! The English-teacher in me cannot refrain from saying:
the second poster misused belies; he meant betrays.]
~
Still. The
point of this exercise in semantic analysis was to burnish your sociopolitical acuity -- not to beat up
on poor Israel, which has enough problems of her own. And to prove our lack of malice, we hereby offer
a couple of new advertisements in
support of that plucky nation -- offered free of charge, reproducible without
permission, suitable for framing or for mounting on the subway walls:
WHEN CHOOSING WHETHER TO EAT
WHOLESOME VEGETALBES
OR ICKY TREYF,
THE WISE MAN WILL EAT
HIS VEGETABLES.
SUPPORT ISRAEL
SHUN CHEESE-DOODLES,
BACON-CHEESEBURGERS, TWINKIES, AND SPAM
~
GIVEN ANY TALK-RADIO
RANT
CLAIMING THAT ELVIS
IS ALIVE,
OR OBAMA IS A MUSLIM,
BORN IN AFRICA,
OR THAT SPACE ALIENS
ARE INTERESTED IN YOUR ANUS,
OR THAT ADAM AND EVE
RODE DINOSAURS TO THE WAL-MART,
THE DISCERNING
LISTENER WILL TURN OFF THE SET
SUPPORT LIECHTENSTEIN
(ALSO ISRAEL),
WHERE THE FACTS OF
SCIENCE ARE RECOGNIZED;
DEFEAT TEXAS, TRUMP,
AND THE TEA-BAGGERS,
WHERE THEY ARE NOT
seriously well-written.
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