The following is a works-in-progress conference proposal I'm shopping around to possible venues. What would you add? How do you respond? What suggestions does the logos compel you to offer? What wants to be said? *** Rhetoricians across time and cultures have continuously probed what it … Continue reading Masking, Cloaking, Camouflaging: A Greek Model for UnConcealing Digital Doxa
It's a now-normal 21st-century anxiety, but it wasn't always like this. Perhaps it was my wide-eyed, dangerously-sincere reading of Don DeLillo's novel Mao II as a high school senior that did me in, but I've always harbored an uneasy fascination with cult of personality figures. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, even Steve Jobs, Jon Gruden, Elon Musk. It's a … Continue reading Greed Is Not Good
Former Goldman Sachs banker Steven Mnuchin, best known as the "Foreclosure King" for his actions after the 2008 financial crisis, will be named US Treasury Secretary for the Trump Administration I was truly stunned when Donald Trump won the electoral college and the US election a few weeks ago. No one expected it. As an ardent … Continue reading US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin
Today was a tremendously difficult day for me. I'm still in a state of utter disbelief. I in no way want to be dismissive of anyone's opinions in this post, but I'd like to comment on our new president-elect's reliance on "uneducated" voters this election season. I don't wish to equate intelligence directly with a college … Continue reading Aristotle, Political Platforms and the “Good”
In rhetoric, we recognize and pay particular attention to what are called "fulcrum words," an analytical term for words, phrases and broader topics that an argument's direction "hinges" on. Fulcrum words and how they're employed rhetorically by agents and actors in a given conversation turn the tides of onlooking opinion; fulcrum words shift the balance … Continue reading Fulcrum Words
Jacob Richter 