Rhetorical Capture

An argument which is expressed with such rhetorical panache that the arguer convinces himself and everyone else that it is correct.

A variant is the case of the person whose rhetoric is so powerful that he or she is only able to make life choices which live up to it; the mundane and the merely sensible are ruled out, with unintended consequences.

 

Related entries:

Hypocrisy, Balletic Debate, Emotional Argument, Harebrain Fracture, Metamorphosis, Icon.

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David Fleming
Dr David Fleming (2 January 1940 – 29 November 2010) was a cultural historian and economist, based in London, England. He was among the first to reveal the possibility of peak oil's approach and invented the influential TEQs scheme, designed to address this and climate change. He was also a pioneer of post-growth economics, and a significant figure in the development of the UK Green Party, the Transition Towns movement and the New Economics Foundation, as well as a Chairman of the Soil Association. His wide-ranging independent analysis culminated in two critically acclaimed books, 'Lean Logic' and 'Surviving the Future', published posthumously in 2016. These in turn inspired the 2020 launches of both BAFTA-winning director Peter Armstrong's feature film about Fleming's perspective and legacy - 'The Sequel: What Will Follow Our Troubled Civilisation?' - and Sterling College's unique 'Surviving the Future: Conversations for Our Time' online courses. For more information on all of the above, including Lean Logic, click the little globe below!

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