I largely agree with this idea that rhetoric is used to inflict emotional pain.
Consider memes, which are rhetoric. When I think of sending a meme, or I see a really good meme, I first think of the emotional pain it will inflict on the enemy. The more teeth-gnashing I imagine they feel, the more high quality the meme is in my eyes.
I am not even sure I care it will convince them of moving towards a certain truth, more so that their noses are rubbed into their own emotional pain.
Then for us, the meme-creators and enjoyers, the rhetoric helps embolden us on continuing with the cause, whatever that may be.
Sincere, direct sarcasm can blend the two; like a conversational meme. Takes some practice (it’s not passive aggression) and intensity depends on how effectively you wish to communicate your point.
Truth hurts feelings, especially for women. Maybe this method is just pain after all?
I have to use it with a friend who just can never accept he’s wrong. He’ll argue yellow is superior to green and form immediate opinions on complex subjects he has never investigated.
I don’t want to wound him, but the alternative (for me) is cutting him out entirely. He is utterly and completely immune to logic or reason. A well placed truth shot is the only thing that shuts him down.
Pain imposition hits on the “stick” side of winning at rhetoric.
But I think there is a “carrot” side too, at least for women, which involves leaving an out for the rhetoric-only person to feel like a good person at the end.
It’s extremely emotionally manipulative, and very very female, but can be effective for inducing behavior change.
Say you’re a woman whose female friend is violating your group’s social norms by pursing a married man. Inducing emotional pain by talking about what Godawful hell-bound sluts homewreckers are will only go so far. The target female friend might double down or leave the group to find a group that rewards her preferred course of action.
To actually change the behavior and bring her back into conformity with group social norms, you have to leave her an off-ramp that still lets her believe herself to be a good person.
“Jenny, that homewrecking slut, ruined those girls’ lives by stealing their daddy away. I can’t believe Susan still talks to her. Thank goodness, you, Julie, were smart enough to stop talking to Mark before you ended up in some embarrassing home wrecking affair like Jenny did. I don’t know how anyone in town will ever trust her again, I know I won’t let my kids play at her house, how could she ever be trusted? She’ll probably have to leave town.”
It doesn’t matter that Julie is still talking to Mark, and may even be a stronger carrot if she hasn’t stopped talking to Mark yet - because you can emotionally manipulate her into thinking that you believe her to be a better person that she really is (even if you know she is still talking to Mark). So now she is faced with pursuing Mark and risking both the ostricization that you’ve bestowed on Jenny and being embraced at falling below the standards of her alleged reputation. Or she can stop seeing Mark, live up to the social expectation for which you’ve already assumed the sale, and still think of herself as a “good person” because you’ve highlighted the off-ramp by which she can be a better person than Jenny.
There’s a term for this in marketing but it escapes me… where you both create the problem (here, emotional pain) and then bring forth your preferred solution as the obvious, preferred, or only resolution to that problem (here, behavioral conformity that will stop the pain).
Great insight. Maybe some of us got that without consciously realizing it - think about how many times you toned down your discourse as to not hurt the other party.
This makes so much sense. But is it possible to break out the percentage motivated by each route such as 1/3 dialectic, 1/3 rhetoric, and 1/3 consequences? Or is it situational?
It’s an insightful distinction. Rhetoric uses the same sign vehicles as dialectic so it’s easy to process them the same way. Is the string of words or picture correct. But meaning comes from usage and a rhetoric speaker is not trafficking in information by definition. And if information value is irrelevant to the conversational intent…
Most people can’t process information. This post makes the reality that conversation is usually emotion management obvious.
Would this paradigm prove ineffective with Gammas? Particularly with Gammas who are already in the throes of a sperg out, how much more emotional pain can you leverage on an individual who can source it in bulk from inside of themselves? With the other SSH ranks are you going to find yourself in a position to want to escalate a rhetorical engagement rather than deescalate and pivot to dialectic?
When I first realized there was a Dolorectic man was when I was about to go on a road trip with friends at about 20 years old in the mid 90s.
There was a guy in our friend group who often acted annoying to amuse himself. At this time he decided to grab the new mix tape we just made for the road trip from my hands and tried to play keep-away with it. After being introduced to pain for a few brief seconds, he relented, and after that was basically deferential and calm around me.
Eventually, every man in our friend group ended up hurting him at some point as they came to the same junction, and he became chill and stopped acting like that in our group. Eye opening, and became a bit of a joke that any new guy entering would have to beat him up sooner or later.
Mandatory fat camps. Off topic, but I’ve wondered how successful they would be long term. Once you beat them into shape, would they adopt maintenance behavior? Severe PTSD around doughnuts?
Basic training has some success…but plenty also regress ASAP and become blobs again. Nothing worse than a fat fuk who loves reveling in their former service while shoveling slop down a jowled gullet.
I think of all the things I have read that Vox has written, this is the most true and applicable.
It would be interesting to hear your thoughts on overlap between midwit and delta.
https://open.substack.com/pub/gallowshumormag/p/secular-humanism-and-its-discontents?r=lm7rt&utm_medium=ios
Hello, could this mean that the "wall of text" is nothing more then a rhetorical device?
No, it's an emotional outburst. It's all about the author, not the target.
I largely agree with this idea that rhetoric is used to inflict emotional pain.
Consider memes, which are rhetoric. When I think of sending a meme, or I see a really good meme, I first think of the emotional pain it will inflict on the enemy. The more teeth-gnashing I imagine they feel, the more high quality the meme is in my eyes.
I am not even sure I care it will convince them of moving towards a certain truth, more so that their noses are rubbed into their own emotional pain.
Then for us, the meme-creators and enjoyers, the rhetoric helps embolden us on continuing with the cause, whatever that may be.
Sincere, direct sarcasm can blend the two; like a conversational meme. Takes some practice (it’s not passive aggression) and intensity depends on how effectively you wish to communicate your point.
Truth hurts feelings, especially for women. Maybe this method is just pain after all?
I have to use it with a friend who just can never accept he’s wrong. He’ll argue yellow is superior to green and form immediate opinions on complex subjects he has never investigated.
I don’t want to wound him, but the alternative (for me) is cutting him out entirely. He is utterly and completely immune to logic or reason. A well placed truth shot is the only thing that shuts him down.
Pain imposition hits on the “stick” side of winning at rhetoric.
But I think there is a “carrot” side too, at least for women, which involves leaving an out for the rhetoric-only person to feel like a good person at the end.
It’s extremely emotionally manipulative, and very very female, but can be effective for inducing behavior change.
Say you’re a woman whose female friend is violating your group’s social norms by pursing a married man. Inducing emotional pain by talking about what Godawful hell-bound sluts homewreckers are will only go so far. The target female friend might double down or leave the group to find a group that rewards her preferred course of action.
To actually change the behavior and bring her back into conformity with group social norms, you have to leave her an off-ramp that still lets her believe herself to be a good person.
“Jenny, that homewrecking slut, ruined those girls’ lives by stealing their daddy away. I can’t believe Susan still talks to her. Thank goodness, you, Julie, were smart enough to stop talking to Mark before you ended up in some embarrassing home wrecking affair like Jenny did. I don’t know how anyone in town will ever trust her again, I know I won’t let my kids play at her house, how could she ever be trusted? She’ll probably have to leave town.”
It doesn’t matter that Julie is still talking to Mark, and may even be a stronger carrot if she hasn’t stopped talking to Mark yet - because you can emotionally manipulate her into thinking that you believe her to be a better person that she really is (even if you know she is still talking to Mark). So now she is faced with pursuing Mark and risking both the ostricization that you’ve bestowed on Jenny and being embraced at falling below the standards of her alleged reputation. Or she can stop seeing Mark, live up to the social expectation for which you’ve already assumed the sale, and still think of herself as a “good person” because you’ve highlighted the off-ramp by which she can be a better person than Jenny.
There’s a term for this in marketing but it escapes me… where you both create the problem (here, emotional pain) and then bring forth your preferred solution as the obvious, preferred, or only resolution to that problem (here, behavioral conformity that will stop the pain).
"how then shall we describe a man who may be persuaded only by pain?"
This is really interesting. It may also account for why Proverbs has so many mentions of fools needing pain to learn a lesson.
"A whip for the horse, a bridle for the donkey, and a rod for the backs of fools." & "... his mouth invites a beating."
The instruction to not spare the rod for children indicates that it's the one universal teaching language.
Some graduate to instruction through words.
Great insight. Maybe some of us got that without consciously realizing it - think about how many times you toned down your discourse as to not hurt the other party.
This makes so much sense. But is it possible to break out the percentage motivated by each route such as 1/3 dialectic, 1/3 rhetoric, and 1/3 consequences? Or is it situational?
It’s an insightful distinction. Rhetoric uses the same sign vehicles as dialectic so it’s easy to process them the same way. Is the string of words or picture correct. But meaning comes from usage and a rhetoric speaker is not trafficking in information by definition. And if information value is irrelevant to the conversational intent…
Most people can’t process information. This post makes the reality that conversation is usually emotion management obvious.
Would this paradigm prove ineffective with Gammas? Particularly with Gammas who are already in the throes of a sperg out, how much more emotional pain can you leverage on an individual who can source it in bulk from inside of themselves? With the other SSH ranks are you going to find yourself in a position to want to escalate a rhetorical engagement rather than deescalate and pivot to dialectic?
When I first realized there was a Dolorectic man was when I was about to go on a road trip with friends at about 20 years old in the mid 90s.
There was a guy in our friend group who often acted annoying to amuse himself. At this time he decided to grab the new mix tape we just made for the road trip from my hands and tried to play keep-away with it. After being introduced to pain for a few brief seconds, he relented, and after that was basically deferential and calm around me.
Eventually, every man in our friend group ended up hurting him at some point as they came to the same junction, and he became chill and stopped acting like that in our group. Eye opening, and became a bit of a joke that any new guy entering would have to beat him up sooner or later.
"You should work out, it's healthy, here's the science."
"You should work out, girls love some muscle."
"You should work out. You're pathetic, fat, lazy. Your bloodline clearly ends here."
"'*crack* OFF THE COUCH, YOU WILL LIFT TODAY OR I WILL BEAT YOU BLOODY *crack*"
Mandatory fat camps. Off topic, but I’ve wondered how successful they would be long term. Once you beat them into shape, would they adopt maintenance behavior? Severe PTSD around doughnuts?
Basic training has some success…but plenty also regress ASAP and become blobs again. Nothing worse than a fat fuk who loves reveling in their former service while shoveling slop down a jowled gullet.
Each day is a learning process. It is interesting to observe how Marcus concludes that Gnaeus can only be influenced by Dolorectic.
"To the pain..."
I learn by a combo of all three.