r/badrhetoric

162 archived posts · Aug 2014 – Sep 2022

Bad Rhetoric

r/badrhetoric

A place for citizens of the racoon nation, who scour the trashcans of speech and politics. Looking for weapons of mass destruction. Putting pepper spray on our breakfast, and adopting the forgotten boy scouts. Our homes are filled with plenty of alley cats, and our baskets are deplorable.There may be peace between man and fish, but we are Trash pandas.

Created Jul 2, 2014 · restricted

386Members (last snapshot)

162Archived posts

Badcademics Association Member

A place to post and critique bad rhetoric we all see on the Internet and in real life.

What We are looking for

On bad rhetoric we are looking for painful pieces of media, We are also here to highlight media with bad parts that need to be dug out.

Unlimited range and scope

We accept content from all venues, be it official statements, or common comment gore. Be it current or past events. So long as it counts as flawed argumentation, it will float. Right now we have a lot of news worthy content posted here, however I think that politicians and political nonsense deserve to be posted next to things trolled from the depths of the internet and beyond, and might take the legs out of the current trend of intentional misspeak happening in the United States. That said, we accept international content as-well, although we are primarily an English Language sub.

We are non partisan

This sub recognizes poor speech from all sides, parties, and miscellaneous movements. We will not remove anything so long as it is in format. If you see this sight taking a particular leaning, you can change that by posting here yourself.

Post away!

Our rules are posted on the side bar. Content must rhetoric (some form of argument), and must be linked to its source. otherwise you are free to post. Simply be mindfull that any linked content will be roasted, (as that is our job).

##What We Mean by Rhetoric

In our case, we interpret rhetoric broadly as argument and speech, this means any means of communication that is attempting to persuade a person, or that is making a statement to an audience . This includes propaganda and political speeches,but is not limited to them.

our stance is backed up by scholars, in the field of visual rhetoric.

On visual rhetoric https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/691/01/

On the History of visual rhetoric http://communication.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228613-e-43

A full list of fields http://rhetorclick.com/wiki/Theories_and_Movements

What we mean by bad Rhetoric

By bad rhetoric we mean both errors of speech, such as poorly delivered content, poor word choice, or poor reading of situation, as well as obvious lies, logical fallacies, and inaccurate statements. Generally speaking, errors in argument and thinking are better then errors in delivery, unless the latter is entertaining.

CONTENT (logos)

 Factual Inaccuracies

Aka lies and errors. Typically the result of fraud, or incompetence. (Or these days...carefully targeted trolling?)

 Lack of Logical Structure

Argument has no beginning, middle, or end, has parts that has relation to the rest of their argument.

 Logical Fallacies

Some inferences do not follow from the facts. Affirming the consequent,is a classic example.

  Non-cogent Statements

Improbable predictions and statements, that are not necessarily logically inconsistent, and not necessarily false. They could be true if you stretch your imagination, as an edge case in a prediction, or in an unlikely collection of circumstances. Slippery slope statements are a prime example.

 Double Entendres

Has more then one interpreted meaning. (Sexual Innuendos are good, unintended sexual innuendos are golden!)

 Vagueness

Avoiding making a statement by not being specific.

 Evasion

Avoiding a topic completely. Every see a person not answer a direct question? Featuring Teresa May for this one.

 Argument Stoppers

A blunt force form of evasion, trying to put an end to an argument. This includes all sorts of buffoonery, such as changing the subject when the heat gets too hot, talking over people, walking out of the room, throwing smoke bombs in a meeting and trying to pull a vanishing act, Shouting out the name of your home town, and an embracing personal secret in a Freudian slip. Yelling loudly and impersonating animals, singing like a lunatic and throwing things. Often these are not very sensible.

Tautology and Truisms

Tautologies are statements that are equivalent to True, and are true no matter what the truth of the premises of the statement are. Logicians use them to manipulate statements for simplification and checking validity, since they can be used to rephrase a statement without affecting its inherent structure. Speakers can use them to invent a statement that is technically true, but say nothing. "There are bad fish, and also good fish". Truisms are self evident statements that are considered similarly meaningless "In the end of the end of the day we all take our boots off before we throw them".

Straw Men

Ad-hominem where the hominem does not exist. - We must fight the specter of spectral communist specters communes of ghosts .

DELIVERY (Pathos)

Gaffes

Mistakes in speech, such as in grammar, forgetting the meaning of words, Freudian slips, or Spoonerisms

 Body Language

The president makes woody woodpecker noises, looking directly at the camera)

Tone

or Failing To Deliver a See Bathos

 Unintended Humor

this is what we are all about

CONTEXT / AUDIENCE (Kairos)

 Inappropriate Behavior

Yelling at a tea party, singing at a funeral, Swearing at a Child's birthday party.

Insulting your Audience

Insulting the other candidates voters when you should want them to support you is a classic mistake. Shouting at your interviewer is even more classic.

 Stereotyping

This includes appeals to peoples prejudice, attempting to invent a prejudice through name baiting. "And those Steves, always tapping their feet, just tapping their feet and eating their chips outside the bag."

 Inappropriate Tone

See the Maria Cary school of public speaking after her audio error

source - Silva Rhetoricae http://rhetoric.byu.edu/

CODE OF CONDUCT

We do not accept harassment on this sub. We wish to foster discussion humor without fighting. We know that politics is a topic here, so try to be open minded.

COMMENT DELETION RULES

Please do not swear at our this sub or its users.
Please do not post long rants about our sub-reddit as a post. send us a private message instead.
The only post that has been deleted so far was a joke at our expense. So we're ready to do it again.
Content that does not meet our very liberal definition of rhetoric may be removed. You would have to try to deliberately post inappropriate content to brake this rule.
Posts made by bots will most likely be removed, unless they are useful.

BAN-ABLE OFFENSES

No Threatening other users. this includes revealing their identity, or inviting other people to harm users.
Harassing users about this sub via private messaging and even on other web-pages will get you banned.

Looking for more Badness? Checkout these subs

For all your bad - sub needs go to the bad Academics society home page.

Badcademics Association

For more posts on rhetoric and speech check out the following subs

r/rhetorical_analysis

r/politicalvideos

r/politicalvideo

Other communities

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