We are being hornswoggled

[coberst]

We are being hornswoggled

 

I think that one of the most egregious informal fallacies we Americans are bombarded with is prescriptions camouflaged as descriptions. Prescriptions are things established or decreed by fate or nature; a prescription is just what is and cannot be anything else.

 

The value of education lay in its monetary value, GDP is an accurate measure of a nation’s accomplishment, the environment is not an issue in the Corporate bottom line, well-being is the Corporate bottom line, the Corporation is responsible only to their share holders, health care in America is the best, CEO pay is meritocracy in action, etc. These are all understood as descriptions of reality rather than being the prescriptions of those who profit by such things.

 

I am claiming that we are led to accept as truism that it is natural for education to be valued in dollars, a GDP growth of 4% is a measure of the nation’s well-being, Corporations are not responsible for the environment, CEOs get the big bucks because they are what make the institution successful, etc.

 

That which is ‘natural’ is accepted without question. In such a milieu we easily accept the hurricane as a description of why the poor have lost everything in New Orleans. An examination will, I think, disclose that the poor were doomed to such a happening by the ordination of the powerful over past decades.

 

Describing the status quo as natural and universal is an effective means for maintaining the status quo. I am claiming that the status quo is described as natural and universal, when in fact the status quo is ordained by the “Wizard”. “Follow the money” is a useful tactic for discovering those who are the elements of the “Wizard”.

 

Can you think of other such ordinations disguised as descriptions? Can you guess the nature of the ‘Wizard’?

[TheFaithfulStone]

No but I can think of a description disguised as an ordination.

 

Namely, your implication being "hornswoggled" by the powerful isn't the eternal lot of the people. The implication that this is somehow different from the ways it's always been, and somehow "bad" is kind of troubling in an intellectual sense.

 

Because isn't describing the status quo as natural and universal the status quo of stati qua? (I don't speak Latin, I don't know if that's the right plural or not.)

 

The Wizard is the rich and powerful, who have a vested interesting in maintaining the system that made them rich and powerful.

 

Of COURSE we're being hornswoggled - although it implies a conscious deception on the part of the extant power structure which I doubt exists in the "smoky darkened room" milieu that we all like to imagine.

 

Was the contribution of Marx not only to discover the hornswoggling, but also to assert that simply because you have always been misled, there is no reason that your horn should continue to be so swoggled?

 

TFS

[hornswoggle, hornswoggle, hornswoggle. love that word!]