PATHOS ALERT! the reds will eat your babies ...

both in my english classes of yore and in my speech/comm classes of today we talk about aristotle's definition of rhetoric (the art of persuasion, in a nutshell) and his three modes (or appeals to) of persuasion: ethos (an appeal based on the character of the speaker), logos (an appeal based on logic; generally sound reasoning; although today we consider facts/data to be "logos"), and finally: PATHOS (an appeal based on emotion, meant to sway the audience by tugging at their heartstrings or scaring the crap out of them).

well gentle readers, you're smart. you know what appeals SHOULD work best on human beings and what ULTIMATELY DOES work best on us humans. we like to think we've evolved. that we think and can reason and can use our brains. i like to think this on my good days. really i do. that we can do something noble, some things beautiful and intelligent with our lives: creating art and music, thinking rationally and practicing peace and tolerance, letting our lives overflow with laughter and love, humility and grace.

but mostly, sadly ... i think a lot of us (me, included) are sitting around here with our barely evolved reptilian brains, just eating and defecating, screwing and multiplying, sleeping and waking ... our lives a thinly veiled pretense for the the two most base, primal emotions we feel at any given time: fear and desire. "i am afraid of _____" and "i want _____."

ugh. and by now everyone has heard of or seen hillary's cold-war-republican-style campaign ad, "it's 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep ... the phone rings at the white house ..." PUKE ME A RIVER, hillary. i mean, FUCK, DID YOU STEAL A PAGE FROM THE BUSH/CHENEY/ROVE PLAYBOOK?

you make me ill, suddenly. i mean, shit, i'll campaign for you if you win the nomination ... if i have to, ok. but DAMMIT WOMAN. I HATE THE POLITICS OF FEAR! a pathos appeal, an appeal based on emotions ... these WORK, ok, they work, we know that. but catering to fear is the WORST possible pathos appeal. (in fact, it's how i used to remember in my first rhetoric class that pathos was the least formidable of the three appeals: because it was PATHETIC).

ok, whew. i'll calm down. there are about 20 or more hilarious (and some serious) parodies already up at youtube of this stupid fear-mongering ad. a lot of them involve ghostbusters ("who you gonna call?"), lol. i kind of like this one, below, mostly because i love it when guys do women's voices, mrah. reminds me of kids in the hall. (in fact, this link-clip from KITH here is so freaking hilarious, I INSIST YOU GO WATCH IT IMMEDIATELY TO HAVE A GREAT DAY).

3 a.m. white house ad spoof