Lessons in Rhetoric: Christian edition

LB engages with a Christian SJW on the attack and observes they don’t behave any differently than their godless cousins, they merely rely upon different lies and double down on the sanctimony. A dialogue with analysis:

C-SJW: “Baptists have a habit of preaching ‘against’ the things of this life rather than preach Christ Jesus & Him crucified. They never point people towards the Holy Spirit, Who leads & guides into All Truth, comforts us & empowers us to live the Life that is INSIDE of us: Christ IN you, your hope of glory. Being in agreement about what we’re supposed to oppose hardly produces the Love of Christ in us to share with a hurting world.”

Analysis: There are a lot of dialectical bunny trails one might chase. But the SJW’s primary attack works on two levels: 1. rhetorical holiness posturing, and 2. a dialectically false interpretation of Scripture as New Age niceness congenial to the worldly Zeitgeist.

LB: “Concern troll is concerned. Go censor all the Biblical examples of preaching “against” things. You’ll be left with genealogies and genocides.”

Analysis: Direct dialectical refutation, but succinct and dismissive to retain rhetorical frame. To the dialectical, the SJW is done. But due to brevity, the rhetorical will hear the slap without seeing the bullets. This baits the SJW to come in hot, stupid, and overconfident. He responds in rhetorical kind.

C-SJW: “Put down the crack pipe & talk plainly. I have no idea of what you are speaking.”

Analysis: Insult + dialectical bait. If I expand and explain, I lose. Instead, I switch to rhetoric and reframe his incomprehension as stupidity.

LB: “In you is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias.”

I know his pride is invested in superior Biblical knowledge, so I drop an obviously Biblical reference on him that I know he won’t get. Pride directs him to Google. Google then directs him to Matthew 13:14:

“And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive”

This is part of a longer passage in which Jesus explains that he deliberately speaks in confusing parables so that an undeserving people would NOT be saved. The reference simultaneously insults the C-SJW, refutes his universalist niceness, and silences his objection to my obscure speech, all using a direct New Testament quote from Jesus Christ himself.

C-SJW: “LOL, are you vexing me?  LOL  You are full of pride & it makes people not want to be around you. If you can’t walk in love & understanding, you can’t walk in the Light.”

Analysis: It’s a hit! Two all-capital LOLs. No different than a negged girl laughing off tingle-tension, although less aesthetically appealing. He starts reframing hard to rebuild his ego, launching all kinds of random and rabbity accusations. He has no possible support for them as I’ve done nothing but quote a single line of Scripture! It’s rhetorical and psychological, not dialectical.

He’s suddenly given me a lot of material in just four sentences, and it would be easy to be overwhelmed by target selection. But going off on a tangent would be a welcome psychological relief for him. I need to maintain and intensify the pressure, which means continuing to drive down the rhetorical middle. That would be his holiness posturing, which is now the only barrier between me and his fragile gamma ego.

LB: “By “walk in love and understanding,” I assume you mean “accuse people of smoking crack.””

Analysis: Barrier penetrated: hypocrisy demonstrated. Zero dialectic breather. Short reply highlights the verbosity of his butthurt reaction.

C-SJW: “Or calling me a troll”

Analysis: This is the SJW in retreat, now spewing squid ink. He’s trying to settle for moral equivalency rather than retain his superior holiness posture, and there’s no more attempt at offense. He’s crying foul and looking for the ref. Now it’s time to encircle and destroy. Mustn’t let him escape with a failed offensive and a minor tacit concession.

LB: “Not only are you a concern troll, you are too stupid to avoid exposing yourself as a posturing holier-than-thou hypocrite within the space of two comments. But you proved yourself a liar in your first comment: “They never point people towards the Holy Spirit”

I Googled “sanderson1611 Holy Spirit” and found 4 youtube sermons on it in 3 seconds.”

Analysis: The correct response to the cry of “foul” is to do it twice as hard – because it hurt. By repeating the accusation, I deny his lie of equating “concern troll” with “troll”. I then reject his frame of equal culpability, making the hypocrisy charge explicit. I don’t know what untried rhetorical options he has left at this point, other than Fall Silent.

C-SJW: *crickets*

Analysis: QED

This is really well-done rhetorical jujitsu. Knowing when to utilize pure rhetoric and when to launch a concise dialectical strike for rhetorical purposes is an art, not a science, and LB switches back and forth between the two very effectively here. The key, as he shows, is to identify the SJW’s primary point of pride and, Belichick-style, attack it. Then one has merely to recognize when emotional pain has been felt, as indicated by the nature of the reaction, and press harder on that point.

As LB implicitly noted, “laughing” is SJW for “you are hurting me”. Don’t get distracted and deviate into dialectic at that point, just press harder on the Schwerpunkt.