Author: Curt Doolittle

http://blog.talkingphilosophy.com/?p=9080TRUMP’S USE OF TRADITIONAL HYPERBOLE

RE: http://blog.talkingphilosophy.com/?p=9080

First, I like that you’re pointing out his technique, and how long Trump has been using it – his whole career.

However, I think I might want to help you understand just how ancient this technique is in the west – given our many-thousand-year-old culture of oath-making.

You can notice rather quickly once aware of it, that traditional westerners who carry on the ancient traditions of oath-making (conservatives, or more correctly, aristocratic egalitarians) rely upon exaggeration in order to make the point that “this small thing if done by all of us will lead to tragic consequences”.

Conservative thought, which has its origins in the limits imposed by Anglo Saxon Oath that all men must give at maturity – meaning that men cannot steal in any capacity nor say something false or misleading – but they can still make use of exaggeration to illustrate intertemporal effects of behavior.

In other words use of hyperbole is no different from the use of Greek Fable, or Germanic Fairy Tale, or Shakespearian Drama, and no different from Michelangelo’s use of oversized hands, feet, and head, of his sculpture of David.

The use of exaggeration to illustrate a fundamental truth, is very different from misleading. It is in fact an exceptional means of communicating moral principles: that which we permit of one, will result in this bad of many.

Hyperbole is the language of parable.

Curt Doolittle

The Propertarian Institute

Kiev, Ukraine