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Politics : View from the Center and Left
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To: Bearcatbob who wrote (70762)6/4/2008 6:42:56 PM
From: Lane3  Read Replies (1) of 542729
 
Does anyone think we have gone nuts?

I think we no longer have a common basis for addressing problems and making decisions. Like the return on investment point I made a couple of posts ago. When did that fall out of favor? (warning-rhetorical question, unless, of course, you choose to answer it <g>)

Re rhetorical questions. I rather like them. Aptly used, that is. Even when done well, though, they do have a considerable failure rate. It's not uncommon for posters to not recognize that the question wasn't intended to be answered. That's rather like a joke that falls flat. Takes all the air out of the room. So I put them in the same category as analogies--if you use them, don't assume they're going to work.

There's a twist on that I just discovered recently. I've seen people claim a straight question was rhetorical. That was entirely new to me. I'm taking that to mean that the party just doesn't want to address it so he's blowing it off as rhetorical, but that line requires further study.

You added in the "ridiculous" factor. I guess it depends on what you mean by ridiculous. If you mean hyped, I think that can be effective. First of all, it makes it clearer that the question is rhetorical. If it's outlandish, it's not as likely to be taken for a straight question. So I suppose a bit of ridiculousness can be helpful.

Other possibilities that come to mind for "ridiculous" might be an affectation. Or maybe a straw man disguised as a rhetorical question. Probably lots of things disguised as rhetorical questions. In which case maybe they're not really rhetorical questions.

End of brain dump. Hope you found something in there responsive.

I'd be happy to ponder examples if you have any. <
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