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Home > Biographies & Memoire > Literature: history and criticism > Literary theory > The Rhetoric of Manipulation: Unmasking Semantic Perversions
The Rhetoric of Manipulation: Unmasking Semantic Perversions

The Rhetoric of Manipulation: Unmasking Semantic Perversions


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About the Book

A provocative and timely look at how language is used to manipulate the truth, how our gullibility leaves us susceptible to manipulation, and what we can do to reverse these trends.

The Rhetoric of Manipulation looks behind the curtain of political and social communications in the age of “fake news” and the “post-truth” to show how the perversely engineered semantics at work today shapes culture and undermines reality. While language has always been manipulated to direct or anesthetize thought, today’s semantic perversions orient opinion and subdue political action to an alarming degree. Under such conditions, we are particularly susceptible to demagoguery.

Arguing that too many of us have let our critical faculties wither, Robert Harvey opens our ears and eyes to an insidious impediment to free thinking by unflinchingly examining five realms of semantic perversion: the contemporary vocabulary of war; the recently evolved language tool known as scare quotes; the terms used to peddle white supremacy; the phenomenon of so-called cancel culture; and the jargon deployed in the corporatization of higher education.

The wager of The Rhetoric of Manipulation is that a frank exposé of bad faith discursive practices and our accompanying gullibility can contribute to reversing the trend, remedying the current situation in view of a far more ethical immediate future, and remediating some of the damage already done.



Table of Contents:

Introduction: Handedness and Underhandedness
1. Fighting Words
2. Scare Quotes
3. White Whine
4. “Cancel Culture” ...
5. College, Inc.
Bibliography
Index



About the Author :
Robert Harvey is Distinguished Professor Emeritus in Philosophy, Stony Brook University, USA. His publications include Sharing Common Ground: A Space for Ethics (Bloomsbury, 2017), Parmi les gisants: penser le cimetière (2024), and Witnessness: Beckett, Levi, Dante and the Foundations of Ethics (Continuum, 2010).

Review :
Harvey's writing is poetic and witty, his concepts bold, and his message from the front cover to the end terrifying. This clear, honest account of the current state of rhetoric as it is being manipulated makes this book not only worthwhile but necessary. An impassioned investigation into the creeping co-option of language, Robert Harvey examines the militarization of terminology, the misuse of 'ironic' scare quotes, the demonization of Critical Race Theory, 'cancel culture' and 'wokeism,' and the suppression of critical positions so integral to the humanities. With Victor Klemperer’s detailed account of the Nazification of language as a key reference point and Jean-François Lyotard’s Critical Watch as our guide, the seemingly inconsequential transformation of everyday speech takes an Orwellian turn. The Rhetoric of Manipulation is an important, careful critique in the face of proliferating semantic perversions. The Rhetoric of Manipulation couldn’t come at a better time. In it, Robert Harvey critiques loose and unscrupulous uses of language and compellingly warns of the dangers of semantic imprecision. Harvey's wit and dazzling way with words make this book fun to read even as it points us to terrifying realities. In the most eloquent way, Harvey’s book systematically points out and analyzes the pitfalls of the present slumber of reason and the monsters it produces. Must-read reading in the age of manipulation!


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Product Details
  • ISBN-13: 9798765100813
  • Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
  • Publisher Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic
  • Height: 228 mm
  • No of Pages: 216
  • Sub Title: Unmasking Semantic Perversions
  • Width: 152 mm
  • ISBN-10: 8765100816
  • Publisher Date: 20 Mar 2025
  • Binding: Paperback
  • Language: English
  • Spine Width: 14 mm
  • Weight: 349 gr


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