Critic: Support Political utility determines the popularity of a metaphor. ██ █████████████ ██████████ ███ ████████ ██ ███████ ██ █ █████ ████ ████████ ██ █ ████ ██ ██████████ ██████████ ███ ███████████████ █████████ ████ ███ ██████████ ███████ █████████ ██████ ███████████ ███ ██████████ ██ █ █████ ████████ ███████ ██████████ ██ █████████████ ██████████ ████ ██ █████ ██████████ ████ ██ ████████ ███████ ██ █ ███████
The stimulus’ first sentence is cryptic but also very important. It says this:
When it comes to metaphors about how “society is [this] and the government is [that]”, being an effective political tool and being popular are directly correlated. Popular means politically useful and vice versa.
So the argument’s structure runs like this:
Premise: Popular metaphors = politically effective metaphors.
Premise: The “human body” metaphor is popular (in authoritarian societies).
________
Conclusion: The “human body” metaphor must be more politically effective (in authoritarian societies) than the “family” metaphor.
This argument is flawed for relative v. absolute reasons. The premise is absolute – popular means politically effective. Using that premise, the argument could validly infer that the “human body” metaphor is politically effective (since it's popular).
But instead the argument makes the relative claim that the “human body” metaphor is more effective than various others. Just because I am short does not mean I am shorter than various other people.
Which one of the following ███████████ ██ █████ ████ ███████ ███ ████████ █████████
In authoritarian societies, ███ ████████ ██ ███████ ██ █ ██████ ██ ████ ██ █████████ ██ ███ ███████████████ █████████
This respects the premise that popular = politically effective, as it should, and points out that just because the “human body” metaphor is popular (and therefore politically effective), that does not guarantee it is more popular than any other metaphor. There’s no rule saying only one metaphor can be effective. This is the relative v. absolute distinction.
Every society tries ██ ███████ ███ ██████████ ██ ███ ██████████ ███████ ███ ███ ██ █████████
This argument’s conclusion compares one metaphor against another when it comes to promoting authoritarian values. It says “the human body metaphor makes better fascist propaganda than the family metaphor.”
The idea that every society uses metaphors sits off to the side of this argument’s much more narrow claims.
The metaphor of ███████ ██ █ █████ ████ ██ █████████ ████ ██ ████████████████ ██████████
This argument’s conclusion compares one metaphor against another when it comes to promoting authoritarian values. It says “the human body metaphor makes better fascist propaganda than the family metaphor.”
Perhaps (C) suggests that the human body metaphor also makes good democratic propaganda. But does it? Is the metaphor popular in these nonauthoritarian societies? (C) is a limp noodle if all it’s saying is that the metaphor is sometimes used. Perhaps it’s used very rarely, has very little traction, and is politically unuseful in nonauthoritarian societies.
Authoritarian leaders are ██████ █████████ ███ ███ █████████ ███ ███████ ██ █████ ██████ ██ ████████ █████ ██████
This argument’s conclusion compares one metaphor against another when it comes to promoting authoritarian values. It says “the human body metaphor makes better fascist propaganda than the family metaphor.”
The idea that every authoritarian uses metaphors sits off to the side of this argument’s much more narrow claims.
The metaphor of ███████ ██ █ █████ ████ ████████ ██ █ ████ ██ ██████ ████ ██ ███████ ████████████
Putting aside the argument’s relative v. absolute problems and treating the conclusion as just “the human body metaphor is a politically effective way to spread authoritarianism,” (E) actually strengthens the argument by suggesting the metaphor is not politically useful in nonauthoritarian societies.
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