THE RHETORIC OF DOWNPLAYING

“Remember I am sending you out like sheep among the wolves; so be as cunning as serpents and yet as harmless as doves.”

                                     -Matthew 10:16

There are people who are happy with their fault finding expedition. When I was updating my blog yesterday, there was a comment that caught my attention stating that I should hide my blog, an embarrassment, etc.  That was purely disparaging me as a person and my blog.  I called that a “The Rhetoric of Downplaying.”  This is a self-hating propaganda done by individual neurotic writer or a nervous gunner afraid to be shot dead first.  What will the writer do, downplaying the “good” of others because she/he finds happiness in that! It is a sort of innuendos against someone. It is explicit and implied derogatory statements .In politics, this is a smear campaign.  Snarl words have a psychological effect on the person being attacked but I don’t buy this idea. I used to work in a political environment when propaganda, mudslinging, ad hominem attacks, graft and corruption were part of the game. Where there were rhetoric of haves and have-nots and the rhetoric of the conservative and the progressive. Where there was a “Pep Talk or there was “The Pitch.” When there was downplaying and intensifying scheme.

Why read my blog if you accused me that I am not good, my grammar is bad, an embarrassment? Why tell me that I have to hide my blog? Have you made a restriction law on blogging? Did you inform Google that you pass a bill on restriction law? The fact that you visited my blog is  that I gained your attention and interest. If you are a bloodhound and I stain my blog with my blood, you cannot refuse visiting my blog.  If you are a vampire and I put blood on my blog, you cannot refuse the smell.   If you  thwarted my blog, then don't visit.

Meaning of Pep Talk:  n: usu, brief, high-pressure, and emotional
designed to influence or encourage audience.

Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary. 

Note: Caricature from the Book of "The Pep Talk" by Hugh Rank.