Opinion Quotes - page 86
[Television, radio, and magazines] are so designed as to make thinking seem unnecessary (though this is only an appearance). The packaging of intellectual positions and views is one of the most active enterprises of some of the best minds of our day. The viewer of television, the listener to radio, the reader of magazines, is presented with a whole complex of elements-all the way from ingenious rhetoric to carefully selected data and statistics-to make it easy for him to "make up his own mind” with the minimum of difficulty and effort. But the packaging is often done so effectively that the viewer, listener, or reader does not make up his own mind at all. Instead, he inserts a packaged opinion into his mind, somewhat like inserting a cassette into a cassette player. He then pushes a button and "plays back” the opinion whenever it seems appropriate to do so. He has performed acceptably without having had to think.
Mortimer Adler
And so these men of Hindustan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right
And all were in the wrong. So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!
John Godfrey Saxe
We are forced to distinguish between three kinds of speech: (1) The external, "rhetorical speech,” in the common meaning of this expression, which only refers to images because they affect the passions. Since these images do not stem from insight, however, they remain an object of opinion. This is the case of the purely emotive, false speech: "rhetoric” in the usual negative sense. (2) The speech which arises exclusively from a rational proceeding. It is true that this is of a demonstrative character, but it cannot have a rhetorical effect because purely rational arguments do not attain to the passions, i.e., "theoretical” speech in the usual sense. (3) The true rhetorical speech. This springs from the archai, nondeductible, moving, and indicative, due to its original images. The original speech is that of the wise man, of the sophos, who is not only epistetai, but who with insight leads, guides, and attracts.
Ernesto Grassi
The possibility of my presidential candidacy emerged spontaneously in public opinion polls. For my part, I noticed people's affection when I was doing work on the ground. I think the important thing is that my candidacy was born from citizens themselves, driven by the people and which the parties picked up favourably.
Michelle Bachelet
