Rhetoric & Logic

Exhibit A · The Kinnock lift

Verdict · Manufactured ethos · manufactured-ethos

Not a quotation. In September 1987 he used, without credit, lines from Neil Kinnock about a coal-mining family and being the first to college. He withdrew the speech that month. An earlier version set the description in quotation marks.

Rhetoric · In 1987 he used, without credit, the life story of British Labour leader Neil Kinnock — a coal-miner father, a first in the family to college. The room was asked to hear biography as qualification.

Logic · The words were Kinnock’s life, not his. He withdrew the lift that September. An unattributed quotation presented as one’s own past is not evidence about one’s past. The argument from origin fails because the origin was someone else’s.

Source · 1987 withdrawal after the uncredited Kinnock speech. Wikipedia summary of the contemporaneous record.

Exhibit B · You ain’t Black

Verdict · Manufactured ethos · manufactured-ethos

If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t Black.

Rhetoric · A radio challenge, said with a blade. The audience is sorted: weigh Trump, and the identity does not hold.

Logic · “You ain’t Black” treats a vote as a racial test. A vote is not a membership criterion. The inference from disagreement to expulsion is aimed at the listener, not at a premise. He called it a mistake. The sentence remains the test he set.

Source · The Breakfast Club, 22 May 2020. Apology the same day. Politico.