Logical Reasoning

PT110 · S3 · Q20 Critic: Political utility determines the

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Critic: Political utility determines the popularity of a metaphor.

Conclusion (therefore)

The society-as-body-governed-by-a-head metaphor promotes greater acceptance of authoritarian repression than do other metaphors (such as society-as-family).

Evidence

Political utility determines metaphor popularity. The body-with-head metaphor is pervasive in authoritarian societies.

Evaluate

The first two sentences give us premises with an overlapping idea of "popularity / prevalence". We can synthesize those two claims to get the idea that

in authoritarian societies, the metaphor of society as a human body has a lot of political utility.

That's what the premises establish: this metaphor has a lot of political utility for authoritarians.

The author takes it from there to the idea that, .

We don't know anything about other metaphors. Are they also pervasive in authoritarian societies? Do they also have political utility? The author is Assuming a Difference, thinking that the Body metaphor is more pervasive /useful than the other metaphors.

Even if we grant that the Body metaphor is the most useful metaphor, does its usefulness have to be "promoting acceptance of repression"?

Couldn't there be other things that are politically useful to an authoritarian government? Maybe the Body metaphor encourages different components of society to work more nicely with each other.

Goal

Let's look for an answer saying that the Body metaphor is useful for some reason unrelated to "getting the people to accept repression", or for an answer making it seem like one of the other metaphors could be just as pervasive / useful.

20.

Which one of the following statements, if true, most weakens the critic's argument?

Correct
In authoritarian societies, the metaphor
Why this is right
This blows up the author's Assumed Difference. The author is voting for the Body metaphor as the winning metaphor based solely on it being pervasive (and thus useful). If the Family metaphor is just as pervasive/useful, then the author hasn't provided any reason to favor Body over Family. Like if I said, "You should buy a Civic, not a Corolla, because a Civic has a 10 year warranty", and you said, "Sure, but a Corolla also has a 10 year warranty."
Skill tested: Weaken · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
75% picked this
Every society tries to justify
No Impact
The fact that all societies use metaphors tells us nothing about whether, for authoritarian governments, the Body metaphor is better than other metaphors, such as the Family metaphor.
3% picked this
The metaphor of society as
No Impact
The very weak fact that at least one non-authoritarian society uses the Body metaphor doesn't give us a way to judge whether the Body metaphor is more useful for authoritarian governments to normalize repression than are other metaphors. We might think, "well if non-authoritarians use the Body metaphor, then how could the Body metaphor be good for authoritarian purposes?" But the same thing can be used by different people for different purposes. Some people who own turntables don't use them to make record scratching noises, but that doesn't undermine the idea that 1980's DJ's used turntables for that purpose.
14% picked this
Authoritarian leaders are always searching
No Impact
The fact that authoritarian leaders search for new metaphors doesn't help us judge the critic's claim about which existing metaphor better promotes acceptance of repression.
5% picked this
The metaphor of society as
No Impact
This actually fits the critic's narrative: if the body metaphor is rare in liberal democracies, that's consistent with the metaphor being especially associated with authoritarianism.
3% picked this

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