Fake Aristotle Offers Banality

Always be on the lookout for placeholder words. It's possible to say absolutely nothing in an emotionally compelling way via strategic use of faux-meaningful terms. We "fill them in" ourselves, investing them with meaning drawn from our preverbal strata of subconscious fears and desires. That's how crowds are provoked into madness. Resist being herded via this age-old sophistry.

Consider Obama's "Yes we can!" and "Hope and change". Empty placeholder words wielded in an emotionally resonant fashion (note: I thought Obama was a pretty good president). But that was an election campaign, while Aristotle's presumably trying to be more salient.

In this case the placeholder word is "heart". I discussed it in the context of this Goethe quote, but, here, the entire argument hinges on that airy metaphor. If it weren't Aristotle, I'd have brusquely hand-waved the whole thing.

In this scenario, one can check the original language for deeper meaning. Or else figure it's falsely attributed. As a social media meme, the latter is much more likely, and, indeed, this is a misattribution. So I'm not disrespecting Aristotle by pointing out that this is as vapidly banal as any stupid campaign slogan.


More pontifications on social media memes