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Aristotle and an Aardvark Go to Washington
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| Editorial Reviews: | | |  | Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein, authors of the national bestseller Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar, aren?t falling for any election year claptrap?and they don?t want their readers to either! In Aristotle and an Aardvark Go to Washington, our two favorite philosopher-comedians return just in time to save us from the double-speak, flim-flam, and alternate reality of politics in America.
Deploying jokes and cartoon as well as the occasional insight from Aristotle and his peers, Cathcart and Klein explain what politicos are up to when they state: ?The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.? (Donald Rumsfeld), ?It depends on what the meaning of the word ?is? is.? (Bill Clinton), or even, ?We hold these truths to be self-evident?? (Thomas Jefferson, et al).
Drawing from the pronouncements of everyone from Caesar to Condoleeza Rice, Genghis Kahn to Hillary Clinton, and Adolf Hitler to Al Sharpton. Cathcart and Klein help us learn to identify tricks such as ?The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy? (non causa pro causa) and the ?The Fallacy Fallacy? (argumentum and logicam). Aristotle and an Aardvark is for anyone who ever felt like the politicos and pundits were speaking Greek. At least Cathcart and Klein provide the Latin name for it (raudatio publica)! | |
| Custom Reviews: | |
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| | I watched the authors on C-SPAN during their book tour and was intrigued.
I just bought the book, and I am... disappointed.
Oh, the jokes are amusing enough, and the explanation of logical fallacies is dead simple to understand, and the examples given are spot on- let's make no dispute on that. A quick reading of this book will educate the thoughtful mind on exactly how and where our leaders are trying to fool us.
The problem is that, well, it's a quick read. It's too quick. It is, to be frank, shallow- a quick dip on each topic, then rushing on to the next, without fully developing or explaining any one item, much less all of them. This is a book to which the word "profound" need not apply; there are no openings available.
The book also suffers from leaning too heavily on the Bush administration for examples. True, George W. Bush and his cronies have raised lying to the voters to new heights, but there needs to be political balance in an educational work such as this; otherwise a large portion of the readership will tune it out as being partisan. I say again, Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft, Gonzales, Rice, and the rest of the Bush White House employ logical fallacies and outright deception like Olympic champions- but that's no excuse for failing to give more than token gestures to demonstrating Democrats' equally offensive use of the tactics.
One final quibble: if you can use the eight letter word for bovine excreta without censorship, you can use its four letter root word without censorship. If you can't say the word without blanking out letters in the w--d, you shouldn't use the word at all. Please don't treat your readers like little kids, especially since little kids know quite well what "the F word" is- even if they might not know what it means.
| | | I suppose I'm just piling on, but I also was quite disappointed with Aristotle and an Aardvark after enjoying Cathcart and Klein's previous book. I expected some bashing of conservatives and Republicans, but I (perhaps naively) expected balance. After all, politicians are politicians no matter which side of the spectrum they pretend to be from. While there were a few examples of silliness from the other side of the aisle, Cathcart and Klein spent the majority of the book bashing President Bush and other conservatives.
However, they did provide frequent examples of ad hominem attacks, such as the many derisive pseudo-titles given the President and the "hilarious" little reference to Tom Delay's background in the extermination business. What? Does providing a needed service and running a successful business prepare a person less well for public office than getting rich through the legal extortion that is our current tort system (e.g. a certain former senator from North Carolina, presidential candidate, and moral leading light)?
I have seen far better explanations of logical fallacies in textbooks for Freshman Composition and Introductory Public Speaking. I'm sure Cathcart and Klein will cry over my critique all the way to bank; nevertheless, I won't be buying any of their work again. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. If the authors had any integrity, they would market this book with a marketing line like "If you loved Fahrenheit 911, you'll love Aristotle and an Aardvark."
Too bad I can't get my money back.
| | | The problem with this book is that unlike Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes it picks the low lying fruit, skips a tight organization, and with some light sprinkles of other material, is basically a sustained rant on George W. Bush.
Not that GWB & crew don't make for great examples, but the other book was timeless, this book is locked into an era. Not only that, the lead line about Aristotle isn't a clear joke, just the title and forced into the book later.
This could have been much better with some work.
| | | Good and entertaining, but if you learn anything from the book you'll be able to identify some of the authors' own fallacious arguments. Just goes to show that personal politics blinds even the experts.
| | Funny Erudite and irreverent | |
| | Good read if you've been baffled by the slippery verbiage which has been flowing out of Washington recently. Fun stuff to explore and marvel at.
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