> “That's a much stronger effect on the reader than just reading person A asserts fact B without them showing the work.” Exactly. That stronger effect is a ver

> “That's a much stronger effect on the reader than just reading person A asserts fact B without them showing the work.” Exactly. That stronger effect is a very bad thing. In this article maybe it was used for morally good purposes to help you understand the differences in treatment of consent in rape cases or prostitution cases. But then tomorrow someone uses the same rhetorical trick to have an emotionally “stronger effect” on the reader because of some one-off harrowing tale about a consensual prostitution story that turned out very badly, and now suddenly readers’ emotional judgments have swung back the other way and they feel like so-and-so’s gripping op-ed justifies a belief that prostitution cannot contain consent. It’s naive to think this kind of “dress up the facts with a narrative” approach would only serve “good” purposes, rather than being used to reinforce existing harmful biases or prejudices, fan the flames of nationalism, etc. It’s pretty much equally naive to think you can personally identify when it is “good” emotional rhetoric vs when it is bad. It’s like saying, “advertising doesn’t work on me.” This is why regardless of the effect in this one idiosyncratic situation it has got to be systematically ignored and boiled down to analytical judgment not significantly affected by emotional or situational window dressing. This process of boiling down to facts has got to be elevated as a more important social norm in our world.