[PEN-L:2091] Re: The pseudo-interrogative mode of discourse

[Brad De Long <delong@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Re:
>
>Recirculating the charge that Rakesh Bhandari is a Nazi, however buffered
>it is with a question mark, is pretty offensive to me, and I hope it is to
>other people too.
>
>Doug

Charles Maier has a couple of nice paragraphs on what he calls
"pseudo-interrogative" rhetoric in his book _The Unmasterable Past_:

	"What [Ernst] Nolte actually proposes... is
	often unclear. Is he offering the historian's
	judgment, or just a possible reconstruction of
	how the National Socialist leadership may have
	viewed the world?... Implications take refuge
	in question marks, hypotheses, and subjunctives.
	For this prose we need to invent a new grammatical
	mode: the pseudo-interrogative." (p. 67).

	"[S]ome inquiries are... disguised theses,
	proposed in a pseudo-interrogative mode. If
	that is the case, then proofs and argumentation
	must be produced to substantiate them; they
	cannot just be thrown out as open-ended
	hypotheses. Otherwise they travel under
	false passports.... Who, however, decides
	whether a question is genuine or a disguised
	thesis?... There is a test. A genuine historical
	question will not influence opinion unless
	it is actually answered. A spurious one is
	designed to sway opinion by virtue of its
	just being asked..."


Brad DeLong