Winds of change and our shared European past

The waves of disinformation are already here, putting the blame again on the European Union, as in the Financial Crisis of 2008. After years of negligent state policies promoted or tolerated by ruling political parties and social majorities of each country in the EU, which have led directly to yet another avoidable crisis. After years of state inactivity in the supranational political arena, hindering European social integration, and stripping EU institutions of any real power. The culprits are, again, not we, but they: evil and foreign hands pulling invisible strings from Brussels. The Age of Populism at its … Read the rest “Winds of change and our shared European past”

Rhetoric of debates, discussions and arguments: Useful destructive criticism for scientific & academic research, reasons and personal opinions; the example of Proto-Indo-European language revival

Rhetoric (Wikipedia) is the art of harnessing reason, emotions and authority, through language, with a view to persuade an audience and, by persuading, to convince this audience to act, to pass judgement or to identify with given values. The word derives from PIE root wer-, ‘speak’, as in MIE zero-grade wrdhom, ‘word’, or full-grade werdhom, ‘verb’; from wrētōr ρήτωρ (rhētōr), “orator” [built like e.g. wistōr (<*wid–tor), Gk. ἵστωρ (histōr), “a wise man, one who knows right, a judge” (from which ‘history’), from PIE root weid-, ‘see, know’]; from … Read the rest “Rhetoric of debates, discussions and arguments: Useful destructive criticism for scientific & academic research, reasons and personal opinions; the example of Proto-Indo-European language revival”