Ryan Skinnell
Aug 9, 2021

Thanks for your response, Nick. It hadn't occured to me to call Hitler's sweatiness enargeia (which I usually think of as vivid imagery in language, but why couldn't it be physical?), so thanks for that. I think you put your finger in particular on the problem of writing about Hitler generally--how do you balance the need to get close without falling into the trap of empathizing or even appearing to empathize? It's not a problem I've solved, and probably won't, but it's one I think about a lot. But even as I do, like you, I also worry that we won't learn the lessons.

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Ryan Skinnell
Ryan Skinnell

Written by Ryan Skinnell

I know stuff about rhetoric and Nazis. Writer, speaker, professor, burrito aficionado. Public Voices Fellow w/TheOpEdProject www.RyanSkinnell.com ~views mine~

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Why not indeed? Your feature image shows Goebbels just behind him. He at least knew that technology was transforming what was traditionally understood as a political community. My mind drifts back to Shakespeare’s use of catachresis in Marc Antony’s…

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