In Aristophanes' Wasps , Bdelykleon tells his jury-mad father that because the allied states are aware that the ordinary Athenian juror is an exploited creature, deliberately kept poor by the demagogues in whose hands the real power lies, σ μν γονΤαι Κννου ψφον, Τοτοισι δ δωρоφоρоῡσιν. The scholia see that Κόννου ψφον must mean ‘something worthless’, but they add on the authority of Kallistratos and Euphronios that Ar. has altered the original phrase: ΚαλλĺστραΤος παροιμαν φησ “Κόννου θρον”, παρ՚ ν παίζει (...) Εφρόνιος δ τι λέΧθη δι τ δύν τινα τν Κόννον εναι. … ψφον δ επε δι δι τ περ δικαστο λγειν. We cannot tell whether Euphronios was commenting on κóννον θριον or κóννον ψον, since although he was writing before Kallistratos, the latter need not have been the first to cite the phrase κóννον θριον in connection with our passage; indeed, the credit for first noting its relevance may belong to Euphronios himself. I shall be reverting to Euphronios' interpretation of the phrase presently. (shrink)

In this project, I develop the concept of a sexualized violence figleaf, a speech mechanism often used in sexualized violence discourse to dismiss or characterize assault as some other kind of thing: a misunderstanding, a change of heart by the victim, a mischaracterization of the perpetrator, or any other number of things which are not rape, or violence. Sexualized violence figleaves are an extension of Jennifer Saul's work on racial and gender figleaves, as the underlying mechanics of the utterance (...) track those of Saul's figleaves. In other words, I am developing a figleaf variant, showing that this conceptual tool is useful for analysing utterances beyond racist, sexist, and conspiracist speech, upon which Saul focuses. Rather, bringing figleaves into the realm of sexualized violence discourse illuminates features of the discourse which are often obscured by the prevalence of strong social intuitions about rapists and their corresponding character. (shrink)

Recently, Jennifer Saul (“Racial Figleaves, the Shifting Boundaries of the Permissible, and the Rise of Donald Trump”, 2017; “Racist and Sexist Figleaves”, 2021) has explored the use of what she calls “figleaves” in the discourse on race and gender. Following Saul, a figleaf is an utterance that, for some portion of the audience, blocks the conclusion that some other utterance, R, or the person who uttered R is racist or sexist. Such racial and gender figleaves are pernicious, says Saul, (...) because, among other things, they can shift the boundaries of what is deemed acceptable to think or say. This paper expands on Saul’s picture in a threefold way: It is first argued that appeals to statistics can function as figleaves. It is then argued that—as far as figleaves go—there is reason to believe that statistics-as-figleaves are especially pernicious. Finally, the paper explores some strategies for counterspeech. (shrink)

It is widely accepted that political discourse in recent years has become more openly racist and more filled with wildly implausible conspiracy theories. Dogwhistles and Figleaves explores certain ways in which such changes—both of which defied previously settled norms of political speech—have been brought about. Jennifer Saul shows that two linguistic devices, dogwhistles and figleaves, have played a crucial role. Some dogwhistles (such as “88,” used by Nazis online to mean “Heil Hitler”) serve to disguise messages that would otherwise be (...) rejected as unacceptable, allowing them to be transmitted surreptitiously. Other dogwhistles (like the 1988 “Willie Horton” ad) work by influencing people in ways that they are not aware of, and which they would likely reject were they aware. Figleaves (such as “just asking questions”) take messages that could easily be recognized as unacceptable, and provide just enough cover that people become more willing to accept them. Importantly, these work against the background of a divided public. They are particularly effective in influencing people who are conflicted yet malleable—those who don’t want to be racist, for example, but are willing to be convinced that something which seems racist really isn’t. Saul shows how these dogwhistles and figleaves have both exploited and widened existing divisions in society, and normalized racist and conspiracist speech. (shrink)