Cheated out of our understandings

Ward Farnsworth gives as one of his examples of conduplicatio this extract from Webster's Senate speech against President Andrew Jackson's removal of the deposits from the Bank of the United States: "Sir, I pronounce the author of such sentiments to be guilty of attempting a detestable fraud on the community; a double fraud; a fraud which is to cheat men out of their property, and out of the earnings of their labor, by first cheating them out of their understandings."

The corporate world seems often to operate on the basis of this species of fraud, and the principal tool employed to cheat managers and governance committees of their understandings is the Powerpoint presentation, and the major culprit is the mode of thought engendered by bullet points. Richard Feynman noticed this when he participated in the investigation of the Challenger space shuttle accident.

"Then we learned about “bullets” – little black circles in front of phrases that were supposed to summarize things. There was one after another of these little goddamn bullets in our briefing books and on the slides."

Webster went on express his faith that his fellow citizens would never sink to being deluded by abominable frauds and so far cease to be men ... "Sir, it shall not be till the last moment of my existence - it shall be only when I am drawn to the verge of oblivion - hen I shall cease to have respect or affection for any thing on earth - that I will believe the people of the United States capable of being effectually deluded, cajoled, and driven about in herds, by such abominable frauds as this. If they shall sink to that point - if they so far cease to be men - thinking men, intelligent men - as to yield to such pretences and such clamour, they will be slaves already; slaves to their own passions - slaves to the fraud and knavery of pretended friends. They will deserve to be blotted out of all the records of freedom; they ought not to dishonour the cause of republican liberty, if they are capable of being the victims of artifices so shallow - of tricks so stale, so threadbare, so often practised, so much worn out, on serfs and slaves."

And yet the shallow artifices seem to flourish and thrive, and what is more: generate substantial revenue.