The distilled enthymeme and visual argument: ideological interpretations after digital editing

Abstract

This essay will examine how visual enthymemes are used in visual war rhetoric to convey a rhetorical message about violence in imagery. Drawing from existing literature on naturalistic and unnaturalistic enthymemes, this essay will argue that images containing violence produce a new form of enthymematic argument: the distilled enthymeme that absolves their guilt for the violence. I will describe in three stages the progression of the enthymematic form that brings about this cathartic ritual beginning with the naturalistic enthymeme followed by the unnaturalistic enthymeme and ultimately concluding that the distilled enthymeme is a product of pre-conceived viewer ideology and digital editing. I argue the distilled enthymeme is a form of argumentation employed by the image creator to draw upon the audience’s ideological beliefs to persuade them to view the reality of images as real if they affirm our beliefs and fake when they don’t, thus making deliberations on policy or morality secondary, particularly over issues involving violence.

Keywords:

• Argumentation
• enthymeme
• violence
• war rhetoric

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.