Monday, November 07, 2005
(12:52 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
An analysis of smacking
In scholarly usage, things that "smack" are always avoided, but they are avoided not in themselves, but for the sake of that of which they smack. In the formula "anything that smacks of X," the ultimate object of avoidance is X; the "anything" is avoided insofar as it participates in the essence of X. Not only is the smacker indifferent ("anything"), but the very nature of the smacking relationship is never specified. Thus, for instance, to nearly any statement, one could respond, "But my good sir, that smacks of fascism!" And indeed, to state that something can be smacked of instantly implies that the smackee is something negative: one could imagine saying, with whithering scorn, "That smacks of kittens and happiness," and thereafter reenvisioning the normally well-regarded objects ("kittens and happiness") as an insidious poison creeping through society.If one can envision the smackee as a normally positive object, however, one cannot maintain that, qua smacked-of, it is desirable. It is linguistically impossible that one would "embrace anything that smacked of X," even if, as in the above example, X were "kittens and happiness." Or to use the fascism example, one would not even be able to say that, for instance, "Hitler embraced anything that smacked of fascism" (i.e., positing an embracer who would regard as positive something that is generally regarded as negative).
Smacking casts a cloud of suspicion on the object X and on any indifferent object that can be brought into any kind of relationship with it -- if we were to pursue a gustatory metaphor, one might liken the smacked-of object to an appetizer, the taste of which one cannot get out of one's mouth, such that it taints the rest of the meal. Perhaps, moving a step further, one could say that those who wish to avoid smacked-of elements lack a certain sophistocation of pallet, and therefore that if Scholar A characterizes Scholar B of "avoiding anything that smacks of X," Scholar A is attempting to claim that for Scholar B, everything tastes like X -- or, more broadly, that Scholar B's analysis smacks of smacking.
This is a highly effective rhetorical move: an argument based on the guilt of association with guilt by association arguments. (An indefinite regress is of course possible here.)
