Pathetic fallacies

When I was taking Celtic studies at UC Berkeley, my Celtic studies and rhetoric professor, Dan Millia introduced us to this list. Once applied to presentism, looking back at how we so erroneously interpret the middle ages with 21st century lens—this was a brilliant tool. When he introduced the idea, I thought I had gone to heaven, I was so enamored. Suddenly, all kinds of ideas fell neatly into place, things that I didn’t have words or categories for previously. I suddenly realized that the basis, and the urge for my poetry writing was definitely tied up with defining and arguing with those pathetic fallacies. (No, not pathetic phalluses, but there’s room for argument there too.) See, I was born ready to argue under the yabbut sign (yes, but…), never taking anything at face value. Then there’s gaslighting, a whole ‘nother ball of worms.