Anamnesis (an’-am-nee’-sis): Calling to memory past matters. More specifically, citing a past author [apparently] from memory. Anamnesis helps to establish ethos [credibility], since it conveys the idea that the speaker is knowledgeable of the received wisdom from the past.
“Back in the good old days.” What made them good? Like Plato said in his dialogue on interest free loans: “Daracmagoras,” “if it’s old it isn’t true.” He argues that truth is unchanging and timeless and can only exist in your head. Ironically, it makes you believe that it exists “out there.” It’s a lie, and so is our talk about it, which is more of an illusion than a lie. We are persuaded that things are true and we disagree about what is true—it’s all a dream, but it works.
The used car salesman told me: “It has a little rust on the body, but under the hood it’s like a new born baby.” It smelled like it needed its diaper change. I looked under the hood—it looked like it had been used as a kitty litter box. The salesman said he would knock $500 off the price and get it cleaned up, and also, it came with a five-day warranty covering the tires and trunk lock. That reminded me: I looked in the trunk. There was a homeless man eating a peanut butter sandwich and pan handling. I gave him a dollar and told him to go somewhere else. He shook his head and climbed out of the trunk. He thanked me. He had been stuck in the trunk for two days. He said “men with guns” had pushed him into the trunk when he skipped two car payments. The car salesman raised his hands and shook his head, “No, no, no, that’s not true! If it is true, they pushed him into the trunk of the wrong car. I’ll knock another $200 of the price, for all your trouble.” I heard a voice in paint saying “I’ll pay! I’ll pay” from behind the showroom, along with a rhythmic whacking sound.
So far, I had a $700 discount and a warranty on the table. I told the salesman he needed to knock another $200 off the price. He said he couldn’t do that, but he’d could clean the windshield with a special formula and make sure the horn worked properly at no extra cost. I told him it sounded like some kind of scam. He backed off and gave me another $100 discount and a lace-on steering wheel cover, and a toy black cat that went in the back window, and whose eyes were directional signals. That sealed the deal!
The car broke down as I drove it home. The blinking cat had short circuited and started a fire in the trunk. We didn’t have cell phones, but the fire department showed. By that time, the trunk was a blackened smoking mess. They sawed it off. As the sparks were flying from the saw blade, I thought, “It was the damn cat, not the car that caused all this mayhem.” That helped. AAA arrived and towed my car away to “Nutty Putty Collision Repair.” I was close enough to home to walk. As I walked along, I saw a black kitten sitting on the sidewalk. It meowed as I walked past. It looked like the blinker cat who had burned to a crisp in my car’s back window. It followed me home. I let it in and kept it. I named it “Smokey.” He changed my life. I believed I loved him—everywhere, all the time, the same.
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)
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