Diasyrmus (di’-a-syrm-os): Rejecting an argument through ridiculous comparison.
It was time to go to work again. Many students hated me. They called me Professor Piss-Face, or PF for short. I had learned to be an intolerant bastard in graduate school. My university had a religious affiliation. Dogma ruled and unflappable single mindedness was prized. Being impervious to other peoples’ points of view was the gold standard. We brought in unwitting zealots and believers of all stripes as guest speakers so we could gang up on them, disorient them, and send them away in a state of anomie. This is what God intended: total unremitting intolerance for all “ways of thinking” different from our own.
We were taught how to smash others’ arguments with “ridiculous comparisons.” Our university was named after what, for thousands of years, had accomplished this purpose: Diasyrmus University. When I had completed and defended my dissertation “Your Argument Wreaks of Sewer Gas,” I was ready to take my first teaching position. I had been employed by Tough University. It admitted students who had a hard time dealing with criticism. Most of them have terrible relationships with their parents—ranging from yelling matches, to fistfights, to sobbing, to death threats. The problems are rooted in ill-founded recalcitrance. We are there to provide them well-founded recalcitrance.
My first day of class.
Course Titled: “I’m Right, So Shut Up.”
Some Critical Gems From Class: Your argument is nothing more than a fart, your argument is like a banjo with no strings, your argument is like a raspberry stuck up a baboon’s ass, your argument is like using baloney slices to sole your shoes, your argument is like cheating on your girlfriend with a tomato.
As you can see I blew them apart. One guy wet his pants when I laid into him. There was a girl who became paralyzed and had to be carried out of class. These “bad” kids crumbled like Graham crackers. Through their tears a number of them begged for more. Of course, I had office hours in my “Cell” where I meet one-on-one to give individual students the verbal lashings they crave.
My article “Eat Me” will be published in spring in the philosophy journal “One Truth.” It is a dialogue between Goog, a cave man, and Jockatres an adherent of “The Sarcastic Method.” It vividly displays the power of the put-down as an instrument of philosophy. I’m sure it will win some kind of award and a fat pay-raise for me.
Dean Hellbrighter came by my office yesterday and told me she wanted one of my fabled tongue lashings. Of course, I complied. Afterwards, she told me my discourse was like a wet noodle looking through the keyhole of a door I will never open. Her insult was edifying. I’m planning on quoting her in my next class.
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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