Alienated America by Timothy P. Carney FTP: Potent Bridging Statements

Making an argument is an art form.

Regardless of the writing medium — copywriting, general writing, etc. — it’s easy to make a sweeping, generalized statement. And sometimes, readers will know the statements as true, but they aren’t sure of the granularity. As in, what are the ingredients of that truth.

Language in Thought and Action by S.I. Hayakawa and Alan R. Hayakawa (easily among the top ten books about writing ever written) teaches how language works like a ladder. At the bottom, you find granularity and hard truths or knowns. At the top of the ladder, you have the soaring, visionary rhetoric that is not quite grounded. And you can use both, granularity and soaring, as a way to make your points. A spectrum of uses, good or bad, exists on that ladder. Sometimes, deep philosophical thought may only exist in the soaring, despite it feeling and sounding true, and maybe observable, but it’s beyond testing. Other times, like many sales letters or sloganeering, it just spits out alluring nonsense. On the flip side, if you go too granular, it reads like an ingredient list. It’s boring. A balance exists.