Author Archives: Jeremy Engels

Clichés are generally thought of as overused or trite expressions, like “every cloud has a silver lining” or “nobody is perfect,” and hence given scant attention. Yet many clichés are what Richard Rorty calls “dead metaphors,” once new and provocative … Continue reading →

Escalation is a trope that attempts to create a sense of crisis by predicting future calamity. We’ve seen this trope repeatedly during the Presidential Debates; the most glaring example was Vice-President Cheney’s claim that if Senator Kerry were elected, the … Continue reading →

    The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, which exposed the psychologies that helped numerous Europeans believe that the accumulation of money (which Saint Paul had called the root of all evil) would lead to spiritual … Continue reading →