Sophistical Machinations: No.8 (Earnest Triviality)

With this trick the attempt is to have something accepted as important, which, without special pleading, pomposity, and earnest mugging, would be thought trivial.

Usually one descends upon a matter thitherto neglected in proportion to its triviality and proclaims its importance in inverse proportion thereto; so much so that often in the perennial search for originality by those insufficiently intelligent to make something both original and worthwhile, “the less it signifies, the more it qualifies” [1].

Being that the pitch of one’s proclamations of importance should increase in proportion to the smallness of the matter, the peak performance should be an hysterical screech of qualifying gibberish and a high whine of protestation; for undoubtedly one’s exultation of triviality will bring its detractors, in which case, sneering critics may be painted as part of a conservative-reactionary clique who would have important work marginalised in order to preserve the status quo.

It would do us all well to remember that nothing is so trivial that it cannot be taken seriously by an academic under pressure to publish.

[1] The phrase is not mine, and I cannot remember where I read it. I beg the pardon of its author.