#20 - Critic: Political utility determines the popularity

[jmb089]

Can someone please explain this question and why A is the correct answer?

[Jeremy Press]

Hi jmb,

It's very important in this Weaken question to properly identify the main conclusion, which is the first sentence: "Political utility determines the popularity of a metaphor." This is a cause and effect claim (utility causes popularity).

The author goes on to support that conclusion by claiming that the "human body" (as society) metaphor is pervasive (popular) in authoritarian societies, connecting this pervasiveness (popularity) to the political utility the metaphor has (it "promotes greater acceptance of authoritarian repression"). The author also makes an explicit comparison that suggests a different metaphor for society (society as family) has less political utility. If we're to believe the cause and effect relationship the author is arguing (utility causes popularity), then a metaphor with less political utility (like the family metaphor) ought not to be as popular (as pervasive).

Answer choice A thus weakens the author's argument, because it shows that a metaphor with less utility (the family metaphor) is just as pervasive as the body metaphor. This suggests that there's some cause of the popularity/pervasiveness of these metaphors other than just political utility.

I hope this helps!

Jeremy

[ivan.l99]

Could anyone elaborate as to why C is wrong?

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Sure Ivan.

I like to start by focusing on the conclusion. Here, the conclusion is that the society-as-a-body metaphor promotes greater acceptance of authoritarian regimes than the society-as-family metaphor. Answer choice (C) is a shell game answer choice. It talks about nonauthoritarian regimes, and what metaphors are used there. It doesn't say what impact the metaphors have in nonauthoritarian regimes, or why they might use a certain metaphor in those regimes.

The conclusion in the stimulus is causal. The cause is the society-as-body metaphor, and the effect is greater acceptance of authoritarian regimes. The problem with answer choice (C) is that it doesn't really address the effect. The answer choice tells us that the society-as-body metaphor is sometimes used in non-authoritarian societies, but we don't know if the people there would be more accepting of an authoritarian regime than in places where that metaphor is not used.

Hope that helps!