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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™
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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
“Pick A Card, Any Card”: Learning To Deceive And Conceal – With Care, Brian Rappert
“Pick A Card, Any Card”: Learning To Deceive And Conceal – With Care, Brian Rappert
Secrecy and Society
Because of the asymmetries in knowledge regarding the underlying hidden mechanisms as well as because of the importance of intentional deception, entertainment magic is often presented as an exercise in power, manipulation, and control. This article challenges such portrayals and through doing so common presumptions about how secrets are kept. It does so through recounting the experiences of the author as a beginner learning a craft. Regard for the choices and tensions associated with the accomplishment of mutually recognized deception in entertainment magic are marshalled to consider how it involves ‘reciprocal action’ between the audience and the performer. Attending to …
The Rhetorical Devices Of The Keepers Of State Secrets, Stephane Lefebvre
The Rhetorical Devices Of The Keepers Of State Secrets, Stephane Lefebvre
Secrecy and Society
This article examines a set of rhetorical devices forming a linguistic practice that are used repeatedly by secret keepers in the United States and the United Kingdom when legally and popularly arguing against the disclosure of state secrets. Each of these devices (using lists, using the future conditional, arguing from ignorance and authority, arguing from consequences, and arguing by analogy) play a role in shaping our social understanding of state secrecy. More importantly, these devices provide secret keepers a means by which to assert their knowledge and expertise, and to legitimize, if judges agree with them, the nondisclosure of state …