Dumbing Down an Argument
I decided to edit Mark Bauerlein’s The Chronicle of Higher Education blog post, ‘Society Is Dumbing Down’. Similar to his other writing on his blog, Bauerlein’s writing in this blog post is straight to the point, as in, he does not make use of flowery language and anecdotes. However, when aiming to write straight to the point, one should, in fact, have a point.
This post has major issues regarding clarification. Bauerlein’s implicit and incomplete argument leaves readers wondering what the point of his post is.
Clarity is the biggest issue here because a reader actually has to assume, based on the title no less, what the author’s claim is. The title of a piece should give a reader an idea of what might be discussed, but should not be the only place where the main point of the work lies. I assume, based on the title and general flow of the piece, that the author’s purpose is to inform and persuade readers, but he does very little of either due to an almost complete lack of information. Without the title, I would probably be thoroughly confused about the direction of this article. As I began reading his post, I assumed Bauerlein would include evidence that would support the claim that society is dumbing down; however, the evidence alone is too insufficient to do so.
In the chapter "Appeals to Place"in his book Appeals in Modern Rhetoric, Killingworth discusses how rhetorician Kenneth Burke devised an approach to the analysis of everything from single sentences to complex literary texts. He called this method “dramatism” and in the simplest possible explanation, dramatism is basically an elaboration of the classic journalistic questions: who, what, when, where, how, and why? Burke expanded upon the ratios between these dramatistic elements that result from their specific relationships with each other. (52) If Bauerlein applied this concept to his blog post, readers would likely be left with a much richer understanding of the components of his argument and how they work together to further his unclear claim.
He only writes about five lines in this blog post. The remaining content is entirely quoted material. Bauerlein does not include supporting evidence for why he included what he included. The piece could be greatly improved upon with his explanation of his motives and some reaction to the research. It is one thing to let the facts speak for themselves, but this is not written in a compelling enough way for that to be the case. It is nice that he uses specific evidence and distinctly embraces intertextuality, but the article is lacking substance and the evidence does not clearly support any claims. Bauerlein does little to bring any additional information or context to his argument. He does provide links for the reader to learn more about the study; however, the majority of the links are broken.
In his post, Bauerlein reduces a complex argument to key points, which is impressive, but the way in which he does so causes readers to lose all the important information, including the general basis for why his argument exists. There is also a serious issue with obscurity. He does not make any original claims and he does nothing to aide readers’ understanding. In “Finding the Good Argument,” Jones explains that “What is often missing…is research, consideration of multiple vantage points, and, quite often, basic logic” (157,158). This seems to be the case in Bauerlein’s writing.
Technically Bauerlein includes transitions in “Society is Dumbing Down,” but readers are unable to follow his thought process since he does not expound on how he links one claim with a subsequent one. The lack of logical transitions, in addition to the bland organization of the piece, erases the distinction between supporting quotes and major claims. The reader has no way to identify which parts of the piece create the main idea because the author does not expand or comment on any of the piece’s components.
Since most of the article consists of quotations there is not much room for line editing. I did, however, edit the organization, use of the quotes, and apparent gaps in the post. My strength in editing this piece lies in being able to recognize what is wrong. An unfortunate weakness is my limitation in fixing the main problem due to lack of context and inability to create Bauerlein’s claims for him.
Citizen Criticism
In “Reading and Writing for Civic Literacy: A Critical Citizen’s Guide,” Donald Lazere introduces and illustrates many terms regarding citizen criticism, some of which align with Corbett and Eberly's discussion of citizen criticism in The Elements of Reasoning. These concepts can be applied to Nat Nakasa’s “Writing in South Africa” in order to analyze the rhetorical strategies that Nakasa employs to appeal to his audience.
Lazere discusses viewpoint, bias and fairness of a citizen critic. Corbett and Eberly highlight the different diversions of reasoning. Both pieces discuss “false dilemma” and how it affects becoming a citizen critic. Corbett and Eberly define false dilemma as something that “forces a range of choices into an either/or structure” (128). As I was reading “Writings in South Africa,” I noticed that Nakasa does a good job avoiding false dilemma, at least in dichotomy, and instead presents a wide variety of issues and possible causes. His argument is spherical in that sense.
Reading and Writing for Civic Literacy and The Elements of Reasoning both discuss a similar concept that Corbert and Eberly call the “straw man” and Lazere calls relativism. Corbet and Eberly define the “straw man” as a tactic that “involves exaggerating opponent’s position and then representing that exaggeration as his position” (130). Nakasa’s writing style could make a reader question if he uses the straw man as a strategy. Nakasa’s writing is dramatic and playfully wordy, while it does provide an entertaining read, it is difficult for a reader to establish what is factual and what is a dramatic representation.
The author’s ideas also overlap regarding logical fallacies (errors in reasoning that invalidate an argument) such as “stacking the deck” and “begging the question.” According to Corbett and Eberly, begging the question “occurs when a reasoned makes a statement that assumes the very thing he wants to persuade a reasoning partner or audience of in his reasoning” (125). There is an instance of this in Nakasa’s writing when he is discussing the prevalence of the English language and assumes Africans would take interest in it, in which he jumps to a conclusion that is not logically supported by the factors he outlines. Nakasa does, however, do an excellent job avoiding stacking the deck, the concept of rejecting or ignoring evidence that supports an opposing argument, by incorporating multiple exceptions and varying viewpoints into his argument.
Lazere points out that stacking the deck is often counterproductive because it dissuades an opponent from considering the viewpoint. If the opposing side of the argument is never even mentioned, the opponent will lose interest and the will argument lack credibility. Similarly, in “I Agree, But…” McDonald supports the idea of valuing an opponent’s opinion but later introducing its flaws (206).
In Jones’s “Finding the Good Argument,” readers learn that “What is often missing from these discussions is research, consideration of multiple vantage points, and, quite often, basic logic” (157,158). Jones introduces the common mistakes of citizen criticism while Corbett and Eberly take his ideas further and categorize how these issues often integrate in writing and argumentation.
What’s in a Word? A rhetorical look at the implications of the word “rape”
(pdf available by clicking title)
In her book Working with Multimodality, Jennifer Rowsell explores the power of words and their meaning, words as a philosophical concept, and how words are mediated. Rowsell’s claims support the notion that the context of a word changes between its use in the media and its use in our everyday jargon: it becomes mediated and, as a result, the form and function of the word shifts. The problem is that this does not happen very often with the word rape. The term takes on a singular form regardless of context. Words and their context affect how people perceive issues, and since the media have major influences on our culture's behavior, individuals are likely to inherently adopt the media’s way of using a word.
The discourse surrounding the term rape is a small piece of the general argument centered on rape. But this small piece is one of the most complex because it determines our ideology of the term rape, what rape means, and how rape looks and functions in our society. This is a pervasive problem of discourse. The inferences of words like this have a huge impact on the way society views the crimes being described and, hence, how we react if we then experience or witness an incident. Our understanding of what a word means determines our actions, thoughts, and feelings about that word. If we aren’t interpreting rape correctly, how then are we to correctly identify instances of rape?
Misunderstanding the Word
In order to solve the problems associated with rape discourse, we need to create a shared meaning for the term rape. We need to stop creating degrees of rape and make it implicit as any sexual act that occurs without consent. Is it any less an act of rape if we call it date rape, acquaintance rape or statutory rape? Is it only “really” rape if it is a First Degree offense? The discussion need not be contentious. If the way we use the term encompassed all aspects of what rape actually is - an act of power and control, in which the victim is humiliated, degraded, and left with feelings of shame, guilt, and anger - it would legitimize all sexual acts performed without consent as a crime, in turn shifting society’s current view of rape as a crime that a victim brings upon herself to a crime that is committed against a victim.
Based on most stories covered, the media usually portray rape as a stranger’s violent attack on a victim. In reality, most rape occurs between people who know each other, or at least who have interacted previously. In fact 80-85% of rapes are classified as acquaintance rapes, but because the media tend to report stranger rapes, a lot of problems of discourse regarding rape and what the term signifies arise. The way we talk about rape in the media often illustrates it as a violent crime that occurs in dark alleys, neglecting the possibility of it happening at a party, on a date, or at a friend's house. The way rape is defined and talked about in the media leaves us with unclear ideas about the concept and what it encompasses. There are a lot of complexities and values that circulate with the term rape, but most people do not see this.
Reaction to the Word: Misogyny
When we think of rape only as the dark-alley-version portrayed by the media, we tend to discount acquaintance rape. This creates a serious problem because our mentality is to teach girls how to prevent rape from strangers instead of teaching men not to rape and what constitutes as rape. Our society’s limited understanding of rape as a violent act by a stranger affects our thoughts and actions regarding rape: Our society promotes “Don’t get raped” rather than “Don’t rape.” A Google search of the word rape generates almost only resources for teaching girls how to prevent rape. Society fails to tell boys “don’t rape” because, by our understanding of rape as a violent crime, we assume that the sentiment is implied. We only see rape as violent, so we assume most men will not do it and think of protecting ourselves from those who will rather than explaining to the average man that any sexual act that occurs without consent is considered rape and he is responsible for preventing it.
Our society has trouble believing that a rape victim is a victim at all unless she is also violently attacked. Even then, as the above headline illustrates, rape victims are routinely second-guessed, blamed or laughed at. If a victim claims she was raped in a social setting or on a date we ask, “Are you sure?” “Were you drunk?” “What were you wearing?” “Did you lead him on?” Women are less likely to report most rape because our public opinion is that acquaintance rape is not actually rape. Because people are unclear about what the term rape encompasses, they are unlikely to report a rape unless it fits the guidelines of a hitting news story. Our failure to believe an incident of rape unless it was also an attack promotes doubt and victim blaming. It is a vicious cycle: the source of the problem, the media, perpetuates the problem, and the outcome of the problem, ignorance and misunderstanding, reinforces the source.
Misconceptions by the Word
Jeanne Fahnestock defines stases as a series of questions that addresses fact, definition, cause, value, and action (Fahnestock 427). In order to understand Fahnestock’s idea about stasis, it is helpful to think of stasis as context. When an author argues in a certain stasis, he or she argues in a certain context. If we only ever examine rape through the media’s vantage point, then we will consider the term rape to be limited to the types of occurrences that the media cover. If the term rape were to follow Fahnestock’s applied notion of change between contexts, society’s understanding of the term would broaden and misconceptions of the term could be resolved.
Fahnestock explains the stasis categories as levels. According to her theory, questions of fact must be answered before questions of value or policy can be addressed (Fahnestock 428). In order to solve the discourse problem about rape, we need to understand the issue through each stasis level. Individuals need to understand what the term rape actually means before they can attach values to it and create policy about it. Not only will this lead to James Porter’s notion of our shared understanding of the meaning of the term (Porter 34), but it will help us get past seeing rape in only one context and instead further our understanding to determine how we really think and feel about this topic.
Misreporting the Word
The media is in the business of selling stories and it will continue to report on violent attacks by strangers because that is what society has deemed newsworthy. While the type of rape the media covers may not change, we can change our understanding of rape to include the multifaceted and pervasive aspects of the issue that the media often neglect.
Drawing from ideas in “Rhetorical Situations and Their Constituents” by Grant-Davie, a constraint could be all the factors related to the term “rape” that may lead society to be more or less sympathetic to the discourse. People are less sympathetic when the term rape is used outside of their understanding of rape as a stranger’s violent attack. This calls for a shift in the public’s understanding of the term rape. The term, as it is used in media, constrains itself to limited meaning. In order to resolve the problems from discourse, the term needs to permeate the media’s constraints and expand its meaning. Grant-Davie suggests that constraints are more like aids to the rhetor than they are handicaps. The rhetor has the opportunity to “harness” them in order to constrain the audience to take the desired action or point of view. (Grant-Davie 272) The term rape should still be constrained, but in its true meaning.
Because only 40% of all rapes are reported and the media prompts most of the discussions we hear about rape, many people have misconceptions about what rape encompasses. As a result of this, men, especially those who are uneducated, may take part in acts that are technically defined as rape without realizing that their actions are considered rape. Although it is a bold claim, perhaps if men understood the meaning of the word to include any sexual act without consent, they would be less likely to engage in such acts. The term has weight and if that weight can be dispersed to the less publicized aspects of rape in order to build a mutual understanding of what is considered rape, these forms of assault may be less commonplace. Clearing up the discourse of rape would hopefully lead to less rape, more reports of rape, and less victim blaming.
Social Policy: Taking Informed, Empathetic Action
Working in the social policy sphere mostly taught me about what moves people to action and how our ability to argue well or reason well depends on our ability to help establish or promote a sense of shared reason. I learned how to differentiate between motives, arguments, and causes in determining good policy argumentation and applied that understanding to my own work.
The most influential critical texts that shaped my understanding of writing and editing social policy arguments are James McDonald's "I Agree, But ..." and Jones's "Finding the Good Argument." Arguments generally need to be reasoned and balanced and appealing to empathy and reason in order to be successful and there are several considerations to uphold in order to make that happen. For instance, one should argue in the appropriate stasis level, use value terms to appeal to an audience, and have the upmost clarity, especially regarding a call to action. Some of the most valuable terms I learned and practiced by writing and editing in this sphere and constructing my policy argument include embodiment, communality, empathy, ideograph, and currency of language.
Embodiment, in discourse, is a synthesis of different ideas that might be otherwise hard to reach in order to more fully express a single dimension; an inhabiting of a mindset as well as the discourses/languages/identifications that go along with those mindsets. Policy arguments are often embodied in their positioning, so I learned that it is important to make what is embodied more transparent and clear. Communality, a communal state or condition; a shared mindset; a shared exigence; a shared belonging/identification, is a term that is absolutely crucial to my policy argument, “What’s in a Word? A rhetorical look at the implications of the word “rape”, because it is what I call my audience to strive for when using and defining the term rape.
David Kaufer's "A Plan for Teaching the Development of Original Policy Arguments" explores the use of metaphors to create a shared “we” or to promote empathy or shared identification. Empathy occurs in the creation of a relatable and approachable argument and is often used to describe the ability to understand someone else’s opinions, feelings, standpoints, or positions. Being empathetic in the relationship between rhetor and audience is key to successfully reaching the goal of writing. McGee defines "ideograph" as a word that uses abstractions in order to develop support for a political position (e.g., "freedom," "liberty," "justice," "pursuit of happiness"). If a word carries ideological assumptions and inspires familiar associations among an audience, it is likely functioning as an ideograph. Basing my policy argument on a call for the proper use of a word effects concepts such as ideographs.
Policy arguments tend to rely on currency of language, a concept describing the “value” terms are currently carrying. Not only did I innately employ this concept in the creation of my own argument, but I also constructed my argument based on this singular concept alone, examining the current value the term “rape” has.
