Kirk, political discourse and the old rhetorical bait-and-switch [View all]

[darkstar]

Former English teacher here. I really want to stay away from any flashpoint sort of hot-take here and instead merely make an observation about rhetoric.

When I was teaching writing in cross-curriculum settings, I had occasion to teach 100 level writing classes for students in social sciences or harder sciences, especially allied health. As you might expect, these were research based. However, once I had a pre-law section. Here, the focus on deeper dives into persuasion and argumentation in a deeper manner than, say, the single persuasive essays you would find in a 101 class.

The sequence I adopted was 1) a balanced, non-analytical presentation of two sides of an issue (Rogerian argument); 2) an analytical essay that poked into the nature of the arguments presented in essay number one (beyond fact checking and into the rhetorical classifications of these arguments, any argumentative fallacies found on either side, etc.); and 3) a full blown persuasive essay that many of us may be familiar with.

This is all to say that genuine invitations to “find common ground” or “simply further the discourse” would firmly fall into categories one and two above. Yet even number three, you will note, is to persuade rather than prove. By definition, persuasion involves undecideds or those who disagree, ie *you cannot persuade someone who already agrees with you* unless it is to persuade them to action. A prime directive, then, is to not insult your audience for having a different POV. Instead, you use things like appeals to morality, self-interests, expert opinion, logic etc.

Too often these days our discourse does not even fall into 1–3 above. It’s far more theatrical ridicule, performative call to anger-based action, etc. It is disingenuous, to then—as promoted and branded—try and couple “a fostering of dialogue” with the notion of “prove me wrong.” And even the latter goes out the door when it is peppered with a sneering and snarling disdain.

Too long, I know, but had to get this out of me.