Category Archives: Rhetoric and Civic Life

Droning on…

So tonight I had the pleasure of attending a PSU Debate Society event with my stupendous classmates Mike and Steve, and our wonderful teacher Anne. It was a worth wile experience, and I’d recommend that anyone reading should probably attend any PSU Debate event they have the slightest interest in. Odds are they’ll go away from it with some food for thought and maybe even some changed conclusions.

The debate format was interestingly deliberative, in the sense that there was a limited ability for each side to stand up during the other’s constructive speeches in order to voice disagreement. I much prefer this format to the other formal debates I’ve seen, which call for a complete separation between speaking times to the point where penalties are imposed for crossing that boundary. The contributions made were interesting, and the need to keep on your toes rather than adhere to an entirely pre-prepared speech really fosters knowledge about the topic.

Further, audience interaction and deliberation was interesting as well. The system of Parliamentary Debate allowed for a lot of interaction not only between members of the audience, but also between the audience and the debaters. I had a particularly interesting discussion with an Air Force ROTC member who brought a point up I hadn’t thought of before (always nice for a debater). Mike, Steve, and I got to be among the floor speakers (all male, I would note), and each contributed meaningfully to the discussion in our respective ways. I would again suggest that anyone even remotely interested in or informed about subjects the Debate Society deals with attend their events, preferably with a friend.

Week 11: What Did We Learn?

Well, I can’t say I didn’t learn anything from the blogging experience of Rhetoric and Civic Life I. Mostly, I’d say I learned a bit about Irish history, quite a bit about adjusting expectations, and even more about how to communicate effectively in the written format. My first point will be a tip of the hat to Steven, whose blog I’ve been following closely (albeit silently most of the time) for quite some time. Being regaled about the history of a land I frankly didn’t have much previous interest in was more enlightening than I suspected it would be.

Secondly, I learned that people can sometimes surprise you. I never could have predicted based on the initial topics how much I would be interested in some blogs, or utterly bored by others, mostly in spite of my initial expectations! Reflecting on this past semester might have produced a valuable life lesson about not letting expectations get the better of me, and simply observing a little more. Maybe next time I’ll be able to follow along with my classmates’ examples a little bit more, which could definitely help me a lot in enjoying my blogging experience!

I don’t know if I’ll want to switch my topic next semester. I probably will end up doing that, because I would have to start playing a lot more games than I already do, which would end up being a problem. I might switch to poetry, which was my original idea, but Ammara has probably showed me up already on that one. Maybe there will be other topics that come up in the future, but right now that’s looking likely. I just hope my group next semester is at least as good as my current one! I met some fun people in this class, and had some fun blogging moments.

Week 10: Public “Controversy”

A) The distinction of a public versus a non-public issue is fairly important: a public issue is one that has some measurable effect on the body politic. Issues without such impacts aren’t for us to be speculating about or judging. Often, public issues concern legal policy and legislative actions, but not all issues legislated on are public (gay marriage is a good example of this). The problems we discuss have impact on people, in a practical as well as a symbolic way. From my group’s first topic idea, restrictions on the full face Islamic veil (burqua or niqab) in France give us important issues to talk about, including the relationship between religious liberty and security, which has consequences that go far beyond just this one case, making it a public issue.

Controversial, however, from my very mature and carefully considered quotation marks, is not in any sense a useful distinction. The only thing that makes something a controversy is that someone is willing to argue about it, which encompasses absolutely everything. There are people willing to argue that there are almost no racists left in the United States, that evolution is not an established scientific theory, that the Earth is not round, that a UFO landed in Roswell. You name any idea or fact, some frivolous charlatan is willing to take issue with it for the benefit of the willfully ignorant. That’s not to say that some things which are labeled as controversies are actually important issues that we should encourage debate on, it’s just that literally everything is a controversy, and as such calling something a controversy has no explanatory or distinctive power, making the word essentially useless.

B) Legally, what is the extent to which we can use copyrighted materials under fair use? I’m concerned with this idea, because I’ve seen fair use fail numerous times when it comes to copyright, although I know that “education” is a specifically marked purpose to which fair use applies.

Week 9: Presidential Mandates

So, seeing as we had an election earlier this week, in which Barack Obama easily defeated Mitt Romney (I know everyone knows that, but I want to say it again anyway) in not only the Electoral College but also the popular vote. In AP U.S. Government and Politics class last year, I learned about the concept of a presidential “mandate,” the idea that a president winning both the electoral college vote and the popular vote means that he has been, in effect, ordered the populace to carry out his policies. General wisdom holds that political scientists don’t put much in store by this term, but politicians tend to.

This begs the question of what President Obama will do or be able to do in his second term. Clearly a majority of the country is in favor of him, and the momentum of an election just won could go pretty far in rallying the populace and in winning congressional approval. This concept of a mandate directly ties into the rhetorical element of kairos. Now that the whole country is clear on who the president is, and that they’ll have to deal with him for the next four years. Further, the President now knows that he will not have to personally deal with another campaign, which naturally could lead to his being less careful and compromising in a political sense.

Presidential politics is fairly difficult and complicated, but rhetorical elements certainly factor into it. Kairotic moments are key for mobilizing both politicians and the populace behind particular ideas, and right now there’s a significant opportunity for the President’s party to get things done. We will see if he takes advantage of this particular kairos and what will ultimately come of it, but the ball is definitely in his court right this moment.

Week 8: Talking TED

Dan Ariley: Beware conflicts of interest

The way human brains go astray has been a bit of a topic of mine, considering that I’ve been in many situations in which I’ve had to decry people’s beliefs as being false or misinformed. It’s far easier, and more tactful, in such situations to be able to attribute the falsehood not to the stupidity or ignorance of the person, but to some kind of cognitive error or bias on their part. What Dan Ariley points out is very similar to this idea: he informs regarding the presence of cognitive biases in various important positions, such as scientists or doctors. As far as six-minute TED talks go, this was a very effective one. Ariley doesn’t attempt to assign classifications to different kinds of cognitive errors, nor does he attempt to provide substantive solutions to the problems he points out. The goal of this talk is simply awareness, and using the faculties of both humor and specific examples, he gets the job done. In my view, a TED talk is a good format to get one good point or a set of good points out there to create awareness in the public.

Keeping this in mind, my three major categories for evaluation of a TED talk are: Effective use of time, memorability of message, and style of presentation.

In the first category, this talk made a wise decision by not exceeding the scope of its time limit. All the time was spent on one point and on examples to reinforce that one point, without digression and undue increases in subject matter. Second, the message made is memorable, and can be distilled down to a very simple phrase, namely the one in the title of the talk. Were I not already aware of this, the talk would certainly have helped. Third, his style throughout was memorable, using both a humorous anecdote to begin, and a personal anecdote toward the end. This helped make the speaker appear more engaged with the topic, and avoid the ever-present danger of throwing stones in a glass house talking about others’ problems.

I’ll definitely take away from this talk that I need to have a very central point to focus on in my TED talk, not get as much of my paper in as possible in the 4-5 minute time limit (even though it may be possible simplistically). That way leaving an impression will be much easier.

Week 7: Question #4

As a self-avowed liberal for as long as I was able to think in-depth about issues of the kind, so I’ve done some thinking about the contradictory nature of a lot of our American values. Two which seem to be in opposition much of the time are the concepts of wealth and generosity, the former of which I’ll take a closer look at here:

Conjecture: Wealth pretty clearly exists, or more specifically wealth disparity, but our stasis comes in when dealing with issues of how it is caused or how it should be changed. Our political right wing tends to emphasize the individualistic when dealing with wealth. A person earns money, and it should be kept more or less the way it is. On the left, however, we tend to contextualize this individual effort, presenting the fact that it takes place in a society forged by collective effort in both past generations and ongoing institutions. Our stasis is simply this: “Wealth is caused mostly by individuals.” vs “Wealth is caused mostly by society.”

Definition: The parts of wealth (in this case material wealth specifically), can be described as: individual wealth, group wealth, and societal wealth. Each individual person has a right to own property, their individual wealth. Through contracts and other kinds of agreements, individuals can collectivize to gain and form group wealth (ala publicly traded corporations, trade unions, etc.). Society also enumerates certain things as property to be shared by all its members, such as public parks, public lands, or areas of speech protected by the first amendment, allowing for a free exchange of ideas. In our arguments, we place different emphases on certain kinds of wealth, and therein lies the stasis on this point.

Quality: The value of wealth itself, I would think, is a point universally agreed on in our society. We believe collectively that material wealth is a good thing, and seek ways to achieve it as a society. Stasis comes in as we decide how wealth ought to be apportioned: into one of the three aforementioned categories or perhaps another.

Week 6: The Most Over-rated Man in America – Paul Ryan in Theory and Practice

Recently, we as Americans have been subjected to the idea that somehow the man pictured above is some kind of mathematical genius, policy wonk, straight-talking politician who’s not afraid to “get fiscal” (I have to suppress a groan even typing this). While this characterization is appealing (perhaps particularly to those who are more concerned with the other side of that semi-homophone), the positions of the real man Paul Ryan do not bear it out. To steal a phrase from Christopher Hitchens’ excellent essay “America the Banana Republic,” Paul Ryan is a financial wizard “in the literal sense.” As a matter of fact, it is Hitchens to whom I owe the inspiration for this post, his having once labeled Colin Powell “the most over-rated man in America.” However undeserved Mr. Powell’s reputation may have been, it is nothing compared to the kind of media travesty that could have produced this kind of misconception.

The main sources I’ll be drawing on are: An interview with Fox News’ Chris Wallace, the 2012 Vice Presidential debate, and an interview with journalist Jim Heath.

If the budgetary differences between Obama/Biden and Romney/Ryan are to be the focal point of this election, it behooves us to take a look at the latter plan in a serious, critical light. However, as many have noted, this has been quite impossible because of the sheer obscurantism of Ryan’s camp in dealing with this issue. When Chris Wallace puts to him the concern that the tax cuts within his budget amount to some $5 trillion on their own, Ryan pointedly refuses to give any figure on this issue, instead referring to the deductions he plans to add in later. Genius may be stretching it, but Paul Ryan is not a stupid man. He should be able to appreciate the difference between the cost of the cuts in his plan, and the revenue ramifications of the plan itself, but instead of giving a straight answer and then moving on to the rest of the plan, he chooses to throw out talking points instead. Where’s the math professor I’m to expect, who is so focused on facts and figures?

Disastrous though this avoidance may seem, it’s nothing compared to what he admitted during the Vice Presidential debate (around 47:14 for those who want to double check). The question, exactly, was “Do you actually have the specifics, or are you still working on it and that’s why you won’t tell voters?” And the answer: “What we’re saying is, here’s our framework… we want to work with Congress on how best to achieve this…” Ergo, no. There are no specifics. And this is followed by the claim that “six studies” have verified the accuracy of the plan. Why don’t we look at the sources for these studies and see just how accurate they are?

Two of these studies are from Martin Feldstein of Harvard University, a former adviser to President Reagan (and a current adviser to the Romney Campaign!), another is from Harvey Rosen, a former adviser to the latter President Bush, two more are from Op-Ed pieces written in publications of the right-wing think tank the American Enterprise Institute, and the final is from Charles Dubay, of yet another right-wing think tank, the Heritage Foundation. Notice a pattern here? The one closest to independent is Rosen’s, and even that has clear faults and distortions inherent in it. If you want to check me on this, this comes from a PolitiFact entry about Ryan’s claim to being validated by six studies. These blatant misrepresentations indict Ryan as either a foolish man who has come to believe in his own talking points against his better judgment, or a cynical and exploitative one knowingly complicit in deceit. And this isn’t the only one!

Mr. Ryan, in the last link above, repeated the two-fold deception that President Obama “raided” $716 billion from Medicare to pay for “Obamacare.” One thing that is often ignored about these supposed “cuts” is that they do not affect Medicare benefits. A more clear breakdown of the savings can be found in this Washington Post article here, but I’ll hit the highlights: Medicare payments are now more tethered to performance and to patient satisfaction, lowers the rates paid to hospitals for certain services (a cut hospitals agree with), and payments for hospitals that take more uninsured patients, now outmoded by the Affordable Care Act, will be ceased. The reason this is a two-fold deception is that it mischaracterizes the very notion of a budget! Money was already appropriated to the Affordable Care Act, and saving money from Medicare does not entail “moving” that money anywhere, it is simply removed from the overall budget. The idea that President Obama had a massive pile of money for Medicare and took some of that away to pay for the Affordable Care Act is utterly asinine. Given these two out of many possible blunders, the claim to Ryan’s “wonkishness” and attention to detail on math and fiscal policy is decidedly inaccurate.

As Mark Twain once put it: “Get a man a reputation as an early riser, and he can sleep ’till noon.” Why do we trust this man? Because we’re told he’s very intelligent and focused on the numbers. In other words, his oft-repeated mantra of “credibility” (and how any man working under Mitt Romney could possibly claim credibility on anything is beyond me). Perhaps some of you reading this really do think that Mr. Ryan possesses some degree of credibility. But I must ask you, in all honesty: Given these blatant misrepresentations of vital issues, are you willing to trust that this man will get the job done with a tax plan that doesn’t effectively exist yet? Given his party’s history, do you trust that a 20% tax cut across the board will be anything but a blank check to the top 1%? If you do, please tell me, because I desperately want to know why, thanks.

Also, I leave you with this hilarious photo-op.

Week 6: An Hour-and-a-Half Commercial

The Center for Democratic Deliberation put on an excellent event this Tuesday, showcasing the Presidential debate and holding a very well-moderated discussion afterwards. While the debate itself was certainly center-stage, the fine representative from the Campus Republicans probably had the most telling moment of the whole night. “If you cut taxes,” he approximately says “then Republicans will…” he stops for a second “rich people will spend more.” Sigmund Freud eat your heart out.

As for the debate itself, we had some very impressive performances from both sides, though my impression was that President Obama made a stronger show. In essence, he did many of the things those of his party were irritated at not being in the original debate: hitting Romney on Bain Capital, his comments about the 47% again, refusing to back down on key issues, and in general projecting a stronger image of himself. If the polls are to be believed, they (near-universally) gave the victory to Obama. I myself was surprised at the margin! Upwards of 7 percent in most cases, which is no small feat for such a widely-viewed event.

One key point that made this debate stand out was the stronger moderator, who now infamously called Governor Romney out on a common distortion of the President’s terrorism record, namely that he refused to refer to the attack on the Benghazi Consulate in Libya as a terrorist attack. As she correctly states, comments made the very next day contradict this claim. She was also able to very effectively direct the debate back to questions asked by the audience, when the candidates utilized the common tactic of answering questions they wish they were asked rather than those that were actually asked.

A brilliant example of this occurred when an audience member asked each candidate what they would do about gun control laws and the limitation of automatic weapons. Characteristically, given the strength of the gun lobby, neither would state any laws they would put in place to limit distribution! President Obama moved quickly to education and other methods of preempting violence, and Governor Romney (in a move that drew a great deal of laughter from the crowd) moved to premarital sex. Overall, I think this is much closer to the ideal debate we’d like to see, but predictably still not divorced from typically promotional political tactics.

Week 5: Stewart v. O’Reilly – Perception

I, like many of my fellow students, took the opportunity to observe the Stewart v. O’Reilly debate on Saturday October 6th. If you were there, I’m not going to bother telling you who had the more intelligent, better-presented argument, because you already know. In fact, if you know the basics about both the participants, you can make an educated guess. What I want to talk about here is a point made by Stewart early on in the debate. Essentially, perception is the single most important aspect of politics and civic life. His memorable line on the subject was “On bullshit mountain [his name for the Republican establishment in general] our problems are magnified, and our solutions simplified.” This after stating that such ignorance of reality is the biggest hindrance to our ability as a nation to solve problems.

While explicitly made early on, this point was further reinforced by some of Stewart’s reactions to his opponent, such as: “Why is it, if you’re taking advantage of a tax break, you’re a smart businessman, but if you’re taking advantage of something you need to have to not be hungry, you’re a moocher?” What he addresses here is an issue of double standards: a rich person who takes money away from the government by taking advantage of a tax break is smart, but a poor person who does the same thing by taking advantage of food stamps is a moocher. Very often do we hear points made about how the supposed undeserving poor are taking advantage of government programs for their own ends, but not often does someone point out the underlying framework of beliefs that lead people to think in those terms. In my opinion, this kind of observation is exactly what we could use in the political process as a whole.

Now, if President Obama in his debate could have annexed some of those same ideological points, instead of getting mired in policy details, he could have more firmly laid out the contrast between Mr. Romney and himself. Granted, this whole format would not work for a presidential debate (there’s far too much at stake for the participants), but that doesn’t mean politicians have nothing to learn from Stewart, who turned out to be a fantastic speaker.

Week 4: Pathos in the News

So, when I looked at this assignment, I thought it might be challenging to find an example of pathos. However, I needed to look no farther than the cover page of last Friday’s New York Times in my backpack to discover one. The title of this article very much befits the notion of a pathetic appeal: “U.S. TIGHTENING WEB PRIVACY RULE TO SHIELD YOUNG,” then in smaller print beneath it “TARGET OF DATA MINERS.” Right away we have the young in need of being “shielded” and being “targets” of nefarious practices. The subject of the article is a little more technical than that, however.

Given the widespread use of the internet across various devices, many of which are readily available for unsupervised children, it isn’t surprising that children may be subject to the same kind of data-gathering techniques practiced by Google, Facebook, and their ilk. According to the article, the Federal Trade Commission seeks to overhaul various privacy rules that have been behind the times, as it were, insofar as the growth of the world-wide web is concerned. The stated purpose of this is to protect children from having data gathered about them while their parents are unaware of it.

Specific mentions of such dangers include “children’s photographs or locations of mobile devices; the concern is that the information could be used to identify or locate individual children.” Rather than give a long treatise about internet privacy rights, or the widespread gathering of data by such companies in general, the “children’s advocates” in this case skip right to the idea of minors being targeted by miners based on some of the data collected. As such, the emotion appealed to is fear, or a kind of “Won’t somebody please think of the children?” sentiment. I have no doubt that this pathos will be effective to those who read it, but I have a strange feeling that it’s avoiding the true issue here, something that could have effects on such children even after they’re adults. At least they brought the issue to light, though I suspect this bit of civic service was accomplished out of sheer accident. Nevertheless, you take what you can get.