From: AHAGGERT-AT-aol.com
Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 23:36:19 EDT
Subject: Re: Gopnik blame



--part1_138.db2ca4b.2a020e33_boundary

Bob:

Your talk is surely the handiwork of wisdom, for not one word of it do I 
understand. 

In the first place, I responded only to your words, not to any other writer. 
Please reread the original posts. I'll forward them to you, if you like, but 
they should be attached below. Second, you write:

"An elementary responsibility of the rhetorician is to persuade.  The 
audience is the judge of the rhetorician's persuasiveness."

Well, duh. But if the rhetorician betrays contempt for his or her subject 
matter--by, say, commiting a rhetorical fallacy, like that of straw man 
argument, which is how Gopnik blows it--and it is obvious as such, the 
audience is unconvinced. This is why respect for one's subject matter is 
important. This is elementary. 

Third, you write, "Gee, your observation not only sounds rhetorical, but also 
polemical, as I perceived Gopnik's original observation to be."

I take it you haven't bothered to follow the original link to Gopnik's 
article and read it. Gopnik is NOT being avowedly polemical here; he's, well, 
offering a questionable assertion as objective, journalistic, or "gospel" 
truth. (Bourdieu, by the way, consistently offers an interesting and cutting 
analysis of such strategies--see "Censorship and the Imposition of Form"). 
Besides, by the definition of "rhetorical" you yourself offer above, your 
distinction between "rhetorical" and "polemical" is completely obscure.

Finally, you write, "You can't possibly be serious that I would consider 
Gopnik to have 
been reductive.  Besides, I never characterized him as reductive, those were 
the words of an earlier writer.  Reductivism, like the persuasive power of 
rhetoric, is in the eye of the beholder."

Please reread my (and your) original comment. You clearly suggested that 
Gopnik, and by extension all writers, has no responsibility to be accurate, 
or, in other words, "non-reductive." This is still a ridiculous argument.  

Again, I had read no other comment on my original post besides yours before 
responding. 

And I have no nostalgia whatsoever for positivism.

Andrew Haggerty




In a message dated 5/1/02 9:18:22 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
suannschafer-AT-earthlink.net writes:


> >Bob, I'm baffled. Your definition of rhetoric is "tossing off 
> >questionable assertions as gospel truth"?
> 
> Rhetoric ... the art of expressive, persuasive speech and argumentation ...
> 
> I made no claims as to the persuasiveness of Gopnik's argument ... 
> those words the words of an earlier writer.
> 
> >Rhetoric IS still taught--I teach it myself. An elementary 
> >responsibility of the rhetorician is respect for one's subject 
> >matter as well as respect for one's audience.
> 
> An elementary responsibility of the rhetorician is to persuade.  The 
> audience is the judge of the rhetorician's persuasiveness.  I'm not 
> convinced "respect for one's subject matter" however constituted is 
> an advanced let alone elementary responsibility of the rhetorician. 
> And respect for one's audience in today's multi-cultural, politically 
> correct world?  Indeed I have a nostalgia for positivism, but I also 
> do not know whom I am going to offend next ...
> 
> >Rhetoric doesn't have to be inherently reductive, as Gopnik clearly is.
> 
> Gee, your observation not only sounds rhetorical, but also polemical, 
> as I perceived Gopnik's original observation to be.
> 
> >And sure, "consumers" should read critically. But what, people who 
> >write professionally have no obligation to avoid being reductive? 
> >You can't possibly be serious.
> 
> You can't possibly be serious that I would consider Gopnik to have 
> been reductive.  Besides, I never characterized him as reductive, 
> those were the words of an earlier writer.  Reductivism, like the 
> persuasive power of rhetoric, is in the eye of the beholder.
> 
> 


--part1_138.db2ca4b.2a020e33_boundary

HTML VERSION: