On the nature of argumentation

Would you be interested in this? In my paper, I think I'm actually working out a kind of ethos of arguments that's more about revealing the best in each argument than about beating the other person.

I'm going to have to include a section on how I'm arguing in my paper, which is something I've been thinking about and it seems like it it's going to be actually kind of interesting on a general level. I mean, I've been kind of thinking about this stuff on and off for the whole of the paper, so I'm wondering if you want to see it.

Ethos of Argumentation

So, appropos of Lakoff and Johnson's book Metaphors We Live By, which by the way, is older than me and appears to be kind of a big deal, given that my library has seven copies of it in English alone.* I think maybe the undergrads all have to read it....

The main thing that Lakoff and Johnson want to point out is that, hey, we use metaphors! Not only to we use isolated metaphors, we use them in SYSTEMS of interlocking coherent metaphors that work off a similar meaning! It's so cool!

L&J work first from a really, really obvious one that doesn't stick out until they point at it:

ARGUMENT IS WAR.

Examples: I attacked his argument. I defended my position. I rallied my arguments. I felt his reasoning was entrenched. I had a good idea but I shot my mouth off. I exploded his argument. My points blew them all away. I won the argument. I lost the argument. You have something more to say? Shoot! I dropped a truth-bomb on them! I decimated his argument. I surrender! I give up.

What L&J point out here, is that this is not noticeably metaphorical language. We consider this fairly normal discourse (Okay, well the last one is something I've heard my brother say, sometimes....). But it's not like it's purple prose, or like I really had to reach back in my mind to having heard these ways of talking about argument before- they sprang readily to mind. This way of talking is alive in the language and culture.

Now, obviously you can push this beyond the common way of using ARGUMENT IS WAR and into figurative language that people actually really notice: I took my flamethrower to his ideas. I invaded his concepts. I heard the lamentations of his argument's women!**


But in discussing how metaphors work to shape systems of how we think about things, L&J did something that really, really intrigued me. They offered lots of other ways of thinking about what an ARGUMENT IS that we also actually use. Like, ARGUMENT IS A BUILDING (The foundation of my theory...), ARGUMENT IS A JOURNEY (Where I mean to lead us in this argument), ARGUMENT IS A CONTAINER (his points don't have a lot in them). These metaphors do a lot of work for us too, in this consideration, but they still don't push ARGUMENT IS WAR out of the picture.

And then L&J threw a concept my way just to play with it.

ARGUMENT IS DANCE.

Think about that for a second

The idea of an argument where you have a skilled partner who helps show off your argument to its very best moves! Where you help sashay your arguing-partner across the floor of the argument, bowing to your points and letting your partner dip you to show you his. Where you intertwine your views to reach a greater lift for both, where a poorly matched arguing partner loses his footing and steps on your toes and makes you trip over your own ideas rather than crisply spinning you, and the weakness of his points means you shuffle instead of step. Where your can get off-beat and lose your step and your partner leads you back to your own points. Where the point is the performance of the dance to the height of both partners' abilities, because it does take two to tango!

See, the problem that I have with the ARGUMENT IS WAR model, is that there's no point in taking the field if you are outgunned but your opponent needs to charge ahead anyways, because that's what you do to win. Whereas, in the dance metaphor, each dancer is only as strong as their partner. A weak partner makes for a bad argument! Your won't get to show off your best moves, your practice will be in vain, and it's not like you could do it by yourself!

And as I've been doing this writing with the New Atheists, I'm trying not to find the weakest part of each argument and attack it, but try and get each author to show off his best moves so that I can respond with my best, and bring other strong partners like Tillich into the chorus line, so that we can all get the best show we can. Because the strength of the argument is not determined by who wins and who loses, because then what's the point in joining the dance? A plurality of ideas might thrive on argumentation, but constant conflict feels often like it leaves some folks as wallflowers with two left feet, or partners who both want to lead. It's not a fun night out, is what I'm saying, and I think we can do get better in step with one another. I'm made stronger by taking letting someone else dance lead for a little so that I can make my show-stopping number, too.

I'M NOT HERE FOR A FIGHT, I'M HERE TO DANCE, MOTHERFUCKERS!

And that's kind of my underlying thought for my paper. It's not about opponents or war or battlefields. It's about making each other look the best we can so that when we actually do hit the floor, it actually means something full and amazing and beautiful, without anyone getting kicked in the shin.

*My library has maybe two copies of Augustine's City of God in English. And then one in Latin, French, German, Russian, and Spanish. But this is Augustine, MAJOR PLAYER on the Christian football team, so, really, they should have more.

** I have used this in conversation.