The Rhetorical Frame and What Is Possible

In this post, I want to share a crucial section from Deborah Tannen's book on argument.  Tannen might be called an anthropological rhetorician for the way she studies how people talk from within one particular culture (that of the US).  One of her main contentions in this (1998) book is that our tendency to frame the discussion of important political issues in terms of a debate--one side v. another--is what is preventing us from "moving from debate to dialogue" (the subtitle of her book).  In other words, the rhetorical framing is preventing (or at least is one important factor in preventing) us from solving some of our most pressing political problems.

Tannen writes:

“At first blush, I was inclined to agree with those whom [communications researcher Celeste] Condit cites as polarizing the debate, such as a 1985 Newsweek article that proclaimed, ‘Abortion is one of the rare issues that inherently does not admit compromise....it is nearly impossible to imagine the meeting point that would satisfy both.’  But Condit shows that the only reason it seems impossible to imagine a meeting point or compromise is precisely because of the way the issue has been framed: as a fight between two opposing polarized sides.  If the issue were framed as on the one hand, the desire to reduce the number of abortions performed, and, on the other, the desire to give women control of their own bodies and lives, there would be  feasible ways of reconciling and satisfying both.

First, it is well known that making abortion illegal does not prevent abortions from being performed.  That result would more effectively be accomplished by, for example, increasing education about and availability of contraception.  This would also increase women’s control over their bodies and lives.  Neither “side” is getting much of what it wants anyway: Although abortion remains legal in the United States, it is becoming harder and harder for anybody to get one, both because of the legal chipping away of access (for example, by making abortion unavailable at public clinics and military bases or by institution waiting periods and requiring parental consent) and because of de facto erosion: Most American women live too far from a provider to make the trip in a single day; it is difficult to find doctors willing to risk their lives in order to perform abortions; and medical schools rarely teach the procedure.  At the same time, the steady erosion of services and chipping away at legalization, though seeming to represent triumphs for the antiabortion forces, have not changed the fact that there are more abortions performed in the United States than in any other Western nation.

In other words, Condit shows that the tendency to frame discussion of an issue as a debate between two oppositing sides actually shapes policy makers’ attempts to address those issues and solve problems.  In the end, it makes it much harder to see viable solutions and therefore less likely that a solution will be found.”

[Deborah Tannen, The Argument Culture: Moving from Debate to Dialogue. NY: Random House, 1998: pp. 42-3.]

As I'll discuss in an upcoming post, I find this same phenomenon to be true when it comes to the current debate over guns and gun control.  But first I want to highlight the fact that the rhetorician plays a crucial, PUBLIC function here: to highlight how the framing of the discussion (as a debate) is preventing both sides from achieving the goals they most desire: the reduction in the number of unplanned (and often unwanted) pregnancies and the reduction in the number of abortions.  

Thus, some of the most important work that needs to be done right now is the work of the rhetorician: of finding a way through the language and finding a way to open up the discourse so that we can chart new courses towards solutions.  We've been mired in these debates (abortion, gun control, climate policy, gay rights, the welfare state, etc.) for a generation now.  My students need to learn how to un-mire them.

The value of a rhetorician

I ended the last post with a key question (for me): "Why should I/we want to teach kids to be rhetoricians if rhetoricians often muck up conversation by asking pesky questions that can make discussion impossible?"

The best answer I've read so far comes from Deborah Tannen's book, The Argument Culture.  Tannen subtitles her book, "Stopping America's War of Words," a war that has come to dominate much of our public discourse and is best illustrated by the "debates" held daily in the halls of government.  Tannen points out how all too often public discourse takes the form of a pitched battle, one side trying to defeat the other, and, as a rhetorician herself, Tannen points to the way we frame such discussions as the root of the problem.

For example...

Once we frame the discussion of gun violence in America as a question of gun rights v. gun control, we all lose.  It's stalemate (as it is right now in Congress) because the very framing of the question necessitates a winner and a loser.  Remember what I said in my last post about the power of the question?  Well, if the question is, "Would we be safer if we had more guns or fewer guns?" we're stuck.  There is no final answer here, no truth to be had.  Stalemate.

[I will deal directly with the rhetorical situation that has produced the current debates on gun violence in an upcoming post.]

Compromise isn't really the answer--nor, I suspect, is it really possible.  "We need to have lots of guns but then again not too many"???  The rhetorician knows that once the question has been posed, once the frame has been established, there's no (new) way out.  The question most often determines the possible outcomes, just as the flow of the Gulf Stream determines possible weather outcomes.

And so (Tannen argues) we need to learn how to change the question.  We need to realize the limitations of how we've framed the discussion--through the language we've used--and then try again from another angle.

This is what a rhetorician does best: sees how our choice of questions--of words--limits what we can see and understand and consider and act upon.  A rhetorician can hold the key to moving beyond stultifying stalemates.

And is there any doubt that the arteries of our public conversations have become congested by these stalemates?  that traditional ways of thinking about public problems no longer move us forward?  As a country we seem unable to move forward in our discussions of (for example) gun violence, global warning, education reform, capital punishment, drug use, unemployment, health care, and the economy.

We need new thinking, and for this, we need rhetoricians to help us see how we might find ways out of these impasses.

[And if you think that this job is far too monumental for a gaggle of language nerds, recall that in Ancient Greece, all Greek children were instructed in the rhetoric and that the Rhetoricians--the Sophists--were afforded a special place in Greek society.  The advance of Empire depended upon these men.]

And THIS is why we need to train students in the rhetorical arts.

What is a Rhetorician?

What is a Rhetorician?

As an English teacher, I've been very fortunate to teach at a school (Brookline HS) that gives me great leeway when it comes to deciding upon curriculum.  For the past six years, I've been the only teacher of the public speaking course, a course I designed myself--so I've been pretty much on my own, for better or for worse.

This has enabled me to figure out one of the most important elements of any class: what the class is really about.

As any rhetorician will tell you, it's all about how you frame it; the frame is what makes the contents make sense.  Change the frame, and you change the meaning.

So, after six years, I've discovered that what I really teach--what I really WANT to teach--is rhetoric.  I am a rhetorician.

And what, you may ask, is a rhetorician?

Well, for starters, a rhetorician is someone who studies how words shape meaning, how words encourage meaning, and how words limit meaning.

As a meteorologist might study the flow of clouds to understand the working of weather (and tomorrow's forecast); as a hydrologist might study the flow of water to understand tides and erosion and drainage; a rhetorician studies the flow of words for how words encourage, enable, and limit the making of meaning and understanding.

For example:

A man walks into a bar.  He's confronted by a local tippler who asks, "Are you for or against abortion?"

The rhetorician, sitting upon a nearby bar stool, knows that said tippler has deployed one of the most powerful and destructive of all rhetorical tools known to man: the question.  First off, the question demands an answer.  How can anyone not feel obligated to answer a question?  Second, a question frames the discussion.  The poor interlocutor is either for it or against it.

The rhetorician intrudes.  "Excuse me, but what does it mean to be 'for abortion?'" he asks.  He notes that neither man is likely to ever have one and that the word "abortion" might refer to a variety of different things.  Actually (he points out), the debate the question provokes is really one about the RIGHT for women to have an abortion, but that's actually a different question than if one thinks abortion is a good idea or not (as one can be Pro-Choice and still see abortion as a bad thing).  He goes on to remind both parties that in the 18th century, many doctors focused on procedures to re-start the menstruation process, so that even the concept of "abortion" is already biasing the discussion.  The formulation assumes that the focus of the medical procedure in question is to end a process rather than to re-start one.

One can easily see how some rhetoricians have come to be seen as a public nuisance.  They seem to turn the apparent clarity of language into an opaqueness that halts all discursive progress.

Socrates was made to drink hemlock.

So why (you might ask) would I want to be one of those people? and why would I want to train my students in this apparently annoying art?

[stay tuned]