The Personal, Technical and Public Spheres of Argument: A Speculative Inquiry into the Art of Public Deliberation – by Thomas Goodnight
First and foremost, I apologize for the delay in my blog post. I was holding out to see if I could tie this discussion in with the Super Bowl ads but nothing struck me as I watched the game and the commercials last night. It would not be a stretch to say that the Super Bowl festivities including the game, halftime show and commercials provide a ‘perpetual swirl of stimuli’, but I would like to focus less on the middle finger of a controversial Sri Lankan rapper and more on the arena of online deliberation. The main objective for me in this piece is to generate discussion. If the topic is public deliberation, hopefully the material presented would lend itself to a discussion. I believe our classroom blog is an interesting forum for this discussion and we may be able to identify personal, technical and public spheres within this one discussion.
The Goodnight piece was filled with a lot of thought provoking material. One could easily write an in-depth research paper with the information provided but we are limited to a blog posting, so I apologize in advance if I left out any information you find pertinent. In this article, Goodnight breaks the piece into three sections (Uncertainty and the Grounding of Disagreement, Distinctions among Spheres and the Status of Deliberative Argument). Two of these sections struck me more than the other and I will not spend too much time discussing the distinctions among spheres. These distinctions may naturally be used to discuss the other two sections but an in-depth analysis of these classifications will be absent from this blog. Before moving on to analysis of the piece and topics for discussion, it would be helpful to provide Goodnight’s definition of deliberative rhetoric. He said:
Rhetoric is an art, a human enterprise engaging individual choice and common activity, and deliberative rhetoric is a form of argumentation through which citizens test and create social knowledge in order to uncover, assess and resolve shared problems.
Now that the definition has been stated let’s take a look at uncertainty as grounds for disagreement. One of the theories offered by Goodnight was that all activity has uncertainty for its principle. If we analyze our actions and look at the root cause, perhaps we can find some uncertainty buried deep within. For instance, one could pose the question, “Why do I have a job?” Now, this could be argued in many ways, but in this line of thinking, (the uncertainty line) perhaps we could answer in the following ways.
“I work because I am uncertain that I have an identity apart from my occupation.”
“I work because I am uncertain how my bills will be paid.”
A more technical basis for work beyond the personal may create a question like, “I work because the root causes of cancer are uncertain and we are trying to find a cure.”
Or the salesman could say, “I work because my customers are uncertain as to what products and services they need.”
Some of these questions may be more or less of a stretch, but they should generate some thought about your own occupation. You may find that none of these questions of uncertainty exist in your occupation, but Goodnight says that all activity, not just work, has uncertainty for its principle. He makes the claim that members of the society participate in vast superstructures which invite them to channel doubt through prevailing discourse practices as an attempt to reduce the unknown.
If the argument is taken even deeper, it could go as far to ask, “Why do I exist?” or “What is my purpose?” Now these may be questions that have a clear foundation of uncertainty. Arguments and deliberation about the existence of a god and the creation of the universe are rooted in uncertainty. If there was a certain answer to these questions, many people would be unemployed, many books would not be published and many public debates would be non-existent.
By this point I hope that I have developed some grounds for discussion and the existence of uncertainty as a cause of deliberation. The next area of discussion is deliberative argument today. When I read the line that I paraphrased earlier, that individuals participate in vast superstructures of public discourse, the first forum that came to mind was YouTube and other digital forms of communication offered to the public via the World Wide Web. While these technological advances have offered many positive contributions to the world, some argue that it comes at too great of a cost. Goodnight used a quote from Susanna Langer in his article highlighting her opinion that each new advance is bought with the life of an older certainty. Building on that statement; anything we may have held as a certainty twenty or thirty years ago may now be uncertain as a result of the information presented in this new discourse.
Goodnight extended Langer’s argument and wrote that the public sphere was steadily eroding by the elevation of personal and technical groundings of argument. This means that the public sphere (where topics are brought to the masses, items are discussed and debated and an understanding is developed) is losing out today to the personal sphere (individuals placing value in their own experience) and the technical sphere (philosophical giants, as Plato would call it, discussing topics that do not include the general public). Goodnight made the poignant statement that the celebration of personal lifestyle has created a ‘me generation’ or ‘the culture of narcissism’. Now, I know what some of us are thinking because I had this thought as well. The argument is this; we are not a narcissistic culture, look at all the messages on the internet fighting for the common good.
This idea is not new. In the late 1920s, progressive historian Charles Beard, argued that modern technology offered many opportunities to serve the common good but also carried new problems like falling aircraft, machine gun banditry and submarine smuggling. Okay, so his time was a little different than ours, but the idea is that good is accompanied by bad. Regardless of how many powerful movements, arguments and forms of deliberation exist in the digital forum, there are just as many pointless, mindless and harmful items.
Take a break from the reading and travel to YouTube or visit your favorite website for news. In one instant you are reading a moving story about lives being saved by the Coast Guard in the Oregon wilderness and the next minute you are reading an article about a super model with a potty mouth and a frustration for football blunders. The possibility of contributing to a better society is lost in the noise. As Goodnight wrote, “What could be a way of sharing in the creation of a future is supplanted by a perpetual swirl of exciting stimuli. This is deliberation replaced by consumption”.
There are many thought-provoking arguments made like this in the Goodnight reading. I can think of many instances where I shared the sentiment of the author. The advance in technology can be great for the public if it is used correctly. However, individuals like me have to stop and analyze what it is we are doing and critique the present practices. Goodnight would say this action of pause, analysis and recognition is what can help technology contribute positively to the public sphere and if this happens, deliberative rhetoric may not be a lost art.
Uncertainty is something that brings about arguments. Uncertainty is always around us and through argument, research, and critical analysis we find common understandings. Goodnight talks on page 253 that scholars seek to establish that argument itself is grounded in particular theories of logic, psychology, sociology, or linguistics, and have sought to discover some underlying capacity of human existence which governs and gives meaning to the process of argument making.... yet uncertainty persists.
ReplyDeleteIndividuals must make sense of the world, and they do this by whatever means necessary. Whatever "apparatus" they can employ. (254) The ways of making arguments are numerous. Check out this youtube linkhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeAjtiCb9f0. Union square in New York city is actually known for people going there just to argue with people. Quite interesting.
I really enjoyed your take on and summary of Goodnight's uncertainty principle. It brings up the question of what is the root cause of why rhetoric is preformed. If goodnight is right in saying that all human actions are done as acts of coping with the uncertainty that is within them, then why do we as individuals feel the need to persuade others of our beliefs and ideas. An individual could be engaging in rhetoric because they're uncertain of their own self worth and must attempt to win an argument for the sake of feeling purpose or one may engage in rhetoric for the sake of something completely irrelevant, but in their own best interest. Motives for rhetoric are essential to the practice. A rhetorician must establish the uncertainty he is trying to dismiss to his audience, so they realize this uncertainty and are able to be active deliberators in dismissing it.
ReplyDeleteTying that into Langer’s argument of the public sphere losing to a more personal sphere based on one’s own experience, I’d like to talk about Facebook. Facebook is great tool that can be potentially used for deliberation, but I think we are using it to celebrate our personal lives and it has created a narcissistic outlet for people. I see a lot more photos of personal lives and statuses about shopping days with the girls than I do deliberation for the common good of society. Facebook is the most popular social network and I’m only revealing my own Facebook experience among my 837 friends. Ultimately The internet is a great place for deliberation, but also a channel for the celebration of one’s personal life.
Yes, Facebook could be used for deliberation but that wasn't the intent on its creation. I do see at times, deliberation, especially from a particular friend of mine who is always questioning things and the responses that he gets are very interesting. I have seen some straight up debates on his facebook page.
DeleteI agree on the fact that Facebook is more or less used as a way for people to glorify their own lives. It seems as if it is a diary for certain people, sometimes displaying a little more information than what I believe people should be seeing or reading about others. Some things should be kept personal. If you have 5000 friends on facebook, should they really know everything you and your boyfriend fight about? This certainly seems to cause confusion between the public and private spheres.
DeleteGoodnights argument that the celebration of personal lifestyle has created a culture of narcissism is probably one of my favorite points he makes among the many you point out. Technology, with its rapid growth in exchange of information, has made us more aware of our own culture. However I would argue that it has merely fueled what was already present. I would say that before any rhetorician speaks, he firsts asks how his words will benefit himself. And this is an attitude that we have had long before the recent strides of technology. Socrates famous quote is proof of that: the aim of life is to know thy self. Perhaps it is because technology has provided us with more decisions that our narcissism has become even more cultivated through things such as facebook and internet blogs. In light of these thoughts I echo what Matt asked in response to the Bitzer blog…”we can participate, but can we be heard?” Currently our voices are being heard because of the avenues of technology but we are getting to a point where there are so many avenues that our voices are hard to hear.
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ReplyDeleteThanks, Nathan.
ReplyDeleteGoodnight’s notions of uncertainty and the communicative practices aimed at reducing it recall for me one of the characteristics of public discourse the author discusses in his 1987 piece, “Public Discourse.” Here, Goodnight supplements discussions of public discourse by calling attention to its controversial nature, claiming “Because it addresses the whole community, public discourse must take into account the opinions of others who have an equal right to say. Room for cooperation and objection is continually crafted to sustain community action” (p. 431). Through deliberative processes aimed at analysis and inquiry, controversy necessarily couples uncertainty as a communicative principle; it is by highlighting controversy and reducing uncertainty through deliberation that the public sphere is sustained.
I hope this is where we are having our online discussion tonight, because if not “oops, I am in trouble” and I understand being busy with the super bowl…I agree with you about the author writing thought provoking material…In terms of uncertainty…you gave an example of why do I have a job…etc? And you went on to use the ways in which you understand uncertainty in this example…and for my understanding uncertainty means something quite different. For me the uncertainty lies in the interaction between two people and the “uncertainty is in that it, the interaction, is not a clear path or the grounding of the disagreement is clear for example Goodnight says “…Language itself imparts an ought which is forever broken and formed anew…All activity has uncertainty for its principle…”
ReplyDeleteIn response to jamesjohn…I think the reason why people feel the need to persuade others is our need to be right and justified in our understanding in the world as we think we know it…And I totally agree with you when you describe the rhetoric as motive (love the way you put it) YES! For me it the foundation of why we argue at all…For me Thomas Goodnight brings it home in that when he says, “My belief is that the public sphere is being steadily eroded by the elevation of the personal and technical groundings of argument. The decline is not entirely a new phenomenon because it is rooted in the dilemmas of twentieth-century American life. He doesn’t really elaborate on what exactly he was thinking when he mentions the ‘dilemmas of twentieth-century American life” but I would imagine Facebook would be one of them and You Tube as well…Because YouTube is always in a debate…because it is usually real people doing real stuff…that sometimes get them into trouble…But here is where the dilemma lies with facebook and You Tube the argument is no longer a private affair and what is posted becomes a public forum and what we end up with is what Goodnight describes as “Willard followers” and “Willard opponents” and uncertainty is no longer the interaction between two people, but between a few thousand or millions of people as far as facebook or You tube is concerned.
A final thought is this…(Goodnight says it ever so poetically) Denial of the public sphere is accompanied by celebration of personal lifestyle, producing what one critic has called the “me generation” and another “the culture of narcissism. As arguments grounded in personal experience (disclosed by averaging opinion) seem to have greatest currency, political speakers present not options but personalities, perpetuating government policy by substituting debate for an aura of false intimacy. (pg. 259) because everyone (politicians, new reporters, etc.) is trying to get “on the level” if you will…for example Mitt Romney recently was snubbed in the news because he was not on the level (and I can think of two examples) when he made a wager of $10,000 against his opponent and when he said “…he’s not worried about the poor people…because we have safety nets for those people…” In the public forum he is being described as a potential “food stamp president…” What is interesting about any of the nominees for president or any position for that matter, where the public sphere matters…is that they all want to give a sense of being on the level or a false sense of intimacy and that is where rhetoric is used the best…right?
I liked Goodnight's examples of how the grounds of argument can change with time so that what was a matter of private dispute can take on public character or what was in the public domain can be co-opted by the technical sphere (256). We see that happen all the time with controversial issues such as abortion, nuclear war, and evolutionary theory versus creationism. I also see tend to agree with his argument that the public sphere is being eroded by the personal and technical ones. Our government seems to rely more and more on what Goodnight would call technical elites to decide on important policy matters. Although we benefit from their specialized knowledge, it means ordinary citizens are often left out of the process and don't have much of a voice. Politicians themselves have learned that the way to reach voters is to focus on "values" as opposed to policy ideas, so the personal sphere again trumps the public one. We, as ordinary citizens, have had to rely on mainstream media to do our critical analysis for us. But as Goodnight points out, the media often fail to examine issues critically or objectively. Where I think Goodnight may have it wrong is in saying that technological innovation has stifled public argument rather than extend it. I think the information revolution of the last 20 years has given ordinary citizens the opportunity to engage in the public sphere more than ever before. But with so many different communication channels competing for our time and attention, it is incumbent upon us that we be able to analyze this information critically. That's why the study of rhetoric remains so relevant today.
ReplyDeleteJohn made an interesting assessment when he stated Goodnight had it wrong in saying technological innovation has stifled public argument rather than extend it. I agree, the last twenty years have opened the public up to a great swell in information technology. The more I contemplated the subject the more I began to wonder though. Is this increase in information, an increase in quality information? I mean everyone can create a blog, video, or website. They can take any information with or without credibility and spread it as fact. The confirmation bias shows peoples propensity to gather inaccurate information. If people are responsible and intelligent they can weed this out, but is it good for the general public in the general sphere? I also wonder about our political debates and speeches. Every politician employs advisors, speech writers, and image managers. Every word is planned and critiqued; prepared for a national audience. Often it seems impossible to actually determine the policy agenda. It is more like a barrage of rhetoric and fallacies. It reminds me of the prepared statements presented by athletes and celebrities after some sort of moral mishap. They are authored by a lawyer and read directly as a monotone narrative. Our politicians seem in the same vein. So has the massive swell in technology and information created advancement or hinderance? Or as is the case in most situations, some degree of both.
ReplyDeleteAfter watching about a half hour of the Grammy awards last night I found it difficult not to fully support the idea that social media has enhanced our society's narcissism. That being said, do celebrity artists represent our culture in a way that signifies anything more than consumption? A televised event of that size can distort one's perspective. Do people who are fully engaged in social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc.)see such broadcasts differently than those who are not? Must society reject the assumption that entertainers represent them as a culture? Is that action necessary if they are to claim that they are not a "culture of narcissism".
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