Public Policy is an interesting subject to cover because not
two people on this planet have the same background, values, or see life through
the same terministic screens (if we were to dramatize the subject). This does
not make it impossible, but incredibly difficult. How are we to know what solution
to the problem is right? How do we separate this from all the other
possibilities that are thrown at us? How do we, as people with our own biases,
determine what takes priority and, most importantly- how do we communicate
that? Jones and Kaufer take a good look at this question by indentifying,
within ourselves, means to make arguments level and conceivable.
Jones takes a look at public policy through a historical
lens. He immediately recognizes the public
aspect of the art, and uses classical rhetoric as the means to judge how people
go about creating their own argument (since classical rhetoric is inherent
public, in that it could not be done without a group of white males to listen).
He also distinguishes that previously discredited methods of rhetoric, such as
the sophists, are recently gaining ground- detracting from our inborn sense of
duality and extremism (right and wrong). Moreover, this shows that every method
of argumentation has a purpose, but it requires the correct argument to remain
effective. He continues this theory by
explaining that fallacies exist to bolster an argument that is severely
lacking- so much so that it fails to stand on it’s own. Jones almost seems to
claim that arguments that are not ethical are not real, in that they do to
argue towards a genuine cause that is grounded in facts. This is where, what I
think , Jones submits his most substantial: That these rules only hold true in a
perfect world, where everyone is fair and cares about the subject at hand. “Even
though our current media and political climate do not call for good argumentation,
the guidelines to finding and creating it abound” (Jones 177). If an audience
who was unversed in rhetoric and argumentation techniques were to face a
logically sound and fundamentally stable argument- would they be able to
recognize it? When concerning the
viability of an argument and not it’s inherent ‘goodness,’ I can’t help but
feel that Jones is incorrect- the rules of fallacies should be flexible, for it
is incredibly difficult to keep an
audience’s attention with logic when an opposing argument is using an extraordinary
amount of pathos, or attacking ad hominem instead.
Kaufer, in my opinion, provides a much more useful view of argumentation
(which does not sound like a reiteration of every rhetoric and public speaking
class I’ve taken here at Florida State). In fact, when mentioning the text to
one of my friends in the International Affairs major, he stated that he had
read the paper for one of his classes as well and even recited what he
remembered most- Kaufer’s method of transcending the stated “sides” and
attaching them to an overarching theme- He uses the example of arguing against
lowering the drinking age to 18 by attaching that reasoning to an overarching
concern for human’s well-being. By doing this, we would then be able to
construct a new solution which attempt to appease both sides of an argument. Kaufer
does this in a nearly quantified way- when it is very difficult to attach ‘more’
value to one argument than another. This clearly assumes that these people
actually, truly hold these ideals… If they do not, they would fail to be swayed
by any heuristic that is provided to them.
Clearly, I like to focus on the applicability of these
explanations of argument. It may be logical and sound, but if it is not
effective in actually practice- why, then, it holds very little value to me as
a public policy maker/articulator. Jones outlines the methods of argumentation
from its very basics, while Kaufer focuses on the creation of a solution which;
this involves both ends of the argumentation spectrum, the very basic and the
transcendent. Despite that, the tasks that Jones and Kaufer outline are not
simple. Kaufer explains in the concluding section of his text that this type of
argumentation- nay, this type of processing information, takes a higher brain
power than would arguing on a much simpler level. For that reason, arguments
that find their solution through the level 4 and above, or are built according
to the rules stated by Jones, are much more sound… in that they are crafted
from a genuine concern for the issue at hand, rather than winning or losing.
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