Sophists Rule!
Stasis theory does provide a nice way to analyze arguments to see where the conflict begins. And it's obvious that for arguments that seem unresolvable like the death penalty and abortion, the two sides are really talking about completely different things. Understanding the underlying theory in an argument allows one to understand the argument better and either create an appropriate dialectic. Until one understands the underlying theory of an argument or the true point of disagreement, it's difficult to create a meaningful discussion. That's clearly what's going on with many "discussions" today.
I find it a little funny that 2500 years ago Gorgias was defending Helen and her love life and by extension women's lot in life. Now, Crowley and Hawhee point out how women aren't that successful at defending themselves and their right to a love life, because they've made the underlying value that they base their discussion on that people should have the right to privacy as opposed to women should have equality with men. When the discussion is that women should have equality with men, contraception including its least popular incarnation, abortion, become about giving women equality with men, or more specifically an equal right to a love life. If it's about about privacy, that implies that the state doesn't have any say over medical procedures etc. when clearly it does. Why do we have licensing boards etc.? 2500 years and rhetoric is still trying to bail women out.
I also find it more than a little ironic that pro-life groups don't appear to understand this dynamic either. Otherwise they wouldn't be trying so hard to ban all kinds of contraception. When the issue becomes should any form of contraception be legal (and huge sections of the pro-life lobby think it shouldn't) then it becomes obvious that it's not a question of murder, but rather of subjugating women. If women have significantly less control over when they become pregnant, then it becomes significantly more difficult for them to compete in the workplace than their peers who have more control over their reproductive capacity. Women have less opportunity and less equality.
Kendall
3 comments:
You are the brave one! Jumping right into the abortion and equal rights debates.
I too find stasis theory fascinating and enlightening. It is always intriguing how often we argue with each other, about anything, without ever really arguing about the real disagreement. Of course, we may have to keep “backing up” in our argument, as we argue about what we are really arguing about. This can be very impractical. And I wonder at what point the search for stasis or the search for the actual field of contention is no longer productive.
It’s possible to move the debate so far from where we started that we lose track of what we wanted to accomplish. For example, if I say I’m against abortion or I think abortion is murder, then someone else might say we need to argue about our definition for murder. Someone else may say we should be arguing about the equality of men and women. Someone else may say we should be figuring out what God thinks about the whole thing, etc. How long does this go on? How long do people argue about what to argue about?
This stuff really fascinates me when we’re talking about political and social policies because then we throw in the original monkey wrench of culture and all that that word may signify.
-G
Glenn--
You're exactly right about this. We can back-up to a point in which we appear to not even be discussing the same point. Or to back-up to a point of non-contention that's meaningless such as war is bad and risk sounding like a freshman thesis. However, I do think stasis theory can be really valuable for uncovering the underlying ideas in an argument especially in our own argument.
Kendall
You have it. To see where the conflict begins. What the root of the issue is. Otherwise, nothing is solved or resolved and this leads to violence. This is the experience of the Greek city-state culture. And, contemporary issues like the abortion example in the book clearly suffer from this sort of thing.
Your points about how C/H don't seem to be making the right argument about women's rights is an apt one.
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