Extended Argument with a Foundation Document

Extended argument with a foundation document

In recent weeks, a professional football player has conducted a protest during the national anthem. This protest has stimulated public responses as people evaluate the protest and express their opinion. The public nature of the protest encourages public responses. Most published responses oppose the football player—not surprising when a protest is being evaluated. Protests are rarely popular. These responses tend to rely on pathos and ethos appeals. This is also unsurprising given the simplicity of composing appeals that rest on ethos (I am qualified) and pathos (I feel, and you feel.) Ethos is easy—the other person proposes a fully-formed belief and, if you accept it, some of that person’s prestige rubs off on you. Pathos is easy—emotions are aroused which confirm an existing bias and then confirm themselves. Opposition to the protest, furthermore, is unsurprising given the nature of football, the business aspects of football, the close relationship between football and patriotic ideas, and our culture’s thirst for brief pithy opinions from prominent people.

Brief, pithy ethos/pathos appeals in service to the majority opinion are still arguments, and they can still be effective arguments. (There is only one invalid argument in circulation that I have seen.) Protests, for all their aggressive, lonely energy, tend to begin as ethos/pathos arguments but evolve into grander structures supported by complex, nuanced, logos-based argument. They also rarely win, at least in the short term, in the forums of public opinion. Win or lose, a public protest with high emotional content is a perfect opportunity to apply your new skill of rhetorical analysis to an argument.

Also, we have just read Barnette which is a strong support for the football protest. When I tie them together, I’ll be caging your arguments toward one side. Don’t fret; I don’t want to force your opinion, before or after. We won’t be taking a vote (see Barnette ¶24.) If you truly want to make an argument in this case, pro or con, please do so. Feel free to roam among many other authoritative texts and choose your own path.

This is my lesson. There are two general types of public political argument. One avoids a text such as Barnette; the other embraces it. A simple emotional appeal built on generalities is quick and easy, and is easily understood and expected, and is common currency in most forums. A complex logos appeal with logical structures and citations to evidence takes a lot of work and commitment. Our culture tends away from a logos argument that expects its readers to untangle complex syntax, manage tough diction, follow multi-step logic, and work with demanding information like landmark USSC opinions, the Bible in Greek, the actual word-for-word text of Origin of Species, crime statistics, or the chemistry of seawater. Knowing when to shift from one sort of argument to the other is a survival skill in our tech-soaked, hasty world. Let’s look at both types of argument.

1. Familiarize yourself with the events, the persons, the dates, the locations. Read some of the various remarks and opinions offered on the issue. (See if you can find that invalid argument I mentioned…but don’t use it.)

2. Return to Barnette with the national anthem protest in mind. Read and think about the reasoning offered in the latter paragraphs of the majority decision—the last 10 or 12 paragraphs before the word ‘AFFIRMED’ is the best. (If you are inclined to condemn the football player’s actions, focus your reading on the later paragraphs of the document, particularly the dissent by Felix Frankfurter.) Identify particular sections of the rhetoric that you feel are persuasive when applied to the football player’s actions. Take a few notes, probably in the form of statements you might make if the right situation arose. The goal is to discuss the football player’s actions using a USSC document as evidence, ethos, logic, or simple allusion.

3. Adopt a position, and phrase that position as something other than “I support…” or “I reject….” Come to class prepared to make a point, or an entire case, in which you quote Barnette.

It will be artificial. That’s fine. If you carry a bone-deep loathing for our football player, either because of his protest or because of his pocket mobility issues, you can remain silent or be a pesky contrarian and snipe at the others’ statements. The activity will be concluded when we have heard, and considered, several ways that Barnette can be deployed in this discussion.