Scott Harris and Kenneth Burke

["Robert E. Tucker" <rtucker@pop1.fullerton.edu>]

Scott writes,

>         As Kenneth Burke suggested Logologically A calls into
> existence
> the opposite of A.  To say positively that "voting for the CR topic
> will
> improve society" logologically invents the negative "if we don't
> vote for
> the CR topic we have forgone an opportunity to improve society."
> How
> could this not be an implicit part of the argument?

Scott is doing a whole bunch of work here.  He is making statements of
equivalence which ignore subtle distinctions and he is reading implicit
arguments which only the most radical hermeneutics of suspicion would
discover (invent).  Specifically, he moves from my statement that: "X is
good" to the derivation "Not X is bad."  This is not the only way to
resolve this.  How about "X is good," and its inferred alternative: "Not
X is not as good, but could still be ok."  This seems a more reasonable
way of resolving the ambiguity.

Next Scott argues:

Likewise implicitly embedded within this claim is the clear notion
that anyone who wouldn't take advantage of the opportunity to improve
society must have something wrong with them.

This is false.  There are many opportunities to make the world a
slightly better place that I don't take advantage of.  This does not
mean there is something wrong with me.  What it means is that I'm
focusing on _other_ ways to make the world a better place.  I said that
the CR topic has a pretty good chance of improving the world in a
concrete way.  This says _nothing_ about other ways to improve the
world.  It is possible, for example, to make the case that the SE Asia
topic would improve the world just a little bit _more_ than the CR
topic.  If Professor Harris demonstrates this, I promise not to think
that he's attacking me as a human being.

Finally, since Burke was legitimated as grounds for argument about CR, a
Burkean perspective on why chose CR:  We should change the frame of
discussion on CR from the tragic to the comic.  This would, among other
things, entail a reconceptualization of those who oppose us from evil to
mistaken.  This is exactly what I have called for in my posts, and I
actually think Burke's advocacy as to why the comic frame is superior
does enormously good things for why we should debate CR.

I maintain that Scott Harris is a gentleman, a scholar, a darn fine
director of forensics, and (to the limited extent that I know him) a
kind human being.  I also happen to disagree with him (still and
somewhat consistently, it seems) about the arguments I have made
regarding the CR topic.

Sincerely,

Rob Tucker
CSU Fullerton


> As a previous discussion
> noted arguments are enthymematic.  Arguments which stake out for
> themselves the moral high ground (as opposed to the naivete of the
> opponents) imply morally inferior ground for others.  As Burke
> suggests,
> hierarchy is an inherent part of the way in which humans use
> symbols.  To
> say "my choice would improve our community and our society" is to
> make the
> argument that "my choice is superior to yours because yours would
> not
> improve our community and our society."
>         It is intersting that Mr. Tucker interpreted my
> post as an attack on the CR topic.  Nowhere in my post did I
> explicitly
> say I wouldn't vote for the topic.  Was this enthymematically
> derived?
>
> Still undecided
>
>
> #####LOCO IN LAWRENCE#####

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