In the chapter by James McDonald
titled “I agree but.. Finding alternatives to controversial projects through
public deliberation” in “Rhetorical Citizenship and Public Deliberation,” he
highlights that controversies are not as simple as they seem. He claims that
“controversies are more complex than simple disagreements between two parties”
(McDonald 200). The characteristics of a controversy as named in his chapter
are that, “the individuals who discuss issues are in disagreement with other
individuals or groups that discuss the same issues; there is a minimum of two
opposing views on the same issue; and the parties do not simply express their
opposing point of view but argue about the issues in a process of deliberation”
(McDonald 200). The second condition gets to me a bit. I am not sure to what
extent I agree that an issue needs to have at least two opposing points of
views in order to be a controversy. Allow me to explain.
An issue can be controversial
without having two opposing viewpoints. An example of this can be observed in a
dictatorship or a nation ruled by a totalitarian ruler. A good example of this
in recent years is the crisis going on in Venezuela. The government ordered a
media shut down, and censored media to the point that it seems like there is
not even a controversy at all. From the outside looking in, one would conclude
that there are no opposing points of views, and, according to the conditions
provided by McDonald, that there is no controversy. However, in this case, the
lack of knowledge about the opposing viewpoints would lead someone to this
faulty conclusion.
From what I was able to conclude from
McDonald’s chapter, it seems as though commoners are not welcome into engaging
and contributing to the public sphere of sociotechnical controversies.
According to McDonald, “sociotechnical controversies, that is, those pertaining
to society, science, and technology, seem to occupy a particularly important
place in the contemporary public sphere and are the subject of numerous
analyses in various disciplines, including rhetoric and the sociology of
science and technology” (McDonald 201). With this in mind, ordinary citizens do
not have the expertise required to engage in these controversies, even though
they are, in fact, public spheres.
A specific branch of a
controversy is discussed in David S. Kaufer’s “A Plan for Teaching the
Development of Original Policy Arguments.” Here, he focuses on the stock issue.
By his definition, stock issues are “points of disagreement that recur
regularly when people deliberate on questions of justice or public policy”
(Kaufer 57). These have plenty of public attention, as with today’s digital
world and ease of getting information around, ordinary citizens can comment and
respond to public platforms about these recurring issues. For example, with the
police brutality uprisings in Ferguson, older issues of police brutality were
easily brought up and made relevant again, or in other words, they are a stock
issue.
I got a sense that these texts
were, as a combination, not a controversy (ba dum tss) by McDonald’s definition
of it, at the least. They agreed that ordinary citizens have a role and a right
to participate in issues such as these. Both of the texts also conclude that public
deliberation will not necessarily mean a resolution is found for the
controversy or stock issue. Public deliberation allows debate to be further
developed, and new points to be raised, however, it does not hold responsibility
for creating a new, never-before-thought-of solution. Public sphere discussions
hold a great deal of importance, but this does not mean it needs to find
solutions.
Works Cited
Kaufer, David S. "A Plan for Teaching the Development of Original Policy Arguments." College Composition and Communication. 35.1 (Feb. 1984): 57-70. Web.
McDonald, James. "I Agree, But...Finding Alternatives to Controversial Projects Through Public Deliberation."Rhetoric and Public Deliberation. 199-217. Web.
To add to that condition you had in the first few paragraphs of your post: I think that conflict needs two different sides in order to truly be a controversy, mostly because your example also uses two sides. Although we are only getting one side of the story in Venezuela, you believe there is a controversy because you see an issue with it. Therefore, the conflict has changed from the Venezuelan government to our American opinion on the situation. We are unaware of how the Venezuelan people feel on the subject, but we assume our views are similar to theirs. On the flip side, if a North Korean citizen (another famously repressed group), were to hear about the repression in Venezuela, they would believe there was no controversy because their experience is similar. Unless of course the North Koreans feel there is a controversy in their own country, but this is leading to a reversal of the original point. In summary, because we as an outside observer, our views create a new, altered exigence. Am I making sense?
ReplyDelete