Topic-Driven Environmental Rhetoric

Derek G. Ross, Derek G. Ross

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781315442020
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Langues et linguistique
• Subtopic: Rhétorique

Common topics and commonplaces help develop arguments and shape understanding. When used in argumentation, they may help interested parties more effectively communicate valuable information. The purpose of this edited collection on topics of environmental rhetoric is to fill gaps in scholarship related to specific, targeted, topical communication tactics. The chapters in this collection address four overarching areas of common topics in technical communication and environmental rhetoric: framing, place, risk and uncertainty, and sustainability. In addressing these issues, this collection offers insights for students and scholars of rhetoric, as well as for environmental communication practitioners looking for a more nuanced understanding of how topic-driven rhetoric shapes attitudes, beliefs, and decision-making.

Part I
Framing

1 Proof and Fluid Topics

Topic-Driven Environmental Rhetoric in Modern Society

Derek G. Ross

Topics are rhetorical places from which a rhetor can develop argument. In a general sense, topics help us generate arguments, and their sister structures, commonplaces, are localized, common-to-a-place-and-time structures that we may invoke to help more fully bring an audience to a place of shared understanding. Though the introduction to this collection offered a fairly in-depth look at how topics function, in many ways we can gain a better understanding of how topics and commonplaces work by considering them in light of a modern incarnation: the Internet meme.

In 2014, the (in)famous meme site “Know Your Meme” defined an Internet meme as “a piece of content or an idea that’s passed from person to person, changing and evolving along the way.” Since then, they largely shorthand memes as “viral phenomena” (2016). Not considered in their definition is the core aspect of each meme—usually a picture or short video that encapsulates an entire narrative or subtext. For example, a picture of a skateboarding professor, briefcase in hand, tie flying as he rolls along, encapsulates a subversive narrative of collegiate authority. This encapsulated narrative works as a commonplace. A particular audience reads the image as conveying a particular message regarding college life. So, then, the topic of the conversation to which we might apply the commonplace meme of the skateboarding professor could be “definitions of campus life.” We are going to enter into some sort of discussion about what college is like, what classes are like. To make a specific point about college life, perhaps a particular class, we might apply the commonplace (or meme, in this case), and, because we are at a particular place and time in Internet popular culture, we instantly know that any class described through association with this image and text is going to be nontraditional.

The commonplace conversion to argumentative understanding works a bit like this: We register “professor” in the image, but also register a subversion to our expectations of what a professor should be. We identify the figure as “professorial” because of cultural expectations, context (he is skating on what many of us would identify as a college campus), and, perhaps, cultural stereotypes.¹ As the meme moves from person to person, the professor/professorial encapsulation remains—the overarching message remains common. The text associated with the image, however, changes. Phrases such as, “Summer’s over: Back to the grind;” “No test today: Board meeting;” “The only steep grade is a halfpipe;” or “Don’t worry: Most students skate through this class” alter the surface of the message, but not the commonplace—this is not your “typical” professor (“Skateboarding professor” 2014), and your experience in his class will likely be atypical as well. The image can be used to add value to any discussion of the college classroom (again, as long as the commonplace holds meaning for the audience), simply by inserting the image and text into the discussion: in a presentation, in an online discussion, or, with a bit of description, into a paper.

Meme sites host, literally, thousands of such images, and many, such as “Good Guy Greg” or “Bad Luck Brian” have become iconic.² Their association with any text shapes audience perception of that text—if, of course, the audience is familiar with the image and the encapsulated narrative, which is the other key component of a commonplace. For a commonplace to be effective, it literally must be common to its intended audience. In the aforementioned skateboarding professor meme, for example, the entire argument/joke is lost if one fails to ascribe professor/professorial to the image.

We do not generally refer to memes as commonplaces, though we might. We keep lists (memebase.com, knowyourmeme.com, quickmeme.com, memecenter.com, memes.com, and numerous other websites attest to this social collection), and we refer to them as necessary in order to construct or amplify argument (provided, of course, our audience meets particular expectations). In many ways, our social archiving of memes bears resemblance to the commonplace books of the Renaissance, which many scholars kept in order to have a ready list of well-turned phrases, interesting words, and pithy sayings for use in speechmaking and debate. Blair (1992), for example, points out that the popularity of commonplace books occurred in part because of the “increasingly unwieldy quantity of textual and personal knowledge” that one would need to be able to access in order to guarantee one’s own “copiousness in speech and writing” (542). As she writes, “In this method of reading […] one selects passages of interest for the rhetorical turns of phrase, the dialectical arguments, or the factual information they contain; one then copies them out in a notebook, the commonplace book, kept handy for the purpose, grouping them under appropriate headings to facilitate later retrieval and use, notably in composing prose of one’s own” (541). These accumulated commonplaces were then used as heuristics for argumentative development or to emphasize virtue or vice in argumentation, much in the same way a teacher might use a meme in a classroom to capture attention, shorthand an argument, or soften a blow—I’ve seen more than one professor post reference to Gandalf’s line from Lord of the Rings—now a popular Internet meme—when grading: “You shall not pass.” I admit to checking Memebase regularly for the exact same reason that Renaissance scholars would peruse their commonplace books—knowing what is popular and shared allows a certain fluidity of discourse when working with many of my audiences.

As this introductory discussion of memes suggests, topics and commonplaces, though well aged in terms of how long we have been using them to develop and strengthen arguments, are just as vital today as they were in Aristotle’s time. They surround us, permeating our everyday life and punctuating our discussions. In the remainder of this chapter, I extend on the classic definitions discussed in the introduction—in short, that “topics” serve as places for argumentative development, and “commonplaces” serve as context-dependent structures that may be inserted into an ongoing argument in order to bring audiences to a place of shared understanding—to discuss the modern concept of “fluid topics” (multipurpose topics that may function as topics or commonplaces depending on intent) as a way to further get at ways in which topical argumentation bears relevance in our modern world. I then turn to an overview of proof-as-topic to help situate the rhetorical activity of topic-driven argumentation in general; to show how topic-driven argumentation works in practice, what it looks like in popular culture, and what rhetors may learn from an analysis of stakeholder responses; and to offer some consideration of the way language works to motivate action with regard to environmental rhetoric.

Fluid Topics

Many elements of topical argumentation, particularly in relation to environmental rhetoric, appear to serve as both formal topics and as commonplaces—as “fluid topics.” That is, they appear to do double duty as both generalized places of invention and as context-sensitive insertions and argument-builders (see, for example, Ross 2013).

Fluid topics appear to have a tripartite structure—borrowing concepts from Miller (2000) and Leff (1996), I define fluid topics as generative, managerial, and encapsulated. Fluid topics are generative in that the chosen topic (“Balance,” for example) may literally be used to generate argument. Thus, “We must balance our environmental and fiscal obligations” might well serve as a generative thesis statement. Fluid topics are managerial, in that they may be used to modify, influence, or otherwise redirect existing or ongoing arguments. If you argue that, “we have a fiscal responsibility to ensure our economic success,” I might add, “yes, but we need to balance fiscal responsibility with environmental responsibility,” thereby shaping the ongoing argument. Both of these elements, generation and management, are actions we would typically associate with a common topic. Fluid topics, however, also function as commonplaces, in that they are also encapsulated. They can enclose an entire concept/speech, thereby allowing a rhetor to bypass discreet argumentative steps. In this way, the fluid topic moves from inventional to injected, neither inventing nor managing argument but instead emphasizing or amplifying a point to bring an audience to a place of shared understanding (recognizing that this use is, perhaps, somewhat more audience-specific than the generative and managerial facets).

Let us continue to consider the fluid topic of “balance,” which emerged from my research with visitors to the Glen Canyon and Hoover dams on their perceptions of the environment and environmental argumentation.³ A rhetor might develop an argument from the overarching topic of balance. The topic is inventional, in that it acts as a general heuristic that shapes argumentation. Given the need to develop an argument regarding the environment (or education, or economics, etc.) one could choose to discuss pragmatic versus ecological balance, work with the “balance of nature” metaphor, or develop any number of arguments using “balance” as the inventional fulcrum.⁴ In an ongoing argument, however, “balance” can shift from topic to commonplace—it becomes less inventive, and more insertive. In my research on commonplaces, for example, I asked participants what someone would have to do in order to convince them of something. How would someone make a good argument about the environment to them? Several responded by invoking “balance” as a commonplace: “They’d have to have it [the argument] be in the middle and let it be balanced, recognize the values of modern life, and recognize the need to ensure the clean environment of the future,” one respondent noted. Another suggested that the speaker, “present research that is good or balanced.” Both of these responses use “balance” as a shorthand, invoking the phrase as a way to bring their audience, me, to a place of shared understanding without having to offer much in the way of rich explanation.

To further consider the utility of fluid topics, consider the way one of my respondents, a 28-year-old man from Utah, articulated his thoughts on environmentalism in relation to our conversation. He began by telling me that “Balance is a good thing, you know, you got people that destroy the environment and just trash the place, you got people that overprotect. I think that a better balance is a better way to go.” Here, his use of “balance” appears generative, in that he used it as a way to create (generate) a response to my questions. It also appears to be managerial, in that he shaped (influenced) the conversation with “balance.” His use, however, also suggests argumentative encapsulation. His delivery suggested that I, too, would understand what he meant by “balanced”: He offers nothing by way of definition. This is the key aspect (and, perhaps, the hardest to pin down) of the encapsulated facet of fluid topics—when used as a commonplace, there may be a Monty-Pythonesque, wink-wink-nudge-nudge component built in: The rhetor expects the audience to understand the encapsulation. Additionally, the encapsulated aspect of fluid topics, in particular, requires some investment on the part of the rhetor. For fluid topics to work at the encapsulated, speech-within-a-speech level, the rhetor must be familiar with his or her audience, must be aware of common, shared discourse within that audience, and must be able to invoke terminology that will then resonate within that specific group. All topics, however, no matter how we categorize them, are designed to move an audience toward a directed understanding—they are tools used to create and situate proof.

Proof

“Proof” is the superordinate category under which topics fall in classical rhetoric. That is, above all else, topics serve as a way to direct and influence understanding, whether it is through the way an argument is generated, how a rhetor manages that argument as it progresses, or how a rhetor shapes audience understanding and expectation of associated argumentative components. Thus, in this chapter, I think it worth considering how proof itself works, both with regard to formal rhetorical terminology and public perception. In many ways, proofmaking is a deeply personal, complex process. As a topic of environmental rhetoric, then, exploring how proof-as-topic works offers us some insight into the ways topics themselves shape understanding and influence the decision-making process. In this section, I draw from my own research and from research and writing in technical and professional communication, rhetoric, media studies, environmental studies, and law, among others, as a way to consider the creation and constitution of “proof,” and to dig more deeply into how and why topic-driven argumentation matters.

In the classical presentation of proof, there are two primary categories: atechnic (inartificial), and entechnic (artificial). Inartificial proofs are the artifacts on which we base decision-making (evidence), whereas artificial proof is created through artistic means. Many of us are familiar with the pisteis: logos (appeals to reason/logic), ethos (appeals based on the speaker’s credibility/character), and pathos (appeals to the emotions), all of which are artistic proofs. This clear-cut portrayal of proof as either existing in the world as tangible evidence or created through human influence and interaction is more problematic than it initially seems, however.

When I conducted research with visitors to the Glen Canyon and Hoover dams on their perceptions of the environment and environmental argumentation, for example, many respondents indicated that they would need to see some sort of proof to be swayed by an environmental argument. A 48-year-old man from Nevada told me he’d be convinced of an argument if “[they could] explain to me their viewpoint and show me some facts, some data, research, uh, you know, some things concrete, that I could actually look at and compare and think about.” Similarly, a 14-year-old boy from Wisconsin told me (with permission from his father), “Just tell me, like, good facts.” This sentiment is echoed in many responses, regardless of age. Respondents indicated that, for any argument to be effective, that argument would need to include “facts,” “proof,” “evidence,” “scientific evidence,” or the rhetor would need to “prove it,” or “show it.” How those “facts,” “evidence,” or “proofs” are made real, however, generally remained ambiguous—when we think of “proof” in the heat of di...