Transcript “Are people born wicked, or do they have wickedness thrust upon

Strategic Rhetorical Language in the Argument
Between the Biological versus Sociological
Etiology of Homosexuality
John Martin
Rhetoric of Science & Technology
December 10, 2007
Topic Interest
It’s All About Me!
“Are people born wicked, or do they have
wickedness thrust upon them?”
Glenda, in Wicked
“Are people born homosexual, or do they
have homosexuality thrust upon them?”
John 12:10, in ENG 515
The Discussion
Biologists
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Innateness/Genetics
Episodic / empiricism
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Kinsey (1948)
Hooker (1957)
Swaab (1990)
Allen (1990)
LeVay (1991)
Kallman (1952)
Bailey & Pillard (1991)
Dean Hamer (1993)
Sociologists
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Learned/Environment
Sweeping / narrative
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Antiquity
Psychoanalytic theories
Parent Manipulation Theory
Kin Selection Theory
Planophysical Theory
(Halperin)
“Justified Aberration”
(Foucault)
The Players
“Biology and Homosexuality”
Author:
J. Todd Ormsbee
Venue:
A WordPress blog
Ethos:
Assistant Professor in the Program in
American Studies at San Jose State
University
Audience:
Academics to Lay People
Date:
2006
“The Attitudes of American
Sociologists toward Causal
Theories of Male Homosexuality”
Authors:
Michael J. Engle, Jospeh A. McFalls
Jr., Bernard J. Gallagher III, and
Kristine Curtis
Venue:
The American Sociologist magazine
Ethos:
Engle: Criminal Defense Attorney &
Sociologist, McFalls Jr.: Professor of
Sociology at Villanova University &
author of 9 books and numerous papers
on sociology and demography,
Gallagher III: Professor of Psychiatric
Sociology at Villanova University &
author of The Sociology of Mental
Illness, and Curtis: J.P. Morgan
Investment Bank Analyst,
Audience:
Mostly academics, and I suspect,
homosexuals
Date:
2006
Strategic Rhetorical Language (Commonality)
Jeanne Fahnestock noted that “most arguments in the field cannot
demonstrate certainty but only establish some degree of probability, a
standard with which many in the field seem, perhaps unreasonably,
uncomfortable, because it always leaves room for disagreement.”
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Hedging
Establishing reality structures
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Example
Illustration
Strategic Rhetorical Language (Ormbsee)
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Blog entry format
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Opening rebuttal paragraph
Nine numbered list items for the case of biology
Devices
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Metaphor
Hedging
Quasi-logical argument (transitive)
Establishing a reality structure (example)
Strategic Rhetorical Language (Ormbsee, Cont...)
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Hedging
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Jeanne Fahnestock
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In opening paragraph
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Type 2 & 3: Have hedges, qualifications, or “modalities” that suggest the information
conveyed is not indisputable.
Stage-setting metaphor (simile)
“Genes act in cascades, more like a recipe than a blueprint.“
In nine supporting points
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“Zoological data indicates that nearly all bird and mammal species have individuals in
their population with preferences for sex with…”
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“…colleagues found an area on gay men’s x-chromosome that appeared to be passed
on through the mother’s line.”
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“The most likely hypothesis from this as it now stands and as we understand fetal
development now, is that when a child…”
Strategic Rhetorical Language (Ormbsee, Cont...)
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Quasi-logical argument (transitive)
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Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca
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Transitive: Because one set of relationships holds another
relationship follows
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"[N]early all bird and mammal species have individuals in their
population with preferences for sex with members of their own
sex."
Strategic Rhetorical Language (Ormbsee, Cont...)
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Establishing reality structures (Hauser)
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Illustration: the use of a particular case to provide support to an
already established regularity
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“In the late 1990s, a group of scientists… found that the ratio of
the finger length of the ring finger to the index finger was the
same between straight men and gay women; and between gay
men and straight women. The significance of this study is that
we know very much about how finger lengths develop (the gene
cascades that stop and start finger development in utero), and
so given the corresponding ratios across sexual orientations,
this indicates again a developmental component to homosexuality.”
Strategic Rhetorical Language (Engle et al.)
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Paper format
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IMRAD
Most hedging late in the paper
Devices
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Hedging
Visual parallelism
Establishing a reality structure (example)
The courtly style
Strategic Rhetorical Language (Engle et al., Cont…)
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Hedging
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In the Results and Discussion sections
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“Apparently, the essentialist perspective held by these
sociologists favors the view that biology and environment work
in tandem during the developmental…”
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“[T]he majority of respondents… now view biology as at least
playing some role in the causation of male homosexuality.”
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“In retrospect, respondents could have been offered a
combination model…”
Strategic Rhetorical Language (Engle et al., Cont...)
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Visual Parallelism
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Jeanne Fahnestock, Verbal and Visual Parallelism
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“Deliberate visual deployment can facilitate making inferences
from the images; their arrangements constitut[ing] an
argument.”
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Accomplished in this article through the use of…
Strategic Rhetorical Language (Engle et al., Cont...)
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The table!
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In the Introduction
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Tabular results of 1995 study: There is no such survey
comparable to this one to tell if new research has led to a
shift in attitudes.
In the Results and again in the Discussion
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Tables with new data, in similar format.
The “constituted argument through visual parallelism”: We
have filled the aforementioned gap for you.
Strategic Rhetorical Language (Engle et al., Cont...)
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Establishing reality structures (Hauser)
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Example: the use of particular cases to make a generalization
possible
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Posit in Discussion section: “[A] hybrid model is emerging that
includes all the elements of both essentialism and
constructionism, i.e., genetic predisposition, clusters of
physiological factors, and social factors throughout the life
cycle.”
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Sayer (1997)
Conrad (1996)
Textbook inclusion of theory
Strategic Rhetorical Language (Engle et al., Cont...)
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The courtly style
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Robert Hariman (as discussed in Hauser)
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“Those who are courtiers strive to be in proximity with the monarch
because that is a sign of power.”
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“It is also noteworthy that this Combination Theory is also now being
espoused by some of the major textbooks in sociology. For example,
Macionis’ Sociology, the dominate text since the early 1990s, states:
‘Mounting evidence supports the conclusion that sexual orientation is
rooted in biology, although it is likely that society as well as biology
plays a part in guiding sexual orientation… Thus the task of explaining
sexual orientation is extremely complex.’”
Strategic Rhetorical Language Summary
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Biological and Sociological
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Biological
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+
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Conversing in the “room for disagreement”
Hedging
Establishing reality structures (example and illustration)
Metaphor
Quasi-logical arguments (transitive)
Sociological
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+
Visual parallelism
The courtly style
The Rhetorical Future
The conflict between biology and sociology is the bedrock of the
nature/nurture divide. It is a divide between the social and the
biological, and between sociologists and biologists and evolutionists. A
divide has also separated sociology and psychology.
This is not necessary, or advantageous. The varieties of approaches
that exist imply that somewhere along the line, each field has
something useful to say to the other.
P.J. Brennan
"Dumb questions - blustering hostility": Nature/nurture, the
body and the sociology of child abuse
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