Deliberate Conflict

Argument, Political Theory, and Composition ClassesBy Patricia Roberts-Miller

Southern Illinois University Press

Copyright © 2004 Board of Trustees, Southern Illinois University
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8093-2766-9

Contents

Preface.................................................................................................................viiIntroduction............................................................................................................11. Politics Without Argument............................................................................................182. Autonomous Selves, Liberally Educated................................................................................583. Closing My Eyes as You Speak.........................................................................................984. What Angels of Our Nature? Communitarianism, Social Constructivism, and Communities of Discourse.....................1425. Listening for Difference.............................................................................................182Conclusion..............................................................................................................221Notes...................................................................................................................231Works Cited.............................................................................................................241Index...................................................................................................................257

Chapter One

Politics Without Argument

Liberalism will always remain an aspiration. It can never be fully realized or institutionalized. But it can provide a guide and stimulus to action. A liberal nation is a nation that keeps the worthier aims of liberalism steadily in view. -Stephen Holmes, Passions and Constraints

The liberal model of the public sphere is not the first or oldest model of democracy (the agonistic model long predates it), but it is the most common in political theory and public discourse. Like current-traditional pedagogy (which is, in many ways, the pedagogical enactment of liberal political theory), it is grounded in Enlightenment values of civility, rationality, neutrality, and autonomy. While current-traditional rhetoric is-if mentioned at all-an object of derision in composition theory, my own observation of classroom practice would suggest that it remains common, if not predominant (as is also suggested in Hillocks's Ways of Teaching). The pedagogical tenacity of current-traditional rhetoric may well be the result of people's desire not to abandon the goal of a rational, critical, and inclusive form of policy discourse that respects the privacy of individuals.

As will be discussed later, liberalism (both as a political agenda and a theory of democracy) is under attack from many directions. Hannah Arendt begins her critical discussion of Marx with what almost amounts to an apology, saying that she does not want to be understood as joining the people she calls "professional anti-Marxists" (Human Condition 79). I hesitate to criticize liberal political theory because I do not want to be understood as joining in, or even approving of, the attacks on political liberals by the professional antiliberals. I am, ultimately, critical of the liberal public sphere, but even I will grant that many attacks on it are not entirely fair insofar as they rely on attacking liberal political theory for its use of concepts like autonomy, the public-private split, neutrality, rationality, and universality because those terms are used by liberal political theorists in ways significantly more complicated than many criticisms imply-a point to be pursued in the next two chapters. That is not to say that the attacks are entirely wrong, and that liberal political theory is right, but simply that the argument is not over.

The ideal public sphere of Enlightenment theorists is one where intellectually autonomous interlocutors judge one anothers' arguments purely on the basis of how well they are presented, rather than who presents them. A good argument is presented in a rational, decorous, impartial manner, and appeals to universal principles. Defenders of this vision argue that it is inclusive in that it is open to all people-regardless of gender, race, class, and so on-who can make their arguments in such a way. Proponents of this theory do not claim that everyone has equal competence at such a discourse, but that everyone could were they properly educated. Thus, liberal political theory is always entwined with arguments about education. A liberal education is supposed to provide the skills of critical thinking and argumentation (as well as the knowledge base), which open the door to the liberal public sphere. The empirical fact that this sphere has always been populated primarily by white men from the upper and upper middle classes is not taken as indicating that there is something wrong with the standards of discourse, but rather with the preparation of women, minorities, and the lower classes. It is taken as a flaw in liberal education (or in the willingness of some groups of people to become educated), and not as a flaw in the liberal public sphere. Were all people adequately prepared for liberal discourse, then the liberal public sphere would be liberatory and inclusive.

The objection to such a line of argument is familiar to compositionists: that the standards are not themselves impartial, that the public sphere is liberatory and inclusive only to the extent that all participants adopt the ethos of a European white male. The familiarity (and fundamental justice) of that criticism means that we fail to look more at the complexities within Enlightenment theories. My intention in the next two chapters is to articulate those complexities because, as much as composition theorists may try to ostracize it and its brother current-traditional rhetoric, we are still left with the problem liberal political theory was trying to solve: How can we create and maintain a genuinely inclusive discursive realm where people can deliberate as equals?

And we are left with the terms that liberal political theorists used to answer that question. Because of the centrality of liberal political theory, because so many of the models of democracy are responses to it, and because of the ways those terms are interwoven into discussions of public argument, I will spend the next two chapters on liberal political theory. My intention is to define and critique the central concepts in liberal political theory, but in a way that acknowledges the complexities and attractions of the concepts. This chapter focuses on the concepts of the public-private split, universality, neutrality, self-evidence, and rationality. The next chapter discusses autonomy, individuality, objectivity, and the deontological versus traditional-universalist models of liberalism.

One of many problems with talking about political theory is that, as Donald Lazere has said, Americans have an impoverished notion of the political spectrum ("Teaching the Political Conflicts"). In consequence, we imagine that all political views can be laid out on a one-dimensional continuum from extreme left to extreme right (ignoring that political views are rarely one-dimensional). Leftists are at one end, with liberals next to them, moderates in the middle, conservatives to the right of them, and reactionaries...