Other Common Kinds of Argument

Rogerian Argument

The work of the Humanist psychologist Carl Rogers forms the basis for what is often called “Rogerian” Argument. Rogers’s approach to therapy and counseling was grounded in “empathic listening” – and you may remember this idea was brought up earlier in the Handbook when we were discussing being an empathetic reader of opposition texts.  In any event, his style of listening meant making it clear to the other people in the conversation that they were valued and respected. Value judgments should be suspended and set aside, and the most important virtue was creating an environment of shared endeavor and purpose to reach a common end.

Rogerians find too much conflict in much of the way we go about framing argument, and they often object to the oppositional structure of “me vs. you.” They would suggest that once that dichotomy is created, barriers begin to go up, sides are taken, defensive postures are assumed, and the chance to work together is lost.  You have probably experienced this sensation, yes? If someone offers some comment – never mind an out-and-out criticism – on an idea of yours, you might feel defensive and get your hackles up, even if no corrective or ill-intent was intended. Maybe you are more generous in your tolerance for disagreement, but it is a fairly common occurrence. When that hostility is engaged, it may become very difficult to work together, which is the preferred approach under Rogerian argument; rather than working on two sides of an issue, the metaphor here is that you and others are simply working the same problem from different angles.

Instead of thinking in terms of “our side” and “the opposition,” Rogerian argument asks that we recognize the value of all the starting positions.^[1] We should not conceive of an argument as a chance to demonstrate to some group the error of their ways but as a chance to work with them to find answers to our common problems; it is not opposition, but cooperation that advances the work of argumentation. We discussed before reading empathetically, which requires putting aside one’s biases to really understand the argument of the others; Rogerian argument would treat that mode of reading as simply a good start, and the rest of the argument should be animated by that same spirit of being willing to walk in another’s shoes.

The whole of a Rogerian argument, then, is built differently, as it essentially creates goals the Toulmin model does not fully reckon with.

While there are different ways to explain some of the principles of Rogerian argument, there are some tendencies all approaches under this umbrella may have. Remember to engage in reading or listening that puts aside your preconceptions and take what you are encountering seriously and respectfully. Always be prepared to consider multiple perspectives on any issue and recognize that a person’s values and identities are crucial factors in what they think, how they think it, and how they will feel about potential disagreement.

Rogerian argument is also willing to place greater faith in pathos, or the author’s emotions, as being a significant input; people tend to feel their emotions are something legitimate and integral, and an approach that minimizes or dismisses emotions risks losing their acceptance. Once you have considered who these people are, how they feel about an issue, and how their feelings impact resolution, you want to seek “common ground.” This phrase is one of the magical invocations you will often hear about Rogerian argument as it represents the ideal position from which to argue. What you would like to be able to do is to find elements on any issue about which you and your “argument partner” can agree.

If we return to cheerleading, maybe you both agree that cheerleading does require terrific physicality and coordination; start with that. If we look at a car for a college student, maybe you both agree that cost is important; that framework gives you something you can already consider “checked off” together. If we are arguing – maybe with George Will — about why college has gotten so expensive, surely we can agree some numbers, like the increased numbers of students who are seeking a college education. Finally, if we are arguing about Medicare for All, it may be that even the most rabid partisan opponent of single-payer systems will recognize that the current system is an expensive and complex Frankenstein’s monster of solutions. The first portions of your argument will emphasize or dilate on these commonalities.

Once you have made a sincere effort to establish some common ground and perhaps even common purpose (“We both want a system that works”), it is useful to think of Rogerian argument as sharing work on a problem – some argument theorists even call this mode “collaborative rhetoric.” The thesis and the antithesis coming together to make a synthesis, perhaps. However it helps you to think of it, you will want to always prioritize the ways you can invoke a cooperative ethos.

The introduction of a Rogerian argument would start in a similar way to a typical argument, with some interest-creating exigency. Telling an emotionally resonant story is likely a good approach. At the second step, though, as you explain the nature of the problem or issue, be sure to set it up in terms of “here are the problems we can agree on.” Instead of the up-front thesis common in the classical argument model, the thesis here will either need to be a delayed one, or one more carefully qualified: “A solution to our health care system is available through a deliberate consideration of the problems we face.” Ideally, you would then preview the body of the argument – in this case, the problems become the main points, and you will address each.

The body of the argument would include an inclusive discussion of the problems, with summaries of the varied viewpoints. Remember that stories or brief narrative examples create useful pathos and humanize the argument. On point one, you might say: “Here is one way to fix this problem, and here is Person R’s way to fix the problem. Both will address the problem, and here are some relative strengths or weaknesses [or advantages and challenges] of each.” Again, if you have carefully assembled and framed your grounds and backing, the strengths of one solution will present themselves as more attractive to your target audience. If possible, you repeat this process – or something similar – throughout, valuing the work the “other team” is doing while demonstrating the virtues of your positions and solutions.

The conclusion should summarize, as all conclusions do, but it will also include a sense of thesis: “As we have seen, adopting Medicare for All will solve many of the problems we have, but it must avoid many of the common problems of such systems.” Then, just as you would in any conclusion, you want to end on some dramatic or memorable note, again maybe sounding the theme of teamwork, even in the face of divergent values. A story I like to tell is about the former owner of the New York Yankees, George Steinbrenner: During a contract negotiation between the owners and players, Steinbrenner made the argument that his only concern was the health of the Yankees, as the other teams were his competition. But he was eventually brought around when he realized that “baseball” was his product because without the Red Sox, or Dodgers, or Royals, or Cardinals, there is no New York Yankees. No one is showing up to pay to watch inter-squad Yankees games 162 times a year; in securing the future of baseball, they were not competitors but partners agreeing to compete, and that is a crucial difference.

Argument by Analogy

We have discussed analogies before: the comparison of at least two things is an analogy. You could compare Afghanistan to Vietnam, September 11 to Pearl Harbor, marijuana to cigarettes, and so on. What you are trying to do is find terms that are alike enough to make the comparison reasonable, but not so alike that the audience response is a collective shrug; you still need your analogy to be arguable. It is also best if your audience is readily familiar with one or the other of your terms, as that saves you the effort of having to draw out two fully-formed explanations. You should not assume total awareness, but some foreknowledge is probably baked into useful analogies. It may be that you have heard someone say, “Thing X is just like riding a bike.” That analogy works to the extent the audience can fill in the ”you never forget how” part, but if the speaker went ahead and added that explanation, no one would mind, exactly. The expression about riding a bike only works, too, if Thing X is the sort of thing a person would re-learn with relative ease. I do not think I have ever heard anyone say, “brain surgery is just like riding a bike,” but I suppose it is possible brain surgeons say that to each other as encouragement.

You want to avoid the fallacy of the “false analogy,” of course, as discussed in Section VII. One of the ways to guard against that is to use specifics and to qualify your comparison so it does not seem exaggerated or over the top. Some analogies probably simply cannot be saved as they are more hyperbolic than sincere; it is not too likely, frankly, those sorts of things will be too useful to you in academic argument, but you will encounter them in the “real” world quite a bit: a moment ago, I heard a commercial that said, “sitting is the new smoking!”  If you compare sugar to cocaine, while it is true they both trigger chemical changes and processes in the brain with our old friend dopamine, that is pretty much where the comparison stops.

It can be done, but it is not often that an analogy is stretched out to become an entire argument. They are especially good to employ as quick hits to illuminate a perhaps-unfamiliar term or concept, or to give something a human scale the readers can better appreciate. More frequently, analogies can be extended and will form a crucial component of some longer argument, like if you argued against “religious freedom” laws, and as part of your larger focus, you claimed that since gay marriage occupies a social position akin to how inter-racial marriage was viewed fifty years ago, allowing discrimination in services to gay couples is no different than allowing racial discrimination would be. Such larger arguments are often called Resemblance Arguments wherein the writer lays out the similarities between elements as part of some larger goal. Simple analogies will probably have achieved their purpose once the connections are made clear, but Resemblance arguments have some further intent.

As an example, Missouri has recently added a limited bear hunting season, and a person could write an argument that suggests while there might be good reasons to hunt deer, those reasons do not apply to bear. Deer might eat row crops, spread diseases to domestic herds like cattle, and they create a nuisance on the road. Bear do not eat crops in the same way, cannot spread Chronic Wasting Disease to cattle, and it is very rare indeed to see a bear carcass by the side of the road. The opposition could argue that bear hunting is designed to prevent those things from coming true; if we wait for the problems, then we have problems. Bear hunting is like deer hunting in the conservation purpose, they might argue. In that way, the comparison is not a false one, if properly framed. The original arguer would have to deal with that resemblance.

If you do want to make an argument by analogy or resemblance, the basic thesis pattern would be “Thing A is like (or is not like) Thing B in that __________, _______________, and ___________,” where the blanks represent the points you would be offering for the similarity, or the “reasons” of the thesis. Proving the points are, in fact, alike becomes the work of your grounds; showing that if A and B have 1, 2, and 3 in common they are justly compared is your warrant, so the work of proving that link becomes your backing, and you proceed from there as you would normally. Generic rebuttal would take the form of someone arguing A and B do not really have 1, 2, and 3 in common; or someone arguing that even with 1, 2, and 3 matching up, those points of comparison do not really make A and B similar. This second position would the thinking behind rebutting the analogy of sugar to cocaine; while they do have chemistry effects in common, those triggers are not enough to make a valid comparison. While looking at what things A and B have in common, you do not want to lose sight of what separates them, or your analogy will be too easy to dismiss. Be mindful you do not stretch your analogies too far, or they will snap and fly back to smack you in the eye, just like an enormous rubber band.