Marcelo Dascal |
Argument, War and the Role of the Media in Conflict Management
Should
we not analyze [power] primarily in terms of struggle, conflict
and war? One would then confront the original hypothesis … with a
second hypothesis to the effect that power is war, a war continued by other
means.[1]
Even
more precious perhaps is the tradition that works against … that misuse of
language which consists in pseudo-arguments and propaganda. This is the
tradition and discipline of clear speaking and clear thinking: it is the
critical tradition – the tradition of reason.[2]
1. Introduction
We are all familiar with the
fact that the presence of a TV camera may bring about the radicalization of an
otherwise peaceful demonstration: stones are thrown, the aggressiveness of the
slogans increases, flags and offensive banners are displayed – in short, the
crowd discharges its duty to “make news”. We are also familiar with the fact
that there is only a scant correspondence between what goes on inside a
negotiating room and what “transpires” through the media. Inside the room
negotiations are for the most part conducted in a cordial or at least
businesslike atmosphere and the discussion is “to the point”, even if
disagreement prevails. However, what spokespersons for the negotiating parties
publicly declare – “for the record” – is likely to be much tougher, at least as
long as agreement has not been reached. Thus, the media’s presence has often
the effect of stressing the differences and emphasizing conflict.
But the media may also have the opposite effect. In the case of deep and
violence-prone conflict, when the parties are not even negotiating or
negotiations are stalled, the media can function as an alternative channel of
communication. Through the media, so-called “balloons” and deliberate
“leakings” are used in order to check the opponent’s reactions, to make each
other’s demands mutually known, and to prepare the public for the upcoming
moves. Often this has the role of defusing the immediate danger of violent
confrontation and of paving the way for the resolution of the conflict.
In this
paper, I examine these opposed roles of the media in conflictual situations. I
argue that the use of violence and the use of argumentation belong to a set of
“communicative acts” structured by a double conceptual/rhetorical grid of
metonymic and metaphorical relations. While the metaphorical relations
conceptualize argument as analogous to war, the metonymical relations
conceptualize argument as continuous with war. Metaphor permits to
identify the warlike aspects of argument, both in intellectual operations such
as criticism and in emotive operations such as propaganda (as in Popper’s
quote). But it keeps these operations
strictly apart from physical violence, to which they bear only a relation of
similitude. Metonymy, on the other hand, conceptualizes the operations involved
in argument as being themselves part and parcel of the power game. As such,
they function either as a continuation of war in another register (as in
Foucault’s quote) or as nothing more than violence’s temporary replacements (as
in the belief that as long as the contenders negotiate they at least don’t wage
war).
This
metonymic/metaphorical conceptual grid – I claim – forms a continuum that plays
a constitutive role in conflict management and explains how these two types of
communicative acts – “talking” and “fighting” – often function so as either to
reinforce each other or to reduce each other’s impact. It is the intertwining
of these two forms of communication and their underlying dual grid that permits
– I surmise – to understand how the media can, under different circumstances,
fulfill the dual role described above.
My analysis
also suggests that it might be possible to find an intermediate path between
Foucault’s pessimism (ultimately, argument is nothing but war, albeit in
a disguised form) and Popper’s somewhat naive optimism (rational argument,
however warlike it may look, transcends war). This possibility rests upon the
fact that, in spite of its powerful grip upon our conceptualization and
rhetoric of conflict, the current metaphorical/metonymic grid that relates
argument to violence is not ineluctable. In so far as it is – however powerful
– merely a contingent stage in the evolution of our cognitive, emotive, and
linguistic apparatus, this grid can eventually be replaced by another one,
constituted by more ‘benign’ metaphors and metonymies. This might pave the way
for overcoming the paralyzing grip of endemic conflict. It is the
responsibility of intellectuals, as well as of the media, to criticize the
limitations and dangers of the extant grid and to contribute their share in
creating and disseminating alternatives to it.
2. Argument
as war
In their
book Metaphors We Live By, Lakoff and Johnson showed how ordinary
language is permeated by what they call “metaphorical concepts”.[3] These
“concepts” underly clusters of metaphors and thereby provide coherent
structures for thinking and speaking about one domain (the target) in terms of
another (the source). They are so ubiquitous that we are hardly aware of them qua
metaphors, and tend to use them as if they were literal. Consider the
metaphorical concept TIME IS MONEY. It underlies an unlimited number of
expressions, such as “I don’t have the time to give you”, “That
flat tire cost me an hour”, “I don’t have enough time to spare
for that”, etc. (Lakoff and Johnson 1980: 8). Metaphorical concepts are
systematic, structured, and productive; they provide ready-made ways of
organizing our thought and speech about a wide range of phenomena on the basis
of our experience and our conceptualization of other phenomena.
The very
first example of a metaphorical concept Lakoff and Johnson mention is ARGUMENT
IS WAR. The target (argument or debate) is conceptualized in terms of
predicates primarily applicable to the source (war). This metaphor underlies
such utterances as “Your claims are indefensible”, “He attacked every
weak point in my argument”, “His criticisms were right on target”,
etc. (Lakoff and Johnson 1980: 4). War and argument have (partially) isomorphic
structures, which include slots for participants, parts, stages, linear
sequences, causation, and purpose. This isomorphism permits to project the
components of war onto those of argument, and to use the terminology of the
former in talking and thinking about the latter. The participants are thus
conceived as adversaries who hold positions, devise strategies,
perform attacks, counterattacks, maneuvering, and other moves,
with the purpose of achieving victory; the argument is depicted as
comprising different stages and sub-stages (battles, skirmishes, truce,
victory, surrender, peace); there are more or less fixed
causal sequences (attack results in defense, counterattack,
or retreat), etc. (Lakoff and Johnson 1980: 80-81). The productivity of
this metaphorical concept is apparent from the fact that this list can be
easily extended. The words used by the contenders in an argument become weapons,
their claims, blows, their moves have different forces and
strategical or tactical roles, the anticipation of the opponent’s
objections can be related to intelligence, the accumulation of evidence
in favor of one’s position to logistics, and so on. I leave it for the
reader to collect examples of the use of this metaphorical concept in the
media.
Not only
ordinary parlance is permeated by this metaphor. The 17th century
scientist Robert Boyle talked about debate as a “spiritual warfare” and pointed
out that debaters – no less than generals – are justified in employing
“stratagems” in order to defeat an adversary described as “the old serpent”.
The 18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant described traditional
metaphysics as a “battleground” where “dogmatists” fought “intestine wars”
which, along with the occasional incursions of the “sceptic nomads”, unsettled
the “despotic empire” of metaphysics.[4] The 19th century philosopher
Schopenhauer compared dialectic - the art of dispute - with the art of fencing.
"Dialectic - he wrote - need have nothing to do with truth, as little as
the fencing master considers who is in the right when a dispute leads to a
duel. Thrust and parry is the whole business. Dialectic is the art of
intellectual fencing…" (Schopenhauer 1942: 10).
It is
important to note that the use of a metaphorical concept can hardly be
circumscribed to its initial domain. It tends to spill over adjacent areas. For
instance, the metaphorical conceptualization of the MIND as a CONTAINER
requires one to conceptualize thought as a process that takes place within
the mind and communication as consisting in the transmission of ideas
from one container to another through an appropriate conduit (cf. Reddy
1979). In the case of ARGUMENT IS WAR, this tendency leads to the
conceptualization of the theories held by the opponents as having the structure
of fortresses, comprising a “core” (the theory’s essential tenets, whose
fall would mean the theory’s demise) and a “periphery” (its external
bastions, that can be surrendered without major damage to the
theory). For instance, referring to the physicist Honoré Fabri’s
attitude vis-à-vis the scholastic contribution to modern thought,
the 17th
century philosopher Leibniz writes: “From the Peripathetics he rejected that
which he should have conserved above all … while, on the contrary, he heatedly
defended some external bastions, very remote and not in need of defence”.[5] The
assumption, of course, is that contenders in a debate should be able to
distinguish clearly between what is essential and what is secondary, just as
negotiators in a peace process should be able to define their “red lines” and
generals in the battlefield to distinguish between strategical and tactical
aims – which is not a trivial matter.[6]
3. Argument
is war
In spite of
its productivity and organizing power, the metaphorical relation between
argument and war seems to be insufficient to capture a more intimate kind of
relationship linking these two domains.
Consider
for example, psychological warfare or propaganda. Words are used, in
psychological warfare, as an integral part of the war effort. They seek to
undermine the enemy's morale or to motivate one's forces in combat and to
increase public support (as in President Bush's use of the Saddam/Hitler
comparison during the Gulf War). In this case, war in fact boils down to
the actual use of words. It would seem that here source and target
partially coincide. Sure, propaganda is not debate (even if it sometimes
mimicks debate). Still, it shows that words can be used to actually wage war.
This raises doubts about whether the relationship between argument and war is
only metaphorical.
Debate not
only is similar to war in its structure but it can lead to war if its outcome
is a stalemate between irreconcilable and clearly opposed views. In the early
modern period, religious debates on points of doctrine were directly linked to
religious wars. In the history of all religions, heresy, i.e. deviation from
what was perceived as orthodoxy, led to ruthless persecution by the orthodox
establishment. No wonder that it is commonly feared that the breakdown of the
negotiations/debates that constitute the “peace process” in the
The analogy
or metaphorical view of argument as war can be related to the conception of
competitive games as surrogates for actual warfare. This in turn is connected
with the view that playing is a form of “educational activity” which, like exercise,
prepares for real life. There are many examples of playing behavior in the
animal world that support both views, especially the one that relates playing
with surrogate aggression.
In many
cultures, indeed, debate is codified as a sort of game with precise rules. In
ancient India, three kinds of debate - discussion, disputation, and
wrangling - were codified and intensively practiced; in Ancient Greece, the
rhetoricians boasted they were able to teach anyone how to win in any debate;
in the late Middle Ages, the art of disputatio played a central role in
scholastic teaching; in the United States debating clubs flourish today.
Consider
the case of medieval disputatio. This practice was embedded within an
educational setting. A student was given a topic, not necessarily within his
realm of specialization, which he had to defend against objections either by
other students or by the teachers. The kinds of permitted moves as well as the
time allottment were severely restricted. A panel of judges would determine
whether the student passed the test by withstanding the objections. Some of the
disputationes were preliminary “exercises” intended to prepare the
student for the “real” ones. In the case of the “real” ones, such as final disputationes
– as in final exams – success would mean receiving the degree and being
thereby entitled to pursue an academic or professional career. Failure, on the
other hand, would mean either dropping out or the postponement of benefits that
came with the degree.
What seems to make a case such as this akin to play in not
only the existence of strict rules but mainly the fact that the behavior
involved in them is not, ultimately, “in earnest”. Just as a playing child
doesn’t really believe that the couch is a rocket ship even though she handles
it very seriously as if it were, so too the student who was assigned a thesis
to defend in a disputatio had to do it with all seriousness even though
he didn’t believe in its truth. I suppose the student in a military academy is
required to behave similarly when participating in simulations or ‘war games’.
However, if we look at the matter not from the point of view of the mental
state of the player but in terms of the consequences of his performance, then
it is easy to see that such games may be very earnest: it is sufficient to
recall that losing a disputatio may
mean losing a job, a reputation, a career, etc. And even more than this: the
sophist Philalectes was so distressed by having lost an argument that he died
(presumably he committed suicide). In India, the philosopher/theologian who won
an argument would carry over to his side all the disciples (often even kings)
of the disputant that lost.
Debate thus plays a causal role in inter-group or
inter-individual relations, a role closely connected to power conflicts. In
this sense, debate is not only analogous to war, but it actually is war.
Consider the following, apparently metaphorical, assertions that describe
academic life: “Refutation is killing”, “Reputation is security”,
“Not publishing is perishing”, “Delaying a promotion is torture”.
If you successfully refute somebody's theory -- a theory in which an
investment of a whole career was at stake -- you are actually not only killing
metaphorically the theory but also hurting badly the scientist behind it. If
you, through argument or public exposure of a similar kind, make somebody fall
into disrepute, the person thus hurt will actually -- not only metaphorically
-- lose his/her security, i.e. his personal ability to continue to create, his job,
perhaps even his family and friends.[7]
4. The metonymic link
What the
preceding discussion shows is that argument is related to war in a more
‘direct’ way than through metaphor, a way that suggests a metonymic relation
between them. Whereas metaphor links things by virtue of their similarity,
which is a relationship that does not require any direct connection between
them, metonymy depends upon a closer connection between the things it relates.
When a waiter says to the cashier – to use a well-known example – “The ham
sandwich is waiting for the check”, she refers not to the sandwich, but
to the person that ordered (and presumably ate) it. The expression the ham
sandwich can be used to refer metonymically to the customer because
sandwich and customer are in a direct relation to each other. In principle, any
kind of ‘direct’ connection between two things might be the basis for metonymy.
Actually, we tend to make use, for metonymic purposes, of a subset of such
relations.[8]
Consider the following metonymic sentences
where argument and war are connected:[9] “The sight
of so much brass at the table made him smell blood and concede swiftly”, “Camp
David’s silence agitated the already tense streets of Jerusalem”, “The tanks
stopped talking, bringing life to the dormant table”.[10] All of
them rely upon a cause-effect relationship between war and argument (or
vice-versa), which is taken for granted. This relationship is embedded in an
implicitly accepted ‘script’that organizes events sequentially, so that war and
argument may follow and/or precede each other in the sequence.[11]
A war, usually, doesn’t break up suddenly. It
is preceded by each side in the conflict pressing claims vis-à-vis the
other, justifying its claims, rebuffing the opponent’s claims, issuing ultimatums,
and then eventually resorting to armed assault. A war may be interrupted by a
truce, during which negotiations or a further exchange of claims and
counter-claims may be conducted. And, once it ends, a war is followed by
further negotiations and debate, eventually yielding a peace treaty. Less
typically – and therefore not included in the script – there is the possibility
that secret negotiations are held without interruption of the war.
A script such as the above acts as a mental
model that relates argument and war in such a way that they are acts belonging
to the same domain and holding causal and other contiguity relations with each
other. One might say that it is a mental model such as this that fleshes out
(psychologically) Clausewitz’s well-known claim that “war is a mere
continuation of policy by other means”.[12]
5. The
double grid
Argument
and war are thus related both metaphorically and metonymically. That is to say,
they belong to different domains, structurally similar to each other, but they also
belong to the same domain; they distantly mirror each other while at the same
time directly interacting on the same level as components of a single complex
process. What are the implications of this double relationship?
First, it forces upon us some theoretical
reflection on the notions we have been using so far to characterize the two
relations. We talked about similarity and difference, distance and proximity.
Metaphor requires similarity and distance: Time is similar to money (in some
respects), but it does not belong to the same ontological order as money; they
are ‘distant’ in so far as they are different kinds of things. Metonymy, on the
other hand, requires proximity and difference. Parts and wholes, causes and
effects, places and events are (spatially and processually) contiguous but they
bear little or no similarity: Your butt is not similar to you, the fire is not
similar to the smoke, the White House is not similar to the President.
It is tempting to account for the two sets of
properties characterizing the two relations in terms of two simple tests: the
‘is like’ test and the ‘one domain’ test.[13] The former
yields a ‘yes’ for metaphor and a ‘no’ for metonymy, while the latter yields a
‘no’ for metaphor and a ‘yes’ for metonymy. But this is likely to suggest that
‘domain’ (and with it the notions of distance and proximity) is used in the
same sense referring to metaphorical and metonymic relations. This is not the
case, however. The two domains involved in metaphor are different categories or
concepts, presumably grounded on different experiences and ontological bases.
Political careers form a category of social processes, whereas journeys are a
category of events involving physical displacement. When they are connected in
such metaphors as ‘Barak climbed too quickly to the top’, they remain different
categories, thereby ensuring the conceptual ‘distance’ between source and
target required by metaphor. The one
domain involved in metonymy, however, is not a ‘conceptual domain’in the sense
of a category. Ham sandwiches belong to the same category as other dishes, but
certainly not to the same category as the people who order and eat them (except
in cannibal jokes). In so far as one wants to say that they belong to one
domain, one should not forget that such a ‘domain’ is of a completely different
sort. Its ‘oneness’ derives from relations (e.g., part-whole, sequentiality,
adjacency) other than the class-membership relation that underlies categories.
So, in metonymy and metaphor two types of ‘distance’ or ‘proximity’ are
involved.
This implies that the dimension of
(metonymic) proximity-distance is in principle irrelevant for metaphor, while
the dimension of (metaphorical) similarity-distance is irrelevant for metonymy.
Metaphor can involve metonymic proximity, but it must preserve category
distance.[14]
And metonymy can admit category similarity, but it must preserve the ‘distance’
that separates even things of the same category in a script, a causal sequence
or a part-whole complex.[15] The
difference between metaphor and metonymy lies in how the mapping is performed
through the similarity relation or through the proximity relation.
This lengthy theoretical excursus permits us
to understand – I hope – how the coupling of metaphor and metonymy, in spite of
the opposed requirements of these two cognitive schemes, is not contradictory.
Their opposition, however, leaves traces that cannot be completely erased. To
see this, let us return to our theme – argument and war.
The two axes of the grid are not quite
independent. In fact, there is a sort of trade-off between their effects.
Suppose, for instance, that one stresses the metaphorical similarity between
argument and war, so that the former becomes more and more warlike.[16]At the
metonymic axis, this implies that the stage ‘argument’ in the script “political
conflict” will become closer to the stage ‘war’ – both in terms of a reduction
of category difference and in terms of proximity: it will become just a step in
the direction of war, a preparation for war. Parties that entrench themselves
in a negotiating table behind ultimative and inflexible positions, unbendable
‘red lines’, and absolute and untouchable rights are likely to find themselves
facing each other across trenches, brandishing guns instead of words. However,
if the metonymy is to be interpreted otherwise, with argument not as a step leading
to war, but as a step preventing war (both possibilities being, of
course, allowed for by the same script), as in “Arafat surrendered in Camp
David in order to prevent war”, then, in the metaphorical axis the similarity
between argument and war cannot be over-stressed. Perhaps this is what
Bar-Hillel expressed when he said that “in discourse, peace is more profound
than war”.[17]
The category distance will be then kept, and will presumably help to keep the
stages ‘argument’ and ‘war’ separated, in spite of their proximity in the
script.
The interdependence between the metonymic and
metaphorical axes of the grid connecting argument and war suggests the
possibility of conceptual blending between these two phenomena.[18] I will not
explore this possibility here, except for pointing out that this is what may
underly a very famous phrase that has accompanied the peace process between
Israel and the Palestinians since its inception: “The peace of the brave”. Its
appeal lies perhaps in the fact that it operates both metonymically and
metaphorically. Metonymically, it evokes an earlier stage of the conflict,
where bravery was displayed in the battlefield by the now negotiating leaders.
Metaphorically, it construes the negotiating table as a battlefield where
bravery, albeit of another kind, should be displayed by the same leaders, if
peace is to be achieved. I am definitely in favor of this kind of blending.
6. Between
Foucault and Popper
In
stressing the warlike elements in debate, as we have done so far, we are
perhaps just providing grain for Foucault’s mill to grind. We are eventually
showing that what is involved, either in war or in argument, is simply a
struggle for power. The rational ground where argument is supposed to unfold,
the respect for the facts that is supposed to underly serious argumentation,
the reliance upon valid patterns of inference – all of them are, according to
Foucault, nothing but disguises of the struggle for power. The fact that
argument is not only analogous to war, but also contiguous with it seems to
provide further support to Foucault’s thesis.
But are we
necessarily in Foucault’s hands? Should we despair from argument and rather
turn to the ‘real thing’ – undisguised propaganda and armed struggle?
If the
Foucauldian position means that there is no such a thing as a Popperian World
III Refuge, no ideal battleground where debate and argumentation are ruled by
the pure rules of logic, by clear and transparent speech, with no hurting
consequences, i.e., with no World II (socio-psychological) and World I
(physical) effects, I couldn't agree more. [19] For, as I
have argued elsewhere,[20] the
Popperian idealization of criticism overlooks the fact that criticism is a
complex human activity, deeply embedded in the context where it occurs.
As such, criticism, and argumentation in general, are both affected by context
and affect it. Therefore, debate is governed
by a mixture of motives and effects, of which epistemological and
logical ones are only one component. Just as communication is primarily
pragmatic and not semantic in nature, so too debate, as a form of language use,
is essentially pragmatic and not semantic/logical in nature. Consequently, it
cannot be understood without taking into account the variety of motives of
those involved in communication, as well as the social and physical environment
where communication takes place. In particular, its proper understanding cannot
overlook its actual and potential effects. In conflictual violence-prone
situations, one such effect is that debate may hurt people, although it may
also prevent violence.
Nevertheless,
to admit that much only implies the acceptance of the fact that there is no
clearcut separation between debate and war, between argument and fight. This,
in turn, does not imply – as Foucault would have it – that the former should be
reduced to a disguised manifestation of the latter. The fact that the
borderline between two phenomena is fuzzy does not per se mean that significant
differences cannot be drawn between clear cases of each. Such clear cases can
be placed at the two ends of a continuous scale. “Pure debate” and “pure war”
can be then understood as the two poles of a continuum, as two “ideal types”.
The “real types”, located at various points of the scale, result from different
mixtures of these ideal types. Let us explore this alternative way of
conceiving the relations between debate and war.
First,
notice that the term ‘argument’ does not univocally refer to power struggles.
In fact, it has a dual meaning. No doubt, one of the meanings corresponds to
the Foucauldian construct. Thus, in popular parlance, “we had an argument”
means we had a fight. An argument in this sense is a power conflict, purely
emotional and irrational.[21] It may
even involve the actual display of force (shouting is a display of force, no
less than beating and shooting). But there is also ‘argument’ as understood by
philosophers, logicians, and scientists. In this sense, we are talking about
something that follows rules of rationality and can be evaluated accordingly.
Winning here is not simply reducing the opponent to silence by shouting or
killing, but rather persuading her.
The former
sense is close to Foucault’s. The latter, to Popper’s. In the former, argument is
war. In the latter, it is no doubt analogous to war, but only on limited
respects, which notably leave aside actual or ensuing physical damage to the
opponent. The former sense emphasizes the metonymic relation between argument
and war. The latter, the metaphoric relation.
Traditionally, rhetoric has been polarized in
the two senses/directions above: either as purely irrational/emotive (close to propaganda) or as purely rational
(as a complementation of logic). But the fact that rhetoric involves both
elements, intertwined in such a way that it combines both in different degrees,
supports the continuum hypothesis, according to which each occurrence of
argument – and, for that matter, of war – is a particular blend of power and
rationality, of violence and persuasion.
Lakoff and
Johnson have reached a similar conclusion. Having started, as we have seen,
from a sharp distinction between the domains of argument and war, which admits
of bridging only through metaphorical mapping, they end up by admitting that,
after all, the gap between the two domains is not so wide. They realize that
there are cases where one can say that the two domains merge, so that their
members become subcategories of a single domain, i.e. they must be viewed as
“the same kind of thing”. Whenever this occurs, however, the relation
exemplified can no longer be described as metaphorical:
Take,
for example, AN ARGUMENT IS A FIGHT. Is this a subcategorization or a metaphor?
The issue here is whether fighting and arguing are the same kind of activity.
This is not a simple issue. Fighting is an attempt to gain dominance that
typically involves hurting, inflicting pain, injuring, etc. But there is both
physical pain and what is called psychological pain; there is physical
dominance and there is psychological dominance. If your concept FIGHT includes
psychological dominance and psychological pain on a par with physical dominance
and pain, then you may see AN ARGUMENT IS A FIGHT as a subcategorization rather
than a metaphor, since both would involve gaining psychological dominance. On
this view an argument would be a kind of fight, structured in the form of
conversation. If, on the other hand, you conceive a FIGHT as purely physical,
and if you view psychological pain only as pain taken metaphorically, then you
might view AN ARGUMENT IS A FIGHT as metaphorical (Lakoff and Johnson 1980:
84).
Accordingly,
they propose to view subcategorization and metaphor as the endpoints of a
continuum:
A
relationship of the form A is B (for example AN ARGUMENT IS A
FIGHT) will be a clear subcategorization if A and B are the same
kind of thing or activity and will be a clear metaphor if they are clearly
different kinds of things or activities. But when it is not clear whether A
and B are the same kind of thing and activity, then the relationship A
is B falls somewhere in the middle of the continuum (p.85).
Note that
subcategorization, which in this context means literal predication, amounts to
reduction, i.e. to the Foucauldian pole. The only way to prevent such a
reduction is to maintain argument at a safe categorical distance from fight,
permitting only a metaphorical link between them.[22]
There is, however, a third possibility, which
Lakoff and Johnson do not consider. Argument and fight need not be related
either literally or metaphorically. They can also be related metonymically,
by virtue of some relation that makes them part of the same whole,
rather than subcategories of the same category. Any metonymy, although grounded
in more direct and close relations than mere analogy, is still a trope, i.e.,
non-literal: nobody would, in normal circumstances, literally attribute
impatience to a ham sandwich.
This complicates a bit the picture. We can
keep as the endpoints of the continuum the idealized, categorically
‘pure’concepts of argument and war. Metaphor, metonymy, and literalization or
subcategorization are three ways of connecting them. Whereas the latter
eliminates the gap between the endpoints, the two others are different
processes whereby some sort of rapprochement between the endpoints is
achieved. As Max Black (1962) has insisted, a metaphor creates similarity
between target and source or topic and vehicle. Once connected through a
metaphor, they ‘interact’ with each other, thereby breaking somehow the
rigidity of category barriers: in ‘John is a lion’, the lion becomes humane at
the same time that John becomes leonine. Similarly, metonymy highlights the
systematic, although sometimes forgotten, connections between nixons and
bombings, foetuses and their descendants, and even sandwiches and customers.
The media reporting and commenting on a
conflict operate within the above continuum. According to one idealized
picture, the media are supposed to present the facts in an entirely objective
way, and to allot perfectly balanced space and time for opposed opinions to be
expressed. On this view, the media’s quintessential task is to inform the
public, but not to form its opinions. Critics of this idealization
contend that it is an illusion. Some stress the fact that the media are used by
political agents not just as a vehicle of information, but as tools in
advancing their ends. Others point out that the media have their own agenda,
and it is them that manipulate politicians and other social agents for their
purposes – which may include either fostering or softening conflict. On both
views, rather than mirroring what happens independently of their intervention,
the media play a decisive role in making things happen. Their posing
as‘observers’ is merely a disguise for their actual role as interested agents
in the power game.
No doubt there are newspapers, TV stations,
and internet sites that are or try to be very close to the one or to the other
of these two ideal models. Most of them, however, operate somewhere along the
scale linking these two poles. Most journalists, I think, sincerely believe
that what they report are ‘the facts’, that their duty is to provide
‘information’. But they also know that by editing and selecting the information
they powerfully shape opinion according to their own biases. As for those whose
deliberate aim is to foster their own opinions, they know that success will
depend on their ability to support their bias through some measure of
‘objective’ information. ‘Pure’ propaganda or wishful thinking is likely to
backfire.
7. The
balance of reason and the balance of power
Theoretical
explanations apart, let me now speculate about why there should be – or at
least why it is good there is – such a continuum in the case of argument and
war.
Let us dub
“Hard Reason” a conception or rationality that admits only the use of
rigorously defined concepts, of experimentally controlled data, and of
logically valid arguments. On this view, all solvable problems and disputes can
be solved by strict adherence to the above requirements, which provide a
decision procedure determining which side is right and which is wrong. Hard
Reason also believes it is the only form of rationality deserving its name.
Anything that deviates from its requirements is Non-Reason. Nevertheless, there
are those who hold a conception of rationality that admits also the use of
concepts that are not definable in terms of necessary and sufficient
conditions, the occasional reliance upon data and propositions that are only
presumably correct, the acceptability (on occasion) of arguments that are not
valid according to standard logic but are pertinent, and the existence of a
variety of ways of resolving controversies which do not necessarily amount to a
decision procedure. Let us dub this conception of rationality “Soft Reason”.[23]
The notion of compromise has no room in a
dispute conducted according to the requirements of Hard Reason, for its
decision procedure should always allow for determining which of the contenders
is right. In this sense, for Hard Reason there should be in all solvable
conflicts a clear winner and a clear loser. Victory and capitulation are the
only possibilities it permits. Soft Reason, which does not work with absolute dichotomies
and does not play only zero sum games, can acknowledge the partial truth or
rightness of each position, and thus lead to compromises without absolute
winners and losers. Whereas Hard Reason stimulates the contenders to be
persuaded that they are absolutely right and their opponents absolutely wrong,
Soft Reason fosters a measure of scepticism toward one’s own position as well
as a measure of tolerance toward the opponent’s position.
Hard Reason shuns from all forms of
figurative language, which it considers as violating its standards of rigor and
as appealing to emotive rather than to cognitive factors. Soft Reason, on the
contrary, acknowledges the cognitive role of figurative language, and sees in
it an important tool for developing the flexible concepts and models needed for
the exploration of new areas of knowledge, for
dealing with inherently fuzzy situations, and for reconciling
conflicting positions. It is aware of the power of metaphorical and metonymic
models in providing ready-made thinking recipes that it is hard to escape from.
But it is also aware of the fact that, unlike logical inferences , metaphorical
and metonymic inferences are inherently ‘open’ and defeasible. Furthermore,
unlike logic, no metaphor or metonymy can claim universality or exclusiveness.
However powerful, handy and habitual, a metaphorical or metonymic schema can be
replaced by a new one, or by one we can find in another culture or language.
Soft Reason, but not Hard Reason, can put to use the multi-perspectivism afforded
by these ‘figurative’ modes of cognition.
In some domains (such as mathematics),
typical of the “pure argument” endpoint of our scale, Hard Reason seems to
prevail, and rightly so. But if it were to prevail in other domains, especially
in violent-prone political conflicts, it would lead to “Hard War”, i.e. war to
the bitter end. Fortunately there is Soft Reason around to permit an oxymoron
like “Soft War”.
In most domains, subduing completely an
opponent through a masterful logical blow, a strike of pure rationality, is
just as rare as winning a war in a single successful battle. In the case of
debate, such a result is possible when there is – for both contenders – an
accepted method of adjudicating “correctness”: an accepted logic, method of
decision, system of calculation. In this event, the subduing amounts to the
admission by the opponent that his position was the result of some sort of
“mistake”. In the case of war, full capitulation, without re-kindling of the
conflict on another occasion, implies also recognition by the defeated party
that his stand was based on a deep mistake. This, in turn, is based on the
acceptance of a shared set of values or international adjudicating procedures.
Usually such a capitulation is followed by the fall of the regime that led to
the “mistake”, which signals, in fact, the fall of the “wrong” set of values
that engendered the conflict. Full capitulation thus suppresses the
“deep”causes of the conflict between the warring parties.
The reason why in neither argument nor in
war “hard resolution” of the kind just
described is common, is that usually debating parties and combatting parties
share only partially a set of methods and underlying values. Furthermore, for
hard resolution to work, opposition ought to be fairly well delimited and
restricted to “local” matters. It shouldn't spread to adjacent issues and to
the “meta-level”. However, a study of controversies or of political conflicts
shows that this is not usually the case. Controversies very often spread to other
issues and levels. Opponents question
each others' assumptions about method, systems of formalization, legitimacy of
moves, data-collection procedures, as well as their concepts of ‘right’ and
‘justice’. Under these circumstances, no appeal can be made to some shared and
“neutral” set of principles that would lead one party to acknowledge conclusive
defeat. Similarly, political conflict tends to spread to a “conflict of
civilizations or cultures”, where opponents question even the “humanity” of
each other. Under these circumstances, defeat in a battle and even formal
capitulation does not necessarily amount to an acknowledgment of fault in one’s
position. Rather, in so far as the difference in value-systems persists, the
defeat will be considered unjust, compensation will be demanded, and the
conflict will persist.
If one acknowledges the existence of an
irreducible plurality of incompatible methods, values, etc., rather than
assuming a problematic set of universal methods or values, one ought not to be
surprised that “resolution” of debates or of conflicts is seldom “hard
resolution”. Rather, “resolution” is always temporary and provisional, and
involves some sort of compromise. Temporarily one party will have the upper
hand, in so far as its arguments (in debate) or its limited use of power (in
political conflicts) has the upper hand. Such an “upper hand” is provisional
precisely because it cannot suppress entirely the “reason of the defeated”.
Precisely because it inclines the Balance of Reason or the Balance of Power, one way or
another, without necessitating one hand to remain once and for all in a
given position .
8. Epilogue
As I
conclude this paper, Chairman Arafat, Prime Minister Barak, and President
Clinton are negotiating in Camp David the future of this embattled region,
which happens to be also the future of my children and of my granddaughter, as
well as of many other human beings.
The media covering this event are working
under tight constraints. A so far successful blackout preventing leakage forces
them to try to satisfy the public’s information-hunger by providing bits and
pieces of doubtful ‘news’ along with a lot of speculation, wishful thinking,
and biased ‘recommendations’ for the negotiators. Furthermore, given the
uncertainty of the results, they have to prepare the ground for the different
scenarios that will follow the different possible outcomes of the summit. And
they have to address simultaneously different audiences: the international
community, an American public in the eve of elections, and Israeli and
Palestinian audiences – each divided into supporters of major concessions,
opponents of any concession, middle of the way voters and politicians,
skeptics, etc. I am sure the journalists are conscious of the weight of their
task, of the influence whatever they say may have on the course of events.
The very fact that the usual public
declarations accompanying such meetings was ruled out shows that the leaders
themselves are fully aware of the role of the media as intrinsic part of the
process. They have also made clear, before the meeting, that they consider the
through debate they are now conducting behind media-protected walls as decisive
(‘historical’ is a word they have often used to characterize it) for what will
happen next. The metonymic links between their discussions and war or peace are
thus quite clear. It is also clear that the negotiation itself is tough – as
President Clinton’s repeated remark “Oh! How hard it is!” has stressed. There
is no doubt that the metaphor of war couldn’t be more appropriate than in this
case to describe the debate that is going on around the negotiating table. It
is not difficult to imagine the moves and countermoves, tactics and strategy,
threats and withdrawals, pressure and counterpressure, mobilization of
additional forces, truces and regroupings, ultimative demands, and so on being
displayed by the two political and military leaders now negotiating in Camp
David.
My hope is that what will finally emerge from
their gigantic metaphorical fight, tough as it probably is and should be, is a
reality that will allow future historians to use a metonymy like “Camp David
opened a new era of peace and cooperation between Palestinians and
Israelis”rather than another like “Camp David triggered a bloody war
between Palestinians and Israelis”.[24]
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[1] Foucault (1980: 90).
[2] Popper (1949: 135).
[3] This book led to a flourishing series of studies on the metaphorical structure of language and thought, including many applications to various specific domains. See, for example, Lakoff (1985, 1987), Lakoff and Turner (1989), Lakoff and Johnson (1999), Dascal (1991, 1996a, 1996b), V. Dascal (1990, 1992), Johnson (1987), Gibbs (1994), Panther and Radden (eds.) (1999)
[4] It is worthwhile to quote Kant in full in order to realize how the metaphorical concept ARGUMENT IS WAR provides the backbone of his account of the history of metaphysics: “Her [metaphysics’] government, under the administration of the dogmatists, was at first despotic. But inasmuch as the legislation still bore traces of the ancient barbarism, her empire gradually through intestine wars gave way to complete anarchy; and the sceptics, a species of nomads, despising all settled modes of life, broke up from time to time all civil society” (Kant 1992[1781]: 8). The “chaos and night” characteristic of dogmatic metaphysics up to Kant’s time will be brought to a happy end – needless to say – by his own self-styled “revolution”.
[5] Letter to Des Bosses, February 2, 1706 (Leibniz 1879, vol. 2, p. 295). The Jesuit Des Bosses had asked Leibniz to use his vast knowledge of the “moderns” and the “ancients” in order to show how a synthesis between the two schools of thought might be achieved – thus putting an end to the century-old “querelle des anciens et des modernes”.
[6] The conceptualization of “research programmes” in terms of “core” and “periphery” is an essential component of the influential methodology of scientific research proposed by Imre Lakatos (1970). For an analysis of Lakatos’s proposal in the context of a study of scientific controversies, see Dascal (forthcoming a).
[7] On the relationship between reputation and refutation, see Dascal (forthcoming b)
[8]
Examples of this subset include: THE PART FOR
THE WHOLE (“Get your butt over here!”), PRODUCER FOR PRODUCT (“He’s got
a Picasso in his den”), OBJECT USED FOR USER (“The sax has the
flu today”), CONTROLLER FOR CONTROLLED (“Nixon bombed Hanoi”), THE PLACE
FOR THE INSTITUTION ("The White House isn’t saying anything"),
THE PLACE FOR THE EVENT ("Camp David was a failure"), THE
PLACE FOR ITS INHABITANTS ("Don't cry for me Argentina"), THE
CONTAINER FOR THE CONTAINED ("The bottle enslaved him"), THE
THING OWNED FOR THE OWNER ("The gold medal was very moved"),
THE INSTRUMENT FOR THE PROFESSION ("He left the sword for the pen"),
THE CAUSE FOR THE EFFECT ("She has a good eye"), THE EFFECT
FOR THE CAUSE ("Two nations are in your womb" - Gen. 25:23,
said of pregnant Rebecca), etc. See Lakoff and Johnson (1980: 38-39), Dumarsais
(1988[1730]: 96-110), Fontanier (1977[1830]: 79-93).
[9] I am indebted to Omar Barghuti for some of these examples.
[10] Some of the sentences involve also metaphor - e.g., 'talk' as applied to tanks.
[11] The notion of 'script', introduced by Schank and Abelson (1977), refers to socially shared cognitive schemata that underly run-of-the-mill, recurrent experiences such as going to a restaurant, traveling, passsing a school examination, etc. Lakoff (1987: 78-79) points out how scripts may underly metonymy. For example, in Ojibwa, a native American language, when asked "How did you get to the party?", speakers will answer with the Ojibwa equivalent of "I started to come", "I stepped into a canoe", "I got into a car". According to Rhodes (the linguist who did the fieldwork whose results Lakoff reports), these answers amount to relying upon the script "Going Somewhere in a Vehicle", which includes a precondition (having access to a vehicle), and the following stages: embarcation (getting into the vehicle and starting it up), center ( moving to destination), finish (parking and getting out), and endpoint (being at the destination). What Ojibwa speakers do is to refer (metonymically) to the whole underlying script by mentioning one of its parts. English speakers – remarks Lakoff – do the same when they reply to the same question by saying "I drove", "I have a car" or "I just stuck out my thumb".
[12] Clausewitz (1968: 119). "War – he says – is a continuation of political commerce … by other means". I would include 'debate' in the category 'political commerce', although – as pointed out by A. Rapaport
(p. 424, note 63), – Clausewitz doesn't use the category 'debate' in his theory.
[13] See Gibbs (1994: 322). 'The is like test' is Gibbs's expression. I have mimicked this expression in 'the one domain test'. This fits Gibbs's claim that "metonymy [unlike metaphor] involves only one conceptual domain" (ibid). See also Gibbs (1993: 62)
[14] In fact metaphor creates proximity by generating a link – and thereby some sort of interaction (cf. Black 1962) – between the two categories.
[15] Altough typically metonymy relates things belonging to different categories, this is not necessary. The Oval Office can stand for the The White House (both brick and mortar things) just as any of them can stand for the President (a blood and flesh thing).
[16] Let us suppose the required category distance is nevertheless preserved, so that the metaphor doesn't collapse into literal predication. This would happen, for example, with a sentence like "Brazil defeated Argentina" referring to a football match that degenerated into a fist fight between the players and led to killings among the fans.
[17] Francis Jacques (1991) uses this quote as a motto for his paper. I was unable to locate this in Bar-Hilel's writings.
[18] On the role of metonymic projection in blending see Fauconnier and Turner (1999).
[19] For Popper's doctrine of the three worlds, see Popper (1968).
[20] See, for example, Dascal (forthcoming a).
[21] In my typology of polemics (cf. Dascal 1998), I reserve the term 'dispute' for this sense of 'argument', while the term 'discussion' is reserved for the other ideal type, the purely logical one. I introduce also a third ideal type, between these two extremes, for which I reserve the term 'controversy'.
[22] In one of his writings on controversies, Leibniz also takes the subcategorization path, but in a somewhat different way. He includes both ‘controversies’ and ‘war’ under the category ‘contest’. The former is defined as a contest by means of reasons, while the latter is a contest by means of force. The notion of ‘success’ in each case is different. While in the former it is ‘persuasion’, in the latter it is ‘victory’. He points out that the use of ‘authority’ in the former amounts to an undue intervention of ‘force’ in a domain to which it does not belong. The paper where he introduces these distinctions, “On sacred controversies in general” is part of Leibniz’s efforts to find ways to replace the use of force that led to the devastating religious wars of the 17th century in the wake of doctrinal disputes between protestants and catholics, by a method for solving these disputes by means of argumentation, in ‘colloquia’ between the parties. He is thus clearly viewing ‘argument’ and ‘war’ as inter-related parts of the same script, i.e., as being in a metonymic relation. The subcategorization he proposes, however, keeps these two notion at sufficient conceptual distance to allow also for the possibility of a metaphorical connection between them – as the one he uses in the Letter to Des Bosses (see note 5). The paper in question is included in the forthcoming collection of Leibniz’s writings on controversies, being prepared by M. Dascal and Q. Racionero.
[23] For details and references see Dascal (1996a).
[24] This text has been in the making for exactly five years. I am tempted to believe that perhaps "it" waited in my mind for the opportunity to be concluded with exactly this sentence!