Facts/Opinions

America is becoming less literate.

This is a complaint heard commonly throughout society today. However, as the Crowley/Hawhee text reiterates, the onus for this alleged circumstance is nearly always placed on the reader (or rather, non-reader) instead of where it often belongs: the writer. In the discussion of the need for clarity of style in one’s writing, “if a piece of language is not clear to an audience, anyone who subscribes to this model of language must blame its author, who either had unclear thoughts or was unable to express them clearly” (24).

I found this distinctly interesting given the common English curriculum that my high school (and I am sure a great deal of other schools) currently indoctrinates. Literature, be it fiction or non-fiction, is treated with the same framework for understanding as that of a math or science textbook; many assessments are designed to test students on their ability to recall details from a certain text, or to have them regurgitate the same, common train of thought about a symbol or about the meaning of a metaphor.

If their answers to these questions do not gel with the mainstream’s understanding of the text or work (work in terms of visual text), then they are told that their understandings or perceptions of the text are incorrect, or the dreaded “…um, sort of, but no…” that is frequently uttered to students who “incorrectly” interpret a piece of literature.

We teach students that their perceptions about a work are, simply put, not good enough. Every claim that they make must be backed up with some sort of evidence from the source. (I apparently have graduated from this same school of thought, since as I write this, I look for numerous sources from the text to confirm my relevance and accuracy.)

So then, what are Crowley/Hawhee saying about facts versus opinions? The authors point out that “Aristotle wrote that facts and testimony were not truly within the art of rhetoric; they were atechnoi –“without art or skill” (12). Is the art of rhetoric different than the systematic approaches to rhetoric to which much of the text refers? Even the foundational element, invention “requires systematic thought, practice and above all thoroughness” to become adept (15). The changing of one’s opinion can be done “by means of a systematic examination of the available positions on an issue” (18). If rhetoric has proven strategies that work, would not these strategies be in a similar category to that of facts? If rhetoric is a science, rather than an art (as we had previously touched on) is there a right or wrong answer to it, or a right or wrong way to be rhetorical?

I cannot help but feel some of the frustrations that my students must feel when they are asked to find the correct answer to the symbolism of the creature in Frankenstein. Yet, perhaps the frustration is instead the undeniable irony that I am treating this issue with the same black and white stance that mimics the model for teaching literature, of which I so frequently show disdain.

But I guess, in life—everything is an argument, even the inner discourse generated from the assigned rhetoric reading for your graduate course.