I resorted to the questions at the end of the chapter to help guide me toward a blog post idea. I decided to write several thoughts based on the following:
In modern rhetoric, the argument from experience also carries a good deal of rhetorical weight. People can stop arguments by saying something like this: "Well, I'm a Catholic and so I ought to know the Catholic position on abortion." The argument from experience assumes that persons who have lived through a series of experiences are authorities on any issues that are relevant to those experiences. What weight do you attach to such arguments? How can they be refuted?
Responding directly to the scenario presented by the authors, I've heard this argument from people before (albeit not the exact one, but close enough). My response to a person who would say this to me would be to ask them if they're just going along with what their parents taught them, what their individual parish taught them, what other friends have commented on or if they have actually 'educated' themselves by going directly to the 'doctrine': books written by Pope John Paul II, other religious scholars throughout the ages and even doing analyses of certain Bible verses.
Just because a person is of a certain group or belongs to a certain culture does not automatically make him/her an expert. I've experienced this in various situations when I took Spanish 4 as a Junior in high school (without doing all of the prerequisite courses). I am a fluent speaker and so everyone assumed I'd get an A+. When I ended up with a slightly lower grade than that, my closest friends with whom I shared my grades were astonished!
"Why didn't you get an A+?!?!?! You're fluent!!"
I then asked them what their most recent grade in English class was.
"B+, C."
My response, "Hey you speak fluent English, why don't you have an A+ in English???"
So they assumed that because I spoke fluent Spanish, that I would be a Spanish linguistics expert at 17 and would basically take over the teacher's role and teach the class.
Another part of this chapter that interested me was testimony. I am in the wedding DJ business (as I've discussed on previous occasions) and the use of testimonials by my company and by others is an important part of the business. Looking at our website we have the following testimonials from previous clients:
"I WISH WE COULD HAVE HAD TWO RECEPTIONS. YOU GUYS DID SUCH A GOOD JOB! EVERYONE WAS COMMENTING ON HOW MUCH FUN THEY WERE HAVING."
"YOU GUYS WERE FIRST IN, LAST OUT. I WAS SHOCKED. I'LL BE RECOMMENDING YOU TO MY ENGAGED FRIENDS, FOR SURE."
As they appear on our website, neither of these testimonials have a person's name, initials, wedding date or any other identifying information listed. I can attest that these two quotes are actual comments made to us after we've done a gig. I'm asking those of you in the class, would it matter to you if for example the first quote looked like this:
"I WISH WE COULD HAVE HAD TWO RECEPTIONS. YOU GUYS DID SUCH A GOOD JOB! EVERYONE WAS COMMENTING ON HOW MUCH FUN THEY WERE HAVING."
- Mr. and Mrs. Kline, wedding, August 2009
OR
- Jennifer and Steve, wedding, August 2009
OR
What if there is no name attached to the quote?
What if I did have a name attached to the quote, but because of privacy, I did not use their real names? Would it matter? For all you know in my quote or in any company's testimonial section, I may have made these up. Just completely fabricated various quotes to make us sound good. So when considering a company or service of any kind, how important is it for you to hear what others have said?
1 comment:
Eric:
That particular topic about experience as proof really hit home for me. Two weekends ago, the exact conflict of "experience" as proof of authority presented itself. A conflict arose at my family's business 2 weekends ago as my cousins and I were setting up our mini-restaurant (which is, I think, a nice way of saying "snack shack!"). I won't get into details because I think it was a stupid conflict, but the point that struck me most was when a work colleague told myself and my cousins that "you girls don't know what you're doing because you're so young." I have always considered myself an open-minded individual. When I heard someone blatantly say to my face that I had no way of knowing something because my age couldn't logically produce a way of knowing, I was shocked. In this circumstance (and again, no details are being used, but I don't think it's quite necessary), I can't even tell you how hurtful it felt to be discriminated against because of my age and implied experience. I guess in terms of our class discussion, I have to ask if there are any circumstances when this argument "I'm older, so I know more than you" is acceptable. I think of how parents use as a logical explanation all the time. And I agree with it. But why? Kind of funny isn't it? But think about how we, as a culture, correlate age with "knowing," as we have certain times when a person gains legal responsibilities: 16, you can drive; 18 you are an adult, and 21, you can drink. Interesting...
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