One of the problems I have with “rhetoric” is something that you traveled through in your original post above: there are too many competing definitions of what “rhetoric” means and many of them are not compatible. Having said that, and you identify a range of meanings, you did not specify which meaning you favour. My comment about “dispassionately and accurately” speaking suggests a reference to particular, popular meanings of “rhetoric” which liken it to passion, flourish, word plays, style over content. And I say no: stating that cluster bombs were used, depleted uranium, etc., etc., those are statements of fact. Nobody denies that these things occurred — so whatever notion of “fact” one uses, these statements about the weapons used meets notions. And if “reasoned discourse” is your aim, I would submit that one cannot reason without a sense of facts and contexts. Otherwise, you know what happens? The appeal to “reasoned discourse” simply becomes another rhetorical move, that masks its own quality as rhetoric, and unfairly characterizes all opposing views as “rhetorical”.

As you know, rhetoric is often associated with subjectivity and reasoned discourse with objectivity. I would have thought that by now we had recognized that classic notions of objectivity are, at the very best — and here is some rhetoric for you — clinging to the edge of the cliff by their bare white knuckles Anyway, I really enjoy writing, and I cannot deny that matters of style really matter to me, more than they used to. If one read my published work — well try, and let me know if you stay awake past page 10 of any item.

In the end, however, there will be certain philosophical differences that will continue to divide us. For example, while I do not reject science, I am not eager to be classed as a scientist. And when it comes to “profession,” I am something far worse than “unprofessional,” I am actually anti-professional. What does that mean? We’ll see, I am still working on it

Anyway, thanks to both of you for engaging in these discussions, they really are enriching, and it’s great to see two scholars such as yourselves blogging, it adds a great new quality to the Internet for me.

Thanks for the comment, I appreciate it!

You note that “So what we’re really telling Max is that the rhetorical strategies he’s using are not effective on us; our persuasive commonplaces are clustered in what we call ‘rational discourse’. What’s frustrating about this sort of discourse is that it excludes passion from the getgo and provides very little leverage for political motivation.”

In a nutshell, Yup. Believe me, I get frustrated with it too .

Honestly, I think a lot of it, the “persuasive commonplaces”, goes back back to the foundation of science as separate from religion. Most professional codes of ethics, while they may have a religious base, are not grounded in a theological system; they’re grounded in the secular via negativa that is the ideal of “science”. What bothers me about this entire debate is that the grounding of the debate is not grounded in that ideal which, I feel, lessens our credibility as both a science and a profession.

In general, I would like to move the debate more towards that ideal space. At the same time, the debate touches on too many deeply held beliefs and positions for it to be “dispassionate”. It won’t be, but I still believe that it is a goal worth striving for even if we never achieve it.

Just a couple of comments. First, I am not “advocating that anthropologists take a side in that war”. What I am arguing, advocating if you will, is that Anthropologists as individuals should be free to choose whether or not they should take a side in the current wars. The two are not the same.

Also, I never said that the ethics of “taking a side” in a war don’t matter, all I said was that they were irrelevant to the specific topic of discussion. Personally, I think that they are quite relevant to the larger ethical debates about either starting a war or supporting a war.

As for advocating that “Anthropologists embed themselves with insurgents”, I would point out that AQI has already done so (see http://savageminds.org/2007/11/01/the-intellectual-arms-race/)

Max, you say that you are “not ashamed to be against wars of domination and anthropological supports for such wars” and I believe you. I have never thought that you were anything but honest in expressing your political views. While the form of our political views differ, the goals are, I suspect, moderately close. I’m also against wars of “domination and anthropological support for such wars”. The major difference between us, I suspect, is that I include within that rubric, wars of systematic terror designed to subjugate the free will of individuals regardless of what ideology is espoused by the agreesors.

On rhetoric, I’d extend your technical definition a little bit in Max’s direction. Rhetorical propriety and elegance are not ends in themselves but contextual means to the ultimate rhetorical end of persuasion. See this from wikipedia, e.g.: “In contraposition to scientific debates, rhetorical arguments, as in politics or even justice, do not make use of demonstrable or tested truths, but resort to fallible opinions, popular perceptions, transient beliefs, chosen evidence or evidence at hand (like statistics), which are all properly called commonplaces as they help establish a commonality of understanding between the orator or rhetor and his/her audience.” Well, one can wait a long time for demonstrable, tested truths.

The above are the ingredients of speech that might be called ‘effective’, and Max is passionately interested in being effective for a self-evidently valuable cause. So what we’re really telling Max is that the rhetorical strategies he’s using are not effective on us; our persuasive commonplaces are clustered in what we call ‘rational discourse’. What’s frustrating about this sort of discourse is that it excludes passion from the getgo and provides very little leverage for political motivation.

But then you are mistaken. It cannot possibly be irrelevant to speak about the tools, actions and consequences of war, when discussing the ethics of anthropologists taking one side in that war. And remember, you are in fact advocating that anthropologists take a side in that war, but you reduce the discussion of ethics to questions of research procedures. If the ethics of taking a side in the war do not matter, and are irrelevant rhetoric, then you should equally be advocating that anthropologists embed themselves with insurgents. So I don’t accept your line of reasoning, and much less so Carl’s, who hides behind an apolitical veneers which is entirely disingenuous.