Abstract
How do social actors get addressees to stop retreating to metadiscussions that derail ground-level discussions, and why do they expect the strategies to work? The question is of both theoretical and practical interest, especially with regard to ground-level discussions of systemic sexism and racism derailed by qualifying “not all men” and “not all white people” perform the sexist or racist actions that are the topic of discussion. I use a normative pragmatic approach to analyze two exemplary messages designed to halt retreats to metadiscussions about using “not all men” and “not all white people” qualifiers in discussions of systemic sexism and racism. I find that social actors use strategies that may at first glance appear to be out of bounds in an ideal critical discussion—e.g., demanding, shouting, cussing, sarcasm, name-calling—to cultivate a context where using not-all qualifiers becomes increasingly costly. The strategies are designed to get addressees to recognize that using not-all qualifiers is not an epistemic correction of a hasty generalization or ethical intervention to halt promulgation of stereotypes about men and white people. Instead, the strategies display that using not-all qualifiers is a fallible sign of willful hermeneutical ignorance, willful ignorance, and an attempt to reassert a measure of social dominance. These findings affirm the need to investigate the various strategies and normative materials social actors actually bring to bear to regulate disagreement.
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Notes
For details see Innocenti and Kathol (2018). Compare Chrisman and Hubbs’ (2021: 185) “normative functionalist” account of protesting. A normative functionalist account is designed to “individuate” protesting from other speech acts such as complaining. It involves describing conditions that “entitle” a speaker to perform a speech act and “entitlements, obligations, and reasons to do things. . generated by an entitled performance of a speech act” (Chrisman and Hubbs 2021: 186). Distinguishing demanding from protesting is beyond the scope of this essay, but it may be worth noting how normative pragmatic accounts differ from normative functionalist accounts. First, normative pragmatic accounts are designed for a different purpose–i.e., to explain why using strategies can reasonably be expected to secure responses. Normative pragmatic accounts are also designed to explain actual forms of expression used in specific contexts. Finally, normative pragmatic accounts explain “successful” performance in ethical terms–i.e., undertaking and discharging obligations that speakers and addressees can be held accountable for meeting. This differs from a “success” story told in primarily conventional terms–i.e., meeting various conditions by convention “counts” as a successful performance.
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Acknowledgements
An abbreviated version of this essay was presented at the 2020 Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation conference (Innocenti 2020) where Michael Gilbert, Jean Goodwin, Sally Jackson, Scott Jacobs, Susan Kline, Christoph Lumer, and Waleed Mebane asked questions and made comments that improved the argument. I heartily thank them and the journal’s reviewers for objections, counterarguments, and sources to consider.
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Innocenti, B. Demanding a halt to metadiscussions. Argumentation 36, 345–364 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-022-09569-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-022-09569-3