Funny How Definitions *Are* Important

There's been a lot of recent debate in cyberspace about feminism. Most of it has involved name-calling that could better be done by fourth graders, and so most of it I've ignored. But when I recently found a friend of mine under attack at Vox Popoli, I had to respond. Here's part of my posting from this past Friday afternoon:

1. Violence against women is never funny, and never deserving of ridicule. Never.

2. In case you don't understand, because most of you don't appear to be utilizing all of your God-given faculties, violence against women is NEVER funny.

My comments have been addressed, primarily in a recent posting by Vox himself (as well as in comments posted by his loyal readers). That Vox singled out my comment as worthy of response is nothing short of an honor. I was not aware of my power in this morass of pseudonym-riddled communications.

And had I been more aware, I would have taken more care with my short posting. Pithy, after all, isn't necessarily substantiative. It's since been pointed out to me, by Vox and others, that violence against women can be funny. Or rather, that there are people in our society who make audiences laugh with their humorous comments about such violence--people like Chris Rock, Dave Chapelle, and the writers of Family Guy. Without commenting on taste, which is always personal, let me say mea culpa, and thank you--you all pointed me to a fatal error in my rhetoric: I used the generalization "never." And in doing so I made myself an easy target. As I tell my composition students, when you use a generalization, you simply make me inclined to disagree with you. Lesson learned.

My rash use of the word "never," however, created a larger problem for my claim. It distracted readers from asking the right questions about my posting. Namely, readers weren't asking themselves questions such as What does k mean by "violence against women"? Why isn't it funny? How, in fact, does k define humor?

Those of you who've been following the Vox/Evil Bender/Lizard Queen drama know that one issue that's been at stake in this debate is definition. Evil Bender has asked Vox to define Judeo-Christian culture, and Vox has insisted that his terms have been defined. Today, El Borak got in on the fun with a response to Evil Bender. El Borak argues, among other things, that definitions are unnecessary:

Vox doesn't need to define feminism - it already exists and any political atlas or even a dictionary might answer his query

Well, I took it upon myself to test out El Borak's statement. I typed "feminism" into Google, and opened up the first link: Wikipedia, a source that Vox himself has turned to in this debate. Wikipedia's definition begins:

Feminism is a diverse collection of social theories, political movements, and moral philosophies, largely motivated by or concerning the experiences of women.

A diverse collection, they say. Of social theories, political movements, and moral philosophies: the use of these nouns in their pluralized forms indicates that we are dealing with more than one of each. Pluralized nouns, though, are not enough. Merriam Webster Online Dictionary further provides me with the following two definitions for diverse:

1 : differing from one another : UNLIKE
2 : composed of distinct or unlike elements or qualities

If we begin to pull apart this definition, then, we see that feminism may be composed of differing social theories, political movements, and philosophies. Lest we begin to think, though, that feminism is a recipe (add a dash of communism, a tablespoon of humanism, a quart of suffragism, and don't forget two tablespoons of reproductive rights!), Wikipedia lists, further down in its entry, subtypes of feminism.

Aha! Feminism is not a blanket term that can stand on its own. Not all feminisms are the same. When the term "feminism" is bandied about, readers need to know what type of feminist the writer/speaker wishes to invoke. They need to do this in order to understand what, exactly, is being argued.

Which brings me to stasis theory. Stasis theory posits that in order to really understand what is being argued, each party must define the terms of their argument. "[S]tasis marks the place where two opposing forces come together, where they rest or stand in agreement on what is at issue" (Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students, p44). Ancient rhetoricians have conveniently provided us with the following 4 questions so that we modern folk can determine stasis in our own debates:

1. Conjecture (stasis stochasmos)--"Is there an act to be considered?"
2. Definition (stasis horos)--"How can the act be defined?"
3. Quality (stasis poiotes)--"How serious is the act?"
4. Procedure (stasis metalepsis)--"Should this act be submitted to some formal procedure?"
(Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students, p47)

Let's take these questions and return to my faulty claim that "Violence against women is NEVER funny." In the conjecture stage, I laid out "violence against women" as the act to be considered. But I skipped the definition stage, which forced those who read my comment to define the term for themselves. When the term was defined by those responding to my post, they began answering question 3 with the idea that because Chris Rock makes jokes about violence against women, this is not a serious matter. While I might still disagree with them on that point, my argument had still failed. It failed because I failed to provide the terms--in a moment of anger (How dare they threaten my friend, I thought), I made a rash statement rather than stepping back and considering how I might attempt to move the conversation to a point of stasis.

Let's get back to Vox, EB, and TLQ. If Vox intends for this debate to be a name-calling shouting match, well then he'll surely he'll win. After awhile we all tire of being called names. But EB and TLQ (you can read their most recent postings here and here) have posed questions to Vox asking him to define his terms and clarify his arguments. In posing questions to Vox about his use of terminology and his positions, EB and TLQ are asking for stasis--they're attempting establish the grounds for a reasonable debate--though neither of them seem to think stasis is achievable. With good reason, TLQ writes of Vox,

His argumentation is faulty and, it would seem, deliberately inflammatory.

Name-calling is easy--we often master that game before we even step foot in a schoolyard. Making real attempts at communicating our position in an argument--so that we might better understand our disagreements and so that we might all take another step closer to understanding one another--is difficult. I'm hoping that Vox is up to the challenge.