Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Rogerian Rhetoric

Rogerian rhetoric stems from a paper Dr. Carl Rogers wrote. Dr. Rogers is a therapist and in his paper he argues that one can use a dialog based around entering and understanding the opposition's world. Rogerian rhetoric suggests that one recognizes the opposition's argument in one's own words in such a way that the opposition agrees with. The goal is to avoid a straw man and instead come to a closer connection with the person across the table.

The goal is not to manipulate the other person's argument however. This dialog is purely supposed to help both sides understand each other better by allowing them to step into each other's worlds. The danger happens when someone gets too close and may get lost in the other person's world.

As a rhetorical style, I like this idea and how it is friendly to understanding the perspective of others rather than having war with argument, which upon reading the first page of the paper initially made me think of this.

Because I am completely unfamiliar with it I'd really like to try it. I can't find a good argument to have around here though, so... it's a tiny bit difficult sometimes.

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