Doug's critique
From CyberOne Wiki
Critique of the Empathic Argument in UC
Party Fund: Redux
The UC Party Fund: Redux project aims to “re-imagine a public relations strategy” to be used in dealings with the University authorities. There are therefore two levels of argument at play within the project: first, the arguments relating to the UC Party Fund itself as made by the protagonists; second, an argument that greater openness in the negotiations that took place would have better equipped the UC to rally student support when Dean Pilbeam ordered the closure of the Party Fund. The efficacy of the two arguments are closely intertwined - if the first is unpersuasive this will be detrimental, though not fatal, to the success of the second. Given this tiered structure to the arguments I will first assess the Party Fund argument itself and the way it was presented, next I will focus on the more important question of how well the argument for greater openness in the interaction between student bodies and University authorities is made.
UC Party Fund Argument
Blog format
Developing support for the UC during its negotiations with the University via a blog platform would seem to be an ideal format with which one could project an empathic argument. The nature of the blog system, with semi-regular updates and a comment system, encourages people to engage with the argument. A certain amount of imagination must be used in reading the blog at this stage as of course all the entries are read in a stream; but this is not to say that it would not hold the attention of its undergraduate audience. It is not clear how the blog would have gained its readership, but one can imagine that a story in the Crimson or using a UC mailing list could have achieved this fairly easily. The primary criticism I would have of the blog format as presented here is the lack of an obvious explanation of what is happening when you hit the front page of the blog. In order to gain readers who may be joining the argument later it would have been wise to include a page on the blog with a shortened “story so far” element that would allow new users to the blog to familiarize themselves with the background without requiring them to read all the blog entries and correspondence. The chronology page is useful for this purpose and could be adapted if a short description of the situation were to be given. Of course this oversight could be credited to the fact that the About page on the blog is put to a different use now that the original argument is over.
Blog Contents
The blog as it stands consists largely of the correspondence between members of the UC and the various Deans. Each of these pieces of correspondence is preceded by a comment summing up how the members of the UC feel about the progress that is being made. This summing up is a crucial part of the argument and in places it is not clear whether it is really seeking to engage with its potential audience in a dialogue as the blog format would be best suited to do. The comments tend towards describing each development in the light of whether it is a win or a loss for the UC and uses the language of “them and us” from the early entries. This sets the tone immediately for the blog being combative rather than inclusive. There is an assumption that those reading the blog will automatically side with the UC over the party fund issue which of course may not be the case. If a pro-authority student were to read the blog the only arguments presented on their behalf are those made in the actual correspondence of the Deans’. If the blog had gone to some effort to present the problems with the party fund in a neutral fashion it would go some way towards engaging with potential opponents as well as potential supporters.
An omission that would have lent itself to the development of an empathic argument would have been the inclusion of posts asking for the advice of the student body. Whilst the comment system means the UC could have responded to reactions from people to their correspondence actually posing the question: what should we do next? would have created a greater sense of inclusion. The UC represents the student body and went to great lengths to try and explain the importance of the Party Fund to undergraduate life. If they had asked for comment and direction from the student body they could have assured themselves that they were working from a common ground. It would also have allowed the UC to engage in a more powerful empathic argument as they would have been arguing not only because they believed in the Fund but because others did too. The danger from being UC member centric is that the dispute could be seen to degenerate into a struggle between the democracies.
Letter to the Dean
Redrafting the letter to the Dean was sorely needed. The original letter was dripping with rather pompous, boisterous and overblown language. Whilst the final line is conciliatory one wonders how easy the next meeting with those you describe as acting with “ignorance and disrespect”, indeed the letter is surely an example of the antithesis of an empathic argument. The redrafting is a great improvement over the original letter. It methodically refutes the points that the Dean has made and asserts that the UC are discouraged by his unilateral actions. One must be mindful of the fact that the letter is an open one and still, it would seem, drafted as much for the student body to read as the Dean. Perhaps it could be improved by attempting to state the case in a more neutral fashion at the beginning of the letter and then going on to refute the points. I find the inclusion of the criticism for the Dean’s attempt at unilaterally abolishing the Party fund troubling. Whilst I think it is an important point for the UC to make perhaps it would be better made separately? It could be seen to muddy the waters of the primary argument at hand in the current format.
Openness in Dealings Argument
Blog Format
Actually creating a model blog and re-imagining how a conflict could have been played out is a clever and powerful idea which goes beyond what mere description could have achieved. The about page does explain this argument well and reading through the blog one gets a good sense of the impact the blog could have had. In so far as the project is an argument for the use of a blog it is very successful. This success is left to be self evident where it would have been better to engage a bit more with the possible disadvantages of the blog plan as well as the advantages. There is also little chance of interaction with the project which is a shame as it does provoke a lot of thought; a simple final blog post asking for comments concerning the project itself could have opened up a dialogue with those to whom the argument is addressed. Redrafting the letter to the Dean was again a good ploy in displaying the difference between what happened and what an empathic argument might have produced. If time permitted a few criticisms of the correspondence that was sent by the UC would also be helpful, but of course this would have been a substantial amount of work and perhaps rather messy to integrate into the re-imagined blog format.
Audiences
As mentioned the re-imagining speaks powerfully to current members of the UC as an argument centered on how to build support for a campaign against the faculty. One has to be mindful that the blog itself would have had a big impact on the negotiations as they took place. Were a member of faculty to view the blog they would likely take this into account in the email’s they sent to the UC and the way in which they engaged with the UC. It is hard to hypothesize exactly what this impact would have been and perhaps this would be an interesting new area for the project to move into. Perhaps engaging with the faculty and finding their views on the dispute, how the UC handled it and how they themselves handled it, would lead to a more rounded argument. Drawing comment from the faculty would add a lot to the project and would hopefully not be too difficult. The question is whether they too would be persuaded by the blog that this would have been a better way to deal with the problem - one suspects they may not be.
Conclusion
The project successfully demonstrates the power of using a blog both to create supporters in a conflict and the points towards the potential of openness in dealings between faculty and the student body. Were the project to go further and try to engage the faculty itself in the argument both its persuasive and empathic qualities would be greatly enhanced. This is not precluded by the nature of the project, a few minor tweaks and one could imagine a reimagining of the re-imagining being even more successful.
