Zander's critique
From CyberOne Wiki
On Courtesy
Duffy’s website, “Bicycle Courtesy Now,” suffers from a classic bout of mixed messages. In the first paragraph of his first page, Duffy cites his motivation in a question: “who are all these bicyclers, and why won’t they just go away?” With hyperbole and humor, he suggests that cyclists pose a real problem of safety and stress to the pedestrians and motorists that share the road. Indeed, Duffy suggests, a full understanding of the problem of bicyclers would ignite in any observer “a fiery passion to take action against those who so heinously defile our fair roads and sidewalks with their discourteous bikery.”
But as quickly as he suggests it, Duffy dismisses “taking action” against bicyclers – indeed, on the very same page! Despite pinning the blame squarely on bicyclers (or at least the discourteous ones), he places the burden of action on all road denizens – cyclists, pedestrians, and motorists. Rather than simply asking bicyclers to mend their ways, he argues the need to “foster understanding and cooperation among bicyclers, motorists, and pedestrians… [to change] the pervasive norms of the roads and sidewalks.” But if it is the cyclists that defile the road, why should everyone else have to change their norms?
Two possibilities immediately come to mind. First, there could be a problem of power. Rhetoric aside, pedestrians and motorists have little recourse, legal or otherwise, against discourteous cyclists – a point emphasized throughout Duffy’s site. If motorists and pedestrians want cyclists to change their ways, they will have to do some convincing. If this is right, the empathetic negotiation that Duffy suggests is a rhetorical tool, a cynical device intended more to help cyclists understand the plight of motorists and pedestrians than the other way around. To put it another way: Duffy suggests empathic negotiation not because he wants to, but because he has no hope of coercive force.
The second way to understand the appeal to empathic negotiation is acknowledgement of legitimate competing claims. Duffy might genuinely (or grudgingly) want to acknowledge that bicyclers have reasons for acting in an apparently irresponsible manner. If this is the case, it is unclear why he so emphasizes his personal antipathy towards bicyclers. It might be a shrewd bargaining move, as if to say “I dislike you more than you dislike me, so I will give in less”; or it might simply be to highlight factually the intensity of feelings on either side. In any case, this more generous cause for empathic negotiation might give rise to a more genuine negotiation over road norms.
The question of which motivation dominates is an important one, because it charges the logos, pathos, and ethos of Duffy’s argument. Logos, because his conclusion – that new norms must be negotiated – follows from its premises only if one of these motivations is taken to be true. Ethos, because the credibility of his argument is contingent on his motivations being viewed as fair. And pathos, because the choice of motivation suggests to which audience Duffy is really speaking – bicyclers, as a representative of drivers and pedestrians; or all three parties, as a genuine arbiter.
Logos
Duffy’s site features seven pages linked from an introductory index. Two of these pages have no argumentative value: a poem on empathy, to be read from top-to-bottom as well as bottom-to-top, and an “action plan” on future project expansions. The heart of the argument is in three pages, which describe how drivers, bicyclers, and pedestrians see each other; one page, which summarizes bicycler laws in Cambridge; and one page, which describes the proposed negotiation towards new traffic norms. The first four pages I take to be the premises of Duffy’s argument, and the last his conclusion.
The content of these pages is summarized below. It should be noted that P1-P3 are “viewpoints” and should be read: “Drivers believe…” For this reason, they are consistent internally, but not necessarily with each other.
P1: Driver-view. Bicyclers are common. Bicyclers do not obey either pedestrian or driver laws (riding in car lanes and ignoring traffic signs and lights). Incidents involving cyclists and cars pose a large risk of injury to the cyclist and a large financial risk to the driver.
P2: Pedestrian-view. Cambridge is badly designed for cars. Drivers obey traffic laws. Bicyclers do not obey pedestrian or driver laws (riding on sidewalks and ignoring traffic lights). Incidents involving cyclists are dangerous to pedestrians.
P3: Bicycler-view. Bike lanes are erratic or nonexistent. Drivers leave no room on roads for bicyclers. Pedestrians clog sidewalks. Bicyclers are stuck with two bad options because no alternatives exist.
P4: Bicycle law. [Excerpt] Bicyclers can use roads or sidewalks, but not sidewalks in business districts. Must give pedestrians right of way. Must signal and obey traffic laws.
C1: “The current set of rules governing our streets, roads, and sidewalks isn’t working.”
C2: “One of the primary goals of this project is to… design a new set of norms that will make our roads and sidewalks safer to use.”
C3: “For now… everyone who uses the roads and sidewalks should understand and obey the law that applies to them… This means, among other things, that bicyclers should ride with caution and actually obey traffic signals, motorists should be respectful of bicyclers’ and pedestrians rights to use the roads, and pedestrians should allow room on the sidewalks for bicyclers to ride.”
It is apparent that by “rules” in C1, Duffy must mean the existing practices of bicyclers, rather than the laws governing them. Further, these practices and laws must be non-identical, else C1 would contradict C3. But if the existing practices of bicyclers are not the lawful ones, then bicyclers must be breaking the laws. Duffy has accepted the recurring claim of P1 and P2 that bicyclers do not obey traffic laws – a claim that P3 does not deny (though perhaps it should!).
The turn towards this “strong claim” is improper. Even if I accept P1-P3, I am only bound to admit that drivers believe bicyclers do not obey traffic laws; that pedestrians believe bicyclers do not obey traffic laws; and that bicyclers (curiously enough) do not deny it. It does not follow from any of this that bicyclers actually do not obey traffic laws. And even if this strong claim were true, C3 would not follow from its conjunction with C1. Duffy would have to further show that “everyone” obeying the traffic laws would be better. Now of course, in one sense, bicyclers obeying the traffic laws would be better, because doing so might resolve the complaints of pedestrians and motorists. But Duffy does not show how obeying traffic laws would resolve bicyclers’ own complaints about overcrowding in the sidewalks and streets. C3 cannot be established by majority vote.
The logos of Duffy’s argument, then, is problematic on two counts. First, Duffy attempts to convert the existence of the strong claim into its acceptance without explication; and second, he proposes a conclusion that preferences the interest of two parties over that of a third. This preference is valid only if he takes the preferred interest to be valid and the competing interest to be void. But it is again a case that he does not make.
Ethos
The analysis of the previous section suggests that the “empathy” of Duffy’s presentation is of dubious verity. By presenting a weakened version of the bicycler’s viewpoint and then favoring that of pedestrians and motorists, he undermines his conclusion that an empathic negotiation is needed – or even possible. Duffy’s case is further undermined by the site itself. Whether in jest or in earnest, nearly every page features a jab or two at bicyclers. From the home page, which asks “why won’t [bicyclers] just go away?” to the link to Massachusetts bicycle laws, which has the parenthetical “and why we should maybe, oh, I don't know, follow them,” Duffy lends doubt to his neutrality as an arbiter.
Neutrality, of course, is not a necessity. Duffy does not need to proclaim himself an arbiter to argue that bicyclers should obey the law. But his half-hearted presentation of the bicycler view and his conclusion that everyone should work together – while placing the cost of change only on bicyclers – seems disingenuous. Why say “understanding and cooperation to bring about a safer set of norms” when compliance, not cooperation, is the aim?
Pathos
Ethos and logos reveal that the central dilemma of Duffy’s argument is ultimately one of audience: he has two irreconcilable constituencies that he must please. The first, of course, is the cyclists. He is advocating for a negotiation over new norms, with compliance suitable in the meanwhile. This requires that bicyclers actively change their behavior. This task would already be difficult, given the jabs throughout the website, but is made impossible by the poor effort in empathy. Where pedestrians get six lines about beating bicyclers with poles and motorists nine paragraphs describing bicyclers as “buffoons,” cyclists spend two paragraphs complaining about the state of the roads. This is the courtroom equivalent of the defendant saying: “Yeah, I killed him, but what was I going to do? My rifle was starting to rust.” To put it bluntly, Duffy does not consider that bicyclers might think themselves in the right.
Duffy does not consider that bicyclers might think themselves in the right because he believes that they are in the wrong. He cannot satisfy this audience because he does not believe they have a case. And so his two audiences – his bicyclers and himself – are irreconcilable. If he gives in to his interlocutors, he cannot satisfy his intuitions. If he satisfies his intuitions, he cannot satisfy his interlocutors. And so he tries to pretend, as any good lawyer would. But alas, not all too well.
