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Tangible and Conceptual Problems
Here are seven statements that might pose problems worth writing about. Which ones are
most obviously problems? Which seem least likely to raise a problem that you care about?
That anyone could care about?
1. Several bars in Charlottesville are now serving draft beer in one-gallon
containers.
2. By the year 2015, the number of people receiving social security benefits
may be greater than the number of people in the U.S. workforce.
3. The letters of Flannery O’Connor are full of statements that sound racist to
the contemporary reader.
4. Fluid-film forces in squeeze-film dampers (SFD) have nearly always been
obtained from the Reynolds equation of classical lubrication theory.
5. Cancer and heart disease remain the top causes of death in the U.S., but
AIDS may be the top killer in our future.
6. There is evidence that Francisco Bulnes, the Mexican theorist of
revolution and social policy, was widely read and debated in the 1930s
and 1940s.
7. A librarian in the English village of Dovecote East has found manuscripts
of Sir Francis Bacon that include three youthful—but very
accomplished—plays written in beautiful verse.
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Finding Conceptual Problems
Conceptual problems always lead to some form of question, something your readers do
not know or do not understand, but should. What is at stake in a Conceptual Problem is
correcting, extending, or verifying your readers’ initial understanding. When looking
for a Conceptual Problem, look for conditions like these:
an overlooked connection or disjunction
unexplained differences or similarities
what seems to be the case is not
inability to find a pattern
inability to generalize
unaccounted for data
excessive complexity
a gap in knowledge
unpredictability
inconsistency
aberrant facts
contradiction
disagreement
discrepancy
uncertainty
perplexity
confusion
ambiguity
anomaly
paradox
surprise
conflict
error
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Conceptual Problems
Conceptual problem statements point out some error or missed opportunity in the
way we think about a problem.
1A.
Angela Carter's "The Bloody Chamber" is perhaps best understood as a
conflict between the innocent narrator and the manifestly evil Marquis. This
critical position is voiced, for example, by Robert McCruer when he notes that
the story is "unusual in Carter's canon for the clarity with which it
distinguishes the virtuous from the vile" (218). Indeed, Carter takes pains to
emphasize both the purity of the virginal narrator and the depravity of the
sadistic Marquis. In this gripping remake of the Bluebeard tale, Carter uses
imagery, dialogue, and precise language to make the story's point.
1B.
The central line of dramatic tension in Angela Carter's "The Bloody Chamber"
is usually understood as a conflict between the innocent narrator and the
manifestly evil Marquis. This critical position is voiced, for example, by
Robert McCruer when he notes that the story is "unusual in Carter's canon for
the clarity with which it distinguishes the virtuous from the vile" (218). This
popular critical position is challenged, however, by a consideration of the
narrator's mother. Having survived attacks from both ferocious tigers and illintentioned pirates, the mother is worldly enough to know evil when she sees
it. Nonetheless, she allows her daughter to marry the Marquis. If he is able to
fly below the mother's moral radar, the Marquis cannot be patently evil; so it
seems that critics like McCruer must be oversimplifying Carter's conception of
evil. Indeed, over the course of the story, neither the Marquis nor the narrator
remains morally static. Instead, they both shuttle between states of evil and
states of grace. By examining the patterns of these moral oscillations, we will
develop a more coherent understanding of Carter's theory of evil.
2A.
The Grinch Who Stole Christmas is a heartwarming fable with an antimaterialist message. When the story begins, the Grinch is nursing his own
bitterness in his mountain retreat. The idea that the Whos are about to
celebrate Christmas gnaws at the Grinch like a dog at a bone. To thwart
Whoville's celebrations, the he concocts a plan to steal all of the presents,
food, and trimmings that symbolize the holiday. In the end, though, the Grinch
experiences a change of heart when he realizes that the burglarized Whos still
intend to celebrate. Both humbled and ennobled by his epiphany, the Grinch
returns to Whoville the town's presents and feast.
2B.
The Grinch Who Stole Christmas is usually understood as a heartwarming
fable with an anti-materialist message: the Grinch experiences a change of
heart when he realizes that the burglarized Whos still intend to celebrate. In
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the end, Whoville gets back its presents and feast. This ending suggests that
we need to re-examine critical assumptions about The Grinch. Although not
an unalloyed celebration of materialism, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas
strikes a delicate balance between faith and materialism, with materialism
much closer to the narrative's heart than is generally acknowledged.
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Fairy-Tale Structure
Let's say a fairy-tale begins like so: "Once upon a time, a fisherman lived in a peaceful
village."
I. Which of the following options might come next in the narrative?
A. Nothing happened, and he lived a long, uneventful life. The end.
B. One day, he drew up in his nets a talking fish.
C. One day, an osprey bigger than the biggest house roosted in the cliffs
above the village.
II. And then?
a. The end.
b. The fish said, "Release me or serve me for dinner, as you please. But you
should know that if you harm me, no Brussels sprout will ever grow in
your village again."
c. For weeks on end, the osprey's enormous shadow cast the village into
darkness and frightened all the fish out of the bay.
III. Next?
a. Still the end. Move along, folks.
b. The talking fish didn't know much about local agriculture, for the
villagers had never grown Brussels sprouts. The fisherman and his
family ate the magical fish, and nothing happened. The end.
c. The fisherman resolved to end the osprey's shadowy siege before the
village succumbed to cold and famine. So one morning, he stole down to
his boat with three oars, a wooden spoon, and a spool of twine dipped in
honey…
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The Rhetoric of Introductions
When you map the elements of rhetorical problems onto a document, you construct an
Introduction with a number of rhetorical elements:
1. A statement of a Status Quo, or the current state of affairs that gave rise to the
Destabilizing Moment.
2. A statement of the Destabilizing Moment, a Predicament for Tangible Problems or a
Question for Conceptual ones.
3. A statement of the Consequences of the Condition, either the Costs of leaving it
unresolved or the Benefits of resolving it.
4. A statement of Response in the Hot Spot at the end of the Introduction to the Problem,
including either a resolution of the problem or a promise of a resolution to come. In
business and professional situations, if you have stated the Consequences in terms of
Costs, the Response should often include the Benefits of the solution — in other
words, the answer to the question, “Why is the solution a solution?”
There are two initial flourishes you can add to the statement of your problem: a Prelude
(usually an epigram or narrative that sets the stage for your problem) and a statement of the
Stable Context (uncontested and unchanging background to the problem). Preludes are
rare in professional documents and even rarer in scientific and technical documents. But
they do occur occasionally in academic texts in the humanities and in belletristic writing
such as that you find in Atlantic or The New Yorker. A Prelude can be a quotation, an
anecdote, or anything loosely related to the Stable Context or the Problem.
PRELUDE
STAB LE C ONTEXT
PROBLEM
• STATUS QUO
• DESTABILIZI NG MOMENT
• CONSEQUENCES
RESPONSE
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Predicaments Need Solutions
Problem
Atlanta’s streets, notoriously inadequate in normal times, will be hard pressed to
accommodate increased traffic during the Olympics. It can also be anticipated that the
tangled layout of streets will confuse visitors, as will the city’s unusual scheme of street
names. The Olympics will not succeed and Atlanta’s image will be significantly tarnished
if overcrowded and confusing streets keep visitors from the events they will come to see.
So what should we do?
1
2
3
4
5
6
Build Downtown Connector.
Increase MARTA’s rolling stock to maximize carrying capacity.
Develop a system of computer kiosks that give driving directions.
Tie kiosks to traffic monitoring system in order to direct traffic to least-used routes.
Create system of remote parking lots with frequent shuttle service.
Develop downtown attractions that encourage visitors to linger after events in order to
spread post-event traffic load over time.
7 Offer pre-event entertainment (music, contests for fans, athletic exhibitions, etc.) that
encourages visitors to arrive early in order to spread pre-event load.
8 Develop public relations campaign to reduce negative views of tangled streets.
9 Improve signage on all streets that will carry Olympic traffic.
10 Color-code Olympic routes.
Questions Need Answers
Problem
O’Connor’s ambiguous treatment of race remains a difficult subject for her admirers, who
are unwilling to cast her aside as another Southern racist. . . . Fitzgerald’s analysis,
however, is only half true. Large social issues were not the subject of O’Connor’s writing,
but her attitudes concerning race cannot be dismissed as the product of an imperfectly
developed sensibility. They were well-developed and firmly based intellectually in her
religious beliefs.
So what should we
think?
For O’Connor, racism was not a social issue but the symptom of a larger spiritual and
religious crisis. Her treatment of racism as a spiritual crisis was more sympathetic to racial
equality than is apparent.
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Once you have identified a problem that your readers have and that your
document will address, the next thing your readers want to know is how you
propose to deal with the problem. You have two choices: give them your
solution or promise that one will come in due time.
PEOPLE MOVERS, INCORPORATED
Moving Atlanta to a Brighter Future
Olympic Traffic Impact Study
Executive Summary
PROBLEM
Predicament
+
Costs
RESPONSE
Background
to Solu tion
+
Promise of
Solu tion
+
Benefits
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The city of Atlanta faces many challenges as it prepares to host the
1996 Olympic Games. From the point of view of city services, Atlanta
is in a good position to house, feed, and amuse the many Olympic
visitors. Its airports and highways are adequate to bring the visitors
to the city conveniently and safely. But Atlanta may not be able to
move its visitors around after they arrive. Atlanta’s streets,
notoriously inadequate in normal times, will be hard pressed to
accommodate increased traffic during the Olympics. It can also be
anticipated that the tangled layout of streets will confuse visitors, as
will the city’s unusual scheme of street names. The Olympics will not
succeed and Atlanta’s image will be significantly tarnished if
overcrowded and confusing streets keep visitors from the events they
will come to see.
People Movers has conducted an extensive survey of Atlanta traffic
patterns in order to establish a base line for predicting 1996 levels for
normal volume and usage patterns as well as volume and usage
patterns for the ten days of the Olympic festival. Based on those data,
People Movers has formulated a staged ten-point plan for limiting
peak volume and improving usage patterns during the Olympic
festival. Fully implemented, this plan will assure that Atlanta’s
visitors and residents can use the streets with minimal difficulty.
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For conceptual problems, what readers want to know is the answer to your
question. Once again, you can promise a later answer or give the gist of
one right after you state the problem.
1.2.
STATUS QUO: Angela Carter's "The Bloody Chamber" is usually
understood in terms of a conflict between the innocent narrator
and the manifestly evil Marquis.
DESTABILIZING MOMENT: The narrator's mother, who has
seen enough evil to recognize it and act decisively, allows her
daughter to marry the Marquis.
COST: those critics who read the Marquis as pure evil must be
overlooking something significant about Carter's theory of evil.
RESPONSE: [version A, resolution] Over the course of the story, both
the Marquis and the narrator move between states of evil and
states of grace. This oscillation in Carter's story suggests that evil
and grace are both temporary states.
[version B, promise of resolution] Over the course of the story,
both the Marquis and the narrator move between states of evil and
states of grace. By examining the patterns of these moral
oscillations, we will develop a more coherent understanding of
Carter's theory of evil.
2.2
STATUS QUO: The Grinch Who Stole Christmas is usually
understood as a heartwarming fable with an anti-materialist
message: the Grinch experiences a change of heart when he
realizes that the burglarized Whos still intend to celebrate.
DESTABILIZING MOMENT: In the end, Whoville gets back its
presents and feast.
COST: The ending suggests that we need to re-examine critical
assumptions about The Grinch's clear-cut anti-materialism.
RESPONSE: [version A, resolution] Although not an unalloyed
celebration of materialism, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas strikes a
delicate balance between faith and materialism, with materialism
much closer to the narrative's heart than is generally
acknowledged.
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This essay will reconsider
the importance of materialism in this Seuss classic.
[version B, promise of resolution]
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3.
A group of health professionals were evaluating potential donors for a kidney
transplant recently when they received a surprise. Through routine genetic testing,
the group inadvertently learned that one of the adult children was not the child of
the man with kidney failure.
The transplant team struggled with the question of what to do with this
information. Should the family be told? To whom did the knowledge belong? Was
it ethical to use the child's kidney without telling him?
Keeping family secrets used to be a routine part of medicine. But over the past
few decades, as patient autonomy and informed consent have come to dominate
clinical practice, disclosure has become more commonplace. Every now and then,
however, physicians confront complicated family secrets. What they should do
about them is far from clear.
4.
I tried so hard, my dear, to show that you're my every dream
Yet you're afraid each thing I do is just some evil scheme
A memory from your lonesome past keeps us so far apart
Why can't I free your doubtful mind and melt your cold, cold heart?
Another love before my time made your heart sad and blue
And so my heart is paying now for things I didn't do
In anger unkind words are said that make the teardrops start
Why can't I free your doubtful mind and melt your cold, cold heart?
5.
Well, I left Kentucky back in '49
An' went to Detroit workin' on assembly line
The first year they had me puttin' wheels on Cadillacs
Every day I'd watch them beauties roll by
And sometimes I'd hang my head and cry
'Cause I always wanted me one that was long and black.
One day I devised myself a plan
That should be the envy of most any man
I'd sneak it out of there in a lunchbox in my hand
Now gettin' caught meant gettin' fired
But I figured I'd have it all by the time I retired
I'd have me a car worth at least a hundred grand.
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Some Student Problem Statement Intros:
Typical Sticking Points
A. The text below was generated in response to an assignment asking students to
write an introduction with a Problem Statement structure.
The Natural: Gender and Parenting Aptitude
In The Way We Never Were, Stephanie Coontz addresses the question of
whether mothers or fathers are better at parenting. She finds that Americans
believe that women are naturally better parents. However, a recent survey
conducted at UVa casts doubt on Coontz’s conclusions; the college students
surveyed did not respond as Coontz predicted they would. In light of the new
research, we need to revise our Coontzian assumption by accounting for
differences in Baby Boomer and Generation Y attitudes toward gender and
parenting.
B. The text below was generated in response to an assignment asking students to
write several Problem Statement introductions, labeling the parts of the PS. The
student makes two common mistakes—one in identifying the parts of the problem
statement, the other in the nature of her Response.
The Power of Music
Stable Context: It has been said that music is the universal language. It is the
medium most used to convey messages of love, hope, issues of awareness, and
sometimes, violent matters. Music is meant to be listened to and at sometimes is
soul stirring. There is no doubt that music can be instrumental in how people
react to certain situations and how they carry out their lives. Destabilizing
Condition: However, artists and their lyrics have been targets for blame. There
have been a lot of stories where people have performed certain acts or crimes
that were suggested in certain song lyrics. Some people have actually blamed
certain genres (including rap music) for being the catalyst of illicit behavior.
Cost: A lot of people have misunderstood the power of music. It was not meant
to be the cushion for people to fall back on when they found themselves in
trouble. Music is not the main reason people do things that are not acceptable.
People do know right from wrong. Just because it was said in the lyrics of the
song it does not condone certain acts. Resolution: People must understand that
music is a powerful tool and it must be used with discretion at times. The best
way to handle music is to use good judgement. If the music starts to affect one’s
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reality they should try to take the message and see if there is anything that can be
done that won’t cause harm to anyone.
What advice would you give this writer?
“I’d Rather Feel Bad than Not Feel
Anything at All":
music. The notable absence of research in this field
(there are only one or two serious French studies of
the musical culture industry and even they are inspired by an anthropological vision of the
phenomenon of popular music) means that credence
is given there to the most idealizing and mystificatory discourses to be found in the whole range
of media reporting. (1988, 598; emphasis added)
Rock and Roll, Pleasure and Power
Lawrence Grossberg, the beginning of a 25-page
essay in Dancing In Spite of Myself (1997).
I want to begin with a paradox: Although we are
inundated with words about rock and roll, we understand
very little about its place in the lives of its fans and its
relation to the structures of power in our society. Of
course, this is only one instance of a more general lacuna
in contemporary critical discourses: the mass media and
popular culture. Armand Mattelart has identified some of
these pervasive gaps, but he too notes the appalling state
of popular music analysis:
• A lack of relations between semiological research and
the genuine latent demand for discourse analysis on the
part of journalists looking for a redefinition of their
practices: a gap which contrasts with the fluid exchange
between semiology and the advertising industry.
• A lack of any detailed understanding of the modes of
re-appropriating media discourse on the part of the
various social categories that constitute the "grand
public."
• A lack of any analysis of the strategies of evasion and
deviation directed by multiple social agents against the
apparatuses of power.
• A lack of any study in the articulation, in a dialectical
model of analysis, of the so-called experiments in social
intervention (cinema, video, radio) and the fnnctioning
of the central apparatuses...
• [A] lack of any dialectical analysis of exchange, or
absence of exchange between university research on
cultural production and the field of criticism... In many
apparently unrelated fields, it is the references and
accomplishments of academic research which, one way
or another, fix the limits of tolerance for any discourse.
Vulgar discourse, or at least one version of it, is no
longer acceptable in the analysis of film, while it is still
looked on as the dominant mode of analyzing popular
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One of the reasons that so much contemporary writing on
mass culture is inadequate to the task may be that it fails
to consider what Stuart Hall has called "the sensibility of
mass culture," the ways in which various audiences select,
appropriate, and make use of a limited set of the available
media messages. This seems, almost inevitably, to lead us
into questions of taste and pleasure. As Michele Mattelart
has argued,
What is disturbing is the exhiliration that these tales
[soap operas] continue to give spectators who are
critically aware of how alienating they are and who
have located the mechanisms through which their
nefarious work is carried on. We simply cannot ignore
the question of taste, of the pleasure . . . produced by
these fictional products of the cultural industry. There is
a problem here, and one hitherto scarcely tackled.
(1982, 141)
There is a problem here, but we should not be too quick to
define it. Both "taste" and "pleasure" draw us, perhaps
unwillingly, into individualizing and psychologizing
discourses. As Bourdieu (1980) has demonstrated, there is
a political economy of taste that problematizes its status as
a surplus of determination. And, on the other hand,
despite current efforts to define a "politics of pleasure,"
the concept is both too vague (often substituting for desire
or affect) and too narrow (often serving as the opposite or
absence of pain). "Pleasure" draws us back into a
phenomenology of emotions, but often discounts the
complex role of ideology in such processes.
The first issue is, then, to locate and define the problem.
One site that opens into these questions is the category of
the "fan" and the unique relationship that it implies. It is
this relationship that I wish to explore in the present essay,
within the realm of youth culture and rock and roll. What
distinguishes the fan from the consumer? After all, both
may enjoy the music, and both may use it as a significant
part of "leisure" activities. What is it about this
relationship that makes rock and roll so important both to
individual fans and within the larger culture of
contemporary youth? What is it about this relationship
that enables rock and roll fans to invest themselves within
it, using it at times not only as leisure but as a form of
struggle and resistance? Of course, rock and roll does not
always or necessarily function as resistance, no more than
it necessarily and always functions as a form of hegemonic
incorporation. The question is precisely how to identify
the terms of the fans' relationship to the music that enables
rock and roll to function in different ways, for different
audiences, at different times. This bond-the dialectical
product of an active audience and productive (con-)textsmay shed some light on the range of functions and effects,
both positive and negative, that rock and roll produces.
And it may help us understand the broader question of the
"sensibility of mass culture."
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Neil Nehring, “Romanticism,
Modernism, and Postmodernism on
Mass Culture and Ressentiment.”
Anger is an Energy.
I began to notice academic accounts of
postmodernism—Marxist critiques of postmodern culture,
in fact—creeping into mainstream music criticism in 1991
and in the New York Times of all places. The appearance
of nominally Marxist theories in that venue, first of all,
partially belies the claim of writers like Russell Jacoby, in
The Last Intellectuals (1987), that leftist academics
preoccupied with dense theory have no influence on the
culture at large. I say "partially" because he had in mind a
positive influence; in the case of postmodern theory, the
influence has been pernicious, if unintentionally so. But
even if the academic Left was involuntarily exploited, that
the Times would find supposedly radical ideas useful in
trashing dissent ought to alert us immediately to the
liabilities and irresponsibility of those ideas. They
represent a classic instance of post-modern theory that
"masquerades as critique," as George Lipsitz puts it, but is
so one-dimensional that it ultimately serves as a form of
collaboration with the oppressors."
In its pessimism about the power of multinational
corporations to absorb or co-opt any expression of dissent,
much of postmodern theory only reinforces a sense of
hopelessness, a conviction of the inevitability of the status
quo. Thus "postmodernism ultimately manages to install
and reinforce as much as subvert the conventions . . . it
appears to challenge," says Linda Hutcheon, and its
apparent criticism belies "its own complicity with power
and domination." The unexamined nature of postmodern
views, which will be quite clear, indicates that the ways
we might transform society are "not to be found in the
study of power" as an abstract theoretical matter, as Greil
Marcus argues. What we need instead is "a long, clear
look at the seemingly trivial gestures and accounts of
ordinary experience" like those found in popular music
and its audiences.2
What has particularly concerned me, therefore, since
the events of 1991 that I recount in Chapter 4—the
establishment reaction to Nirvana's breakthrough and to
the appearance of the Riot Grrrls—is writing on
alternative music by younger journalists and scholars that
features favorable references to postmodernism. In trying
to enhance both the timeliness (the hipness, that is) and
the intellectual prestige of their work, those younger
critics have been citing postmodern theorists who, in point
of fact, doubt that any real cultural alternatives even exist,
whether within or without corporate-produced culture.
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Simon Frith, “Making Music.” Sound
Effects.
The British rock musician Manfred Mann once
commented that “the more people buy a record, the
more successful it is—not only commercially but
artistically.” The ideological power of popular music
comes from its popularity. Music becomes a mass
culture by entering a mass consciousness, by being
heard simultaneously on people’s radios and record
players, on bar and café jukeboxes, at discos and
dances. Mass music is recorded music, and —
whatever their particular artistic claims, their
authenticity and their interest as music—records
which don’t sell, which don’t become popular, don’t
enter mass consciousness. Because rock is a mass
medium, attempts to claim its products…as folk music
or works of art…miss the point: a record’s ideological
influence is determined by what happens to it in the
marketplace.
Simon Frith, “Youth.” Sound Effects.
Rock is the music of youth, and the question I
want to answer in this chapter is straightforward:
What’s so special about the young? In sociological
terms, there are two approaches to this problem and
two descriptive categories: teenagers and youth (or
Elvis Presley and the Beatles). These different terms
partly reflect different historical moments, partly
different concerns, and they often overlap. Teenager is
a 1950s concept; youth and youth culture come from
the 1960s. Teenager refers mostly to the working-class
young; youth suggests the insignificance of class
distinctions at this age, but it is usually, implicitly,
applied to the middle-class young. Both concepts must
be examined in detail.
For the problem with invoking postmodern ideas
while celebrating alternative music to be clear, one first
needs to know what the academics who are cited-always
superficially-actually have to say. Perhaps the most
influential of those academic analysts of postmodernism is
Fredric Jameson, the elder statesman of Marxist scholars
in the United States, who by 1994 had become the subject
of academic panels on his "legacy”. . .
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My soul was a burden, bruised and bleeding. It was tired of
the man who carried it, but I found no place to set it down to
rest. Neither the charm of the countryside nor the sweet scents
of a garden could soothe it. It found no peace in song or
laughter, none in the company of friends at table or in the
pleasures of love, none even in books or poetry. . . . Where
could my heart find refuge from itself? where could I go, yet
leave myself behind?
-St. Augustine
T
o suffer and long for relief is a central
central experience of humanity. But the
But the absence of pain or discomfort
discomfort or what Pablo Neruda called "the
infinite ache" is never enough. Relief is bound
up with satisfaction, pleasure, happiness—the
pursuit of which is declared a right in the
manifesto of our republic. I sit here with two
agents of that pursuit: on my right, a bottle from
Duane Reade pharmacy; on my left, a bag of
plant matter, bought last night for about the
same sum in an East Village bar from a group of
men who would have sold me different kinds of
contraband if they hadn't sniffed cop in my
curiosity and eagerness. This being Rudy
Giuliani's New York, I had feared they were
undercover. But my worst-case scenario was a
night or two in jail and theirs a fifteen-year
minimum. As I exited the bar, I saw an empty
police van idling, waiting to be filled with
people like me but, mostly, people like them,
who are there only because I am.
Fear and suspicion, secrecy and shame, the
yearning for pleasure, and the wish to avoid men
in blue uniforms. This is (in rough, incomplete
terms) an emotional report from the front. The
drug wars—which, having spanned more than
eight decades, require the plural—are palpable
in New York City. The mayor blends
propaganda, brute force, and guerrilla tactics,
dispatching undercover cops to call "smoke,
smoke" and "bud, bud"—and to arrest those
who answer. In Washington Square Park, he
erected ten video cameras that sweep the environs twenty-four hours a day. Surveillance is a
larger theme of these wars, as is the notion that
cherished freedoms are incidental. But it is
telling that such an extreme manifestation of
these ideas appears in a public park, one of the
very few common spaces in this city not controlled by, and an altar to, corporate commerce.
107
only legal but even patriotic. Among the
souls wandering these aisles, I feel I have
kin. But I am equally at home, and equally
ill at ease, among the outlaws. I cross back
and forth with wide eyes.
What I see is this: From 1970 to 1998, the
inflation-adjusted
revenue
of
major
pharmaceutical companies more than
quadrupled to $81 billion, 24 percent of that
from drugs affecting the central nervous
system and sense organs. Sales of herbal
medicines now exceed $4 billion a year.
Meanwhile, the war on Other drugs
escalated dramatically. Since 1970 the
federal antidrug budget has risen 3,700
percent and now exceeds $17 billion. More
than one and a half million people are
arrested on drug charges each year, and
400,000 are now in prison. These numbers
are just a window onto an obvious truth: We
take more drugs and reward those who
supply them. We punish more people for
taking drugs and especially punish those
who supply them. On the surface, there is no
conflict. One kind of drugs is medicine,
righting wrongs, restoring the ill to a proper,
natural state. These drugs have the sheen of
corporate logos and men in white coats.
They are kept in the room where we wash
grime from our skin and do the same with
our souls. Our conception of illegal drugs is
a warped reflection of this picture. Offered
up from the dirty underworld, they are
hedonistic, not curative. They induce
artificial pleasure, not health. They harm
rather than help, enslave rather than liberate.
There is some truth in each of these extreme
pictures. But with my dual citizenship,
consciousness split and altered many times
over, I come to say this: The drug wars and
the drug boom are interrelated, of the same
body. The hostility and veneration, the
punishment and profits, these come from the
same beliefs and the same mistakes . . .
Several times a month, I walk through that park
to the pharmacy, where a doctor's slip is my
passport to another world. Here, altering the
mind and body with powders and plants is not
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From Donald Morton, “Birth of the Cyberqueer,” PMLA 110.3 (May ‘95): 369.
In today’s dominant “post-al academy, the widely celebrated “advance” in the
understanding of culture and society brought about ludic (post)modernism has been enabled
by a series of displacements: of the signified by the signifier, of use value by exchange
value, of the mode of production by the mode of signification, of conceptuality by
textuality, of the meaningful by the meaningless, of determination by indeterminacy, of
causality by undecidability, of knowing by feeling, of commonality by difference, of
political economy by libidinal economy, of need by desire, and so on. In the domain of
sexuality, the new space of queer theory is a postgay, postlesbian space. Ludic
(post)modernism, which promotes the localizing of cultural phenomena, discourages any
effort to render these developments systematically coherent and intelligible. Hence the reappearance of queer today is given local “explanation”--for example, as an oppressed
minority’s positive reunderstanding of a once negative word, as the adoption of an umbrella
to encompass the concerns of both female and male homosexuals and bisexuals, or as the
embracing of the last fashion over an older, square style by the hip youth generation.
I argue here that the explanations relying on trends, styles, and the sexual subject’s
“voluntary” intentions trivialize the issue of queerness for the purpose of occluding the
ideological significance of the return of the queer. In other words, queer studies — as a
superseder of the older and presumably outmoded Enlightenment-inspired gay and lesbian
studies--participates in the contemporary shift brought about by ludic (post)modernism
toward a theoretically updated form of idealism and away from historical materialism. This
idealism comes to light when the return of the queer is historicized as part of a systematic
development connected to the appearance of late capitalism and such notions as virtual
realities, cyberpunk, cybersex, and teletheory. The return of the queer today is actually the
(techno)birth of the cyberqueer.
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From Sylanie Walington, et al, “Gravitational Lens Inversion Using the Maximum Entropy
Method,” The Astrophysical Journal 426 (May 1 1994): 60.
The phenomenon of gravitational lensing can provide unique information about the
structure and composition of the universe [cites]. Lensing can (1) reveal the detailed
structure of individual lensing galaxies and galaxy clusters, (2) superresolve background
sources through lens magnification, and (3) possibly determine the Hubble constant. . .
.[S]ince the discovery of blue luminous arcs [cites] and radio Einstein rings [cite], the
lensing of extended sources has developed into a very active subject. The defining feature
of the arc and ring sources is that we see the highly distorted image of an extended
background source. The constraint that permits inversion of multiply-imaged objects is the
knowledge that a single source produces the image. This allows solutions for both the
unknown source intensity distribution and the lens model in the multiply imaged region.
Compact sources such as quasars sample the lens potential at only a few points, thus giving
only a few constraints. Extended sources, on the other hand, cover a significant portion of
the multiply imaged region, leading to many more constraints. This makes gravitationally
lensed rings and arcs particularly powerful tools for exploiting the full potential of lensing.
A good inversion algorithm disentangles the source and lens in an observed arc or ring
source using an objective test of goodness of fit for the model, and making no a priori
assumptions about the structure of the source. There are two algorithms in the literature that
meet these criteria. The “Ring Cycle” algorithm, developed by Kochanek et al. (1989),
assumes that the lensed image is a true surface brightness map. . . . The chief weakness of
this technique is that even higher-resolution radio maps are not really surface brightness
maps. This led to the development of the Lens-CLEAN algorithm to include the effects of
finite resolution when inverting the lens, thus avoiding the assumptions of the “Ring Cycle.”
The algorithm we describe in this paper is analogous to LENS-CLEAN but uses the
maximum entropy method to allow for the effects of the beam. . . .
The maximum entropy method (MEM) is one of several standard methods used by
astronomers to reconstruct a source from noisy and incomplete data. The algorithm seeks an
image that fits the observed data to within the limits allowed by the noise but at the same
time also maximizes a given measure of “entropy.” The success of MEM in regular image
processing and its complementary properties compared with CLEAN. . . motivated us to
apply MEM techniques to the inversion of gravitational lenses. In this paper we study a onedimensional implementation of an MEM lens inversion algorithm. In §2 . . . . One of the
surprising results of this study is that we have identified certain generic “glitches” which
appear in source reconstructions under certain conditions.
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Framing Problems
The Rhetoric of Introductions
When you map the elements of rhetorical problems onto a document, you
construct an Introduction with at least four, and perhaps five, rhetorical elements:
1. An optional Prelude or statement of a Stable Context, indicating the state of
affairs that gave rise to the Destabilizing Condition. Although these elements are
optional, they offer easy and useful ways to prepare readers not only for your
problem but for the discussion of its resolution.
Note that Preludes are rare in professional documents and even rarer in scientific
and technical documents. But they do occur occasionally in academic texts in the
humanities and in belletristic writing such as that you find in Atlantic or The New
Yorker. A Prelude can be a quotation, an anecdote, or anything loosely related to
the Stable Context or the Problem.
2. A statement of the Status Quo, the prevailing theory (for conceptual problems)
or protocol (for tangible problems). This Status Quo will be revised in some way
by your Response claim.
3.
A statement of the Destabilizing Moment, suggesting a Predicament for
Tangible Problems or a Question for Conceptual ones.
4. A statement of the Consequences of the Condition, either the Costs of leaving it
unresolved or the Benefits of resolving it.
5. A Response in the Hot Spot at the end of the Introduction, including either a
resolution of the problem or a promise of a resolution to come. In business and
professional situations, if you have stated the Consequences in terms of Costs,
the Response should often include the Benefits of the solution — in other words,
the answer to the question, “Why is the solution a solution?”
PRELUDE
STAB LE C ONTEXT
PROBLEM
• STATUS QUO
• DESTABILIZI NG MOMENT
• CONSEQUENCES
RESPONSE
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Part I: The Context of the Problem (optional slot)
The Stable Condition that the Destabilizing Condition Disrupts
One way to introduce your Rhetorical Problem is to recount the situation which
gave rise to it. In business and professional documents, you will often find it
useful to establish a situational Context so that your document will be
understandable to those who do not know or have forgotten what occasioned you
to write it in the first place.
In academic documents, the Stable Context helps readers to understand what line
of research or thinking led you to discover your problem. It is often an important
tool for writers (especially students) to earn credibility by demonstrating
knowledge of the subject matter and of previous research and to let readers know
what “school” or approach has influenced your understanding of the problem.
The Context of the Problem can take many forms: a request from the reader to
deal with a particular problem, a recent event that makes the problem pertinent, a
history of the problem, a literature review, common knowledge challenged by the
problem, a positive Condition challenged by the problem, a previous document,
etc.
Example: Context as reader request
In your letter of 7 July, 1995 you asked that we review Carson’s current pension
plan in light of the recent Total Quality Management (TQM) reorganization and
creation of new job titles and categories. In particular, you were concerned that
by giving many more employees job titles usually assigned to management,
Carson might incur greater reporting requirements. CONTEXT In determining the
reporting requirements of a plan such as Carson’s, current law looks not to job
titles but to levels of compensation. Since the TQM reorganization will potentially change compensation levels for some employees, PREDICAMENT we have
reviewed and recalculated. . . .
Example: Context as recent event
On March 22 and 23, Alumni Affairs paid William Carlos and Gloria Silverstein
$6000 to give telemarketing productivity seminars to volunteers for the upcoming
campaign. CONTEXT These seminars were quite poorly attended: out of 110
telephone volunteers, only 19 attended the presentation. PREDICAMENT
This
presentation could have benefited even our most experienced volunteers, and
many of those who were absent were new volunteers who could have learned the
most. Because of this high rate of absenteeism, we received very little in return
for our $6000. COST
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Example: Context as positive Condition challenged by the problem
The city of Atlanta faces many challenges as it prepares to host the 1996 Olympic
Games. From the point of view of city services, Atlanta is in a good position to
house, feed, and amuse the many Olympic visitors. Its airports and highways are
adequate to bring the visitors to the city conveniently and safely. CONTEXT But
Atlanta may not be able to move its visitors around after they arrive.
PREDICAMENT
Example: Context as prior research
For decades, educational researchers have focused on issues of problem solving.
They have used studies of problem solving to understand the difference between
experts and novice learners, to determine the nature of textbook presentations
and exercises, even to design curricula. CONTEXT But the real question for the
new century is not how do we improve our citizens ability to solve problems, but
how do we make ourselves better at finding and explaining the problems we need
to solve. QUESTION
Parts II & III: The Problem Statement
A Destabilizing Moment and Its Consequences
An effective problem statement must usually include both a statement of the
Destabilizing Moment and a statement of the Consequences that make it a
problem for readers. If the problem is a tangible one, then the Destabilizing
Moment will suggest some Predicament — a situation that calls for some kind of
action in response. If the problem is a conceptual one, then the Destabilizing
Moment will point toward some Question — a matter that readers need to know
or understand better.
If your readers are familiar with the type of problem you address, you can state the
elements in any order – that is, many times it will not matter which comes first:
a.
Currently System 8 users have difficulty finding specific information with
the documentation the company now provides. COST This documentation is
highly complex. It includes a large number of technical manuals and a
Documentation Map dividing the information in the manuals into nine
different function groups: [list of function groups]. PREDICAMENT
While the Documentation Map has made it somewhat easier for users to find
what they need in the System 8 manuals, Kevin Honor of the Goochland
office’s Technical Support Center expressed the company’s desire that a set of
icons be developed for use with the Documentation Map. CONTEXT AS
REQUEST FOR DOCUMENT Therefore we have. . . .
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On February 12, Kevin Honor of the Goochland office’s Technical Support
Center requested that CyberStudents develop a set of icons for use with the
documentation for System 8. CONTEXT AS REQUEST FOR DOCUMENT Currently
that documentation is highly complex. It includes a large number of technical
manuals and a Documentation Map dividing the manuals into nine different
function groups: [list of function groups]. PREDICAMENT
Even with the
Documentation Map, this extensive documentation system makes finding
specific information very difficult and time-consuming for System 8
users. COST
Sometimes, however, you will find that your problem statement will be more
effective if you explain the Condition first and only then explain its
Consequences. You will find it particularly useful to state the Condition first
when you believe your readers will be reluctant to accept the significance of the
Consequences. If you open with Consequences your reader may not accept, you
stand little chance of having the rest of your document read with any care. On the
other hand, if you open with a statement of a Condition that you then go on to
explain in more detail, by the time you get to your statement of the Consequences
it will appear to be backed by facts and evidence – in other words, the
Consequences will seem a logical conclusion of the condition.
Part IV: Response
A Solution or Promise of One To Come (with Optional Reader-Benefits)
It is not enough that your introduction simply state a Problem: readers will also
expect you to respond to that Problem in some way. You can do that in either of
two ways:
1. In the key spot at the end of the introduction (called the “Hot
Spot”), make your main point, your best effort at a Solution to the
Problem. If the Solution is complex, you can present at the end of
the introduction a Gist of the Solution that you will explain more
fully later:
At present, excessive flows from rainfall and groundwater are entering the City of
Hopewell and/or Churchville Sanitary District sewer systems, exceeding the
transport capacity in some reaches of these systems PREDICAMENT and resulting
in flooding and other drainage problems. COST We propose to: evaluate this
excessive inflow in the system; correlate the occurrence to rainfall events of a
specified intensity; identify probable sources of. . . . GIST OF SOLUTION
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2. OR, in the Hot Spot, promise explicitly or implicitly that a
Response is coming at the end of the document.
This promise is what we will call a Launching Point. If you do not make your main
point at the end of the Introduction, you must set the reader up for the rest of the text
with a statement that looks forward to the main point at the end.
The Launching Point can anticipate the resolution of the Problem in several ways,
including
a. A direct statement of the question implied by the Problem:
. . . As more personal consumers enter the market, price comparison-shopping
and service demands will rise. PREDICAMENT And, as a result, so could industry
churn – already a problem at double-digit annual levels. COST What can wireless
carriers do? LAUNCHING POINT
b. Metadiscourse stating your general goal:
The purpose of this report is to analyze the effectiveness of the current training
program and to make recommendations for improving it. LAUNCHING POINT
c. Metadiscourse outlining the plan of the text:
In order to show why Reynold’s number cannot be relied on in these cases, this
study will reports tests conducted at high pressure, high revolutions, and high
heat conditions. LAUNCHING POINT
d. A Point that anticipates elements of the global Point:
This paper will explore the tangled web of O’Connor’s treatment of racism,
repeatedly asking whether her spiritual rather than social approach to the issue
might not be superior to that of the liberalism of her time. LAUNCHING POINT
Often, your Launching Point will anticipate your main point/solution in more
than one way.
(A note about introductions: In general, you should not save your main point for
last unless you have a very good reason for doing so — especially not in business or
professional contexts. Be aware that in almost all long professional documents, the
main point/solution is presented several times: in the executive summary, in gist
form in the introduction, and in a Results, Conclusions, or Recommendations
section. Although this may seem to be impolitely repetitive, in fact readers usually
do not think so: the executive summary or abstract is often treated as “front matter”
or as a separate document, since it may be the only part of the report that some
readers see.)
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Reader-Benefits: Why is the Solution a Solution?
In professional and business documents, if you have stated the Consequences in terms of
Costs rather than Benefits, the Response (whether it is the Main Point or only a
Launching Point) will often be followed by the Benefits of the solution. An example:
Florida ranks first in the country with the highest transmission rate for HIV
among heterosexuals, second in the number of pediatric cases and third in the
number of total AIDS cases.PREDICAMENT (costs are obvious) Until a cure for HIVAIDS is found, the most effective way of preventing the spread of the virus is
through
education
of
our
youth.
Recognizing the
Bryant Foundation’s
commitment to the HIV-AIDS battle, we request that you consider a gift of
$79,200 to fund two years of two peer-education programs entitled
INFO-AWARE
and AWARE THEATER at the HIV-AIDS Institute at Eastern Florida University in
Seitonville, Florida.SOLUTION Designed to reach thousands of middle school, high
school, and college students throughout eastern Florida, the programs should
have an enormous
prevention.BENEFIT
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for
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Fixed and Movable Elements of Introductions
Body
Introduction
fixed
positions
movable
problem
elements
Stasis
Stable
Context
Conclusion
Disruption
Resolution
Problem
Response
Predicament
or
+
Question
Cost
or
Benefit
Solution, or
Gist of Solution, or
Pomise of Solution
Compare This to the Structure of a Fairy Tale
Once upon a time, Little Red Riding Hood was
happily skipping through the forest on her way to
Gramma’s house to bring her a delicious
supper.STABLE CONTEXT
Atlanta is in a good position to house, feed, and
amuse Olympic visitors. Its airports and highways are
adequate to bring them to the city conveniently and
safely. STABLE CONTEXT
When suddenly, the big bad Wolf jumped out from
behind a tree, PREDICAMENT
But Atlanta may not be able to move its visitors
around after they arrive. Its streets are tangled,
confusingly named, and not up to increased
traffic.PREDICAMENT
frightening her half to death. “What a nice meal she
will make,” he thought to himself. COST
The Olympics will fail and Atlanta’s image will be
significantly tarnished if overcrowded and confusing
streets keep visitors from the events they will come to
see. COST
[several intermediate adventures, leading to…] So the
Woodsman chopped open the big, bad Wolf, rescued
Gramma from his stomach, and they shacked up
together, RESOLUTION living happily ever
after. BENEFIT
People Movers has conducted an extensive survey of
Atlanta traffic [and other intermediate steps] We have
a ten-point plan for limiting volume and improving
usage patterns during the Olympics. RESOLUTION
This plan will assure that Atlanta’s visitors and
residents can use the streets with minimal difficulty.
BENEFIT
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Revising on the Page
Formulating a Problem So Readers Will Care
I. State the Problem in Two Steps
1.
Find a Destabilizing Moment.
For a Pragmatic Problem, describe the state of affairs that you believe needs to be
changed. Be as specific as possible:
Not: Atlanta will face a traffic problem during the Olympics.
But: Atlanta’s tangled streets and confusing street names will cause Olympic
visitors to get lost.
For a Conceptual Problem, describe in detail the kind of misunderstand or gap in
your readers’ knowledge that your point/answer will correct. Make the
description of what you/readers do not know closely match the language of your
answer:
It is not entirely certain what motivated the Popes to mount Crusades at the
particular time that they did, whether their reasons were religious, as they
announced, or whether there were other reasons rooted more deeply in
European social and political history.CONDITION/QUESTION
2.
Describe the Consequences of leaving the Status Quo destabilized.
For a Pragmatic Problem, describe the specific cost (money, pain, loss of
reputation, etc.) that will follow from the Predicament. Be sure that the Cost of
the Predicament is greater than the Cost of your proposed solution.
For a Conceptual Problem, describe the greater ignorance or larger question that
your readers face if they do not know your answer to the specific Question your
paper will address. Remember, the immediate Consequences of a Conceptual
Problem are almost always themselves conceptual.
If we can understand these reasons, we will understand better how the
Vatican’s understanding of pragmatic, immediate political conditions
interacted with theological concerns and beliefs to shape the history of 11th
century Europe.BENEFIT
II. Respond to the Problem in One of Two Ways
1.
Either state your Resolution.
For a Pragmatic Problem, describe the course of action that readers should take to
resolve the problem. Do not just repeat the problem in other words:
Not: Atlanta must deal with the traffic problem during the Olympics.
But: Atlanta must take the following ten steps: . . . .
Pragmatic solutions come in three forms. You can
• alleviate the costs,
• find other ways to secure the benefits, or
• remove the condition or block its effects.
For a Conceptual Problem, simply state your Answer:
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In fact the Crusades were not just a fight against the Muslims to recapture the
Holy Land but an effort to save the Church and Europe from the dissensions
that were tearing it apart. RESPONSE/ANSWER
2.
Or promise that a Resolution will come later.
For either kind of problem, you have several options. You can
• use metadiscourse to promise an answer (“This paper will…)
• imply an answer by announcing topics (“The key to this question is…)
• suggest the general contours of the answer.
In fact, the Crusades appear to have been motivated as much by European
politics as by popular religious fervor. PROMISE OF ANSWER
III. Find a Status Quo to Disrupt
For a Pragmatic Problem, the most relevant Status Quo is usually the current protocol
out of which the problem arises. For a Conceptual Problem, the Status Quo is usually
some common belief or previous argument that your paper will contradict or modify.
In the popular mind, the eleventh-century Crusades to recover the Holy Lands
for Christianity was a holy enterprise motivated by religious zeal. COMMON
BELIEF AS STATUS QUO
In the popular mind, the eleventh-century Crusades to recover the Holy Lands
for Christianity was a holy enterprise motivated by religious zeal. COMMON
BELIEF AS STATUS QUO However, it is not entirely clear what motivated the Popes
to mount Crusades at the particular time that they did, whether their reasons
were religious, as they announced, or whether there were other
reasons.CONDITION/QUESTION These other reasons might point to the ways in which
the Vatican’s understanding of pragmatic, immediate political conditions
interacted with theological concerns and beliefs to shape the history of
eleventh-century Europe.BENEFIT Since the Crusades do appear to have been
motivated as much by European politics as by popular religious fervor, we may
have to reevaluate our conception of the relation between religion and politics.
PROMISE OF ANSWER
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