The Vietnam Veterans Memorial: An Invitation to Argument

Abstract

This essay develops a perspective of argument as hermeneutic, and explicates its principles through an analysis of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. In opting for a view of argument as interpretive, rather than as a material condition of the social world, we are led to examine the resources through which individuals shape understanding. Narrative theory offers valuable assistance in such inquiry precisely because of its concern with how systems of symbolization authorize understanding, and how shared understanding structures human relationships and human action. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is widely known as a place of great power. This analysis suggests that the Memorial's power arises from the limitations of our social resources for understanding; in the absence of constraints imposed by these resources, we are free to engage in authentic commemoration—to discover what is true for each of us as we shape our own arguments about the meaning of Vietnam and its attendant concerns.