Analyzing and judging the manifest rationality of Gloria Steinem’s “Supremacy Crimes”

Abstract

Mass gun violence continues in America as do debates about what should be done about it. This recurring issue prompted Gloria Steinem to publish an article in 1999 on what she called "Supremacy Crimes." This article seems to have only increased in its relevance and visibility over time, but did Steinem make an effective argument at the time? Drawing upon Ralph H. Johnson's theory of manifest rationality, I attempt to analyze and evaluate how Steinem argues her case and how well she argues it.

Keywords:

• Rhetorical analysis
• rhetorical evaluation
• manifest rationality
• Ralph H. Johnson
• Gloria Steinem

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank the anonymous reviewers and the editor for their support and critical guidance through previous iterations of this article, and remain in their debt.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 I wish to thank Michele Sleighel, fact-checker for Ms., who located these letters in the magazine’s archives.

2 One alternative to Johnson’s theory would be the pragma-dialectical school of argumentation identified with F. H. van Eemeren and his school of followers, Peter Houtlosser, Scott Jacobs, and Agnès Van Rees, among others. For a critique of the “meta-argumentation” for this theory, see Finocchiaro (2013, 65–69).

3 Arguing for a “more modest” dialectical view of argument, Finocchiaro makes the critical point that the goal of rational persuasion need not always assume “a context of controversy” implied by Johnson’s dialectical tier, citing John Stuart Mill’s counter-example of Euclidean geometry as “rational persuasion achieved just with the illative tier” (2013, 52–53).

4 .See White (1978) for background on my use of this term.

5 Oswald and Ribs argue that rhetors using extended metaphors that diligently map attributes and predicates between the source domain and the target domain—in Steinem’s case, “drug addiction” (source domain) and mass/serial killings (target domain)—can “de-metaphorize” the figurative assertion so that it can appear to become the “literal” truth and potentially enhance the arguer’s ethos as trustworthy (2014, 142, 149).

6 However, similarities, if thoroughly extended, can be so compelling that they seem to become identities. On this point, see Plantin (2011, 123). For a different view that metaphors and analogies are distinct, see Santibáñez (2010, 973–9890; for a critique of Santibáñez’s approach, see Xu and Wu (2017, 68–76).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Arrington Phillip Keith

Phillip Keith Arrington earned his baccalaureate and masters degrees in English Literature from East Carolina University before completing his doctorate in rhetoric and literature at the University of Louisville in l984. Since then, he has taught graduate and undergraduate courses in writing, literature, and rhetoric at Eastern Michigan University. Emeritus Professor and uthor of a number of articles in such academic journals as American Literature and College English, his most recent publications include Eloquence Divine—In Search of God’s Rhetoric (Cascade Books 2017), "Window Rhetoric: Curtains, Drapes, and Blinds," Explorations in Media Ecology (16.2, 2017: 57–72), “Soliloquies Divine: God’s Self-Addressed Rhetoric in the Old Testament” (Rhetorica 35. 3 [2016]: 223–242, “Feigned Soliloquy, Feigned Argument: Hamlet’s ‘To Be or Not to Be’ Speech as Dissoi Logoi” (The Ben Jonson Journal 22.1 (2015): 101–118). He is also the author of Rhetoric’s Agons (2008) and an e-novel entitled The Serpent’s Sage (2013) (both available at Amazon.com). He is currently at work on finding an agent for his other novels, and on publishing a book-length study on violence and hate and rhetorical theory entitled, The Wounding Word: Rhetoric/Violence. He is also the proud and loving father of two wonderful children, Kasey and Dylan. For information, visit his author website at philorhetor.com.