Private to Public and...Morals?

As we discussed the Panama Papers in class on Wednesday, one particular question rose to the forefront: “What causes documents that aren’t meant to be public to go public?” I believe some of my own questions are related to this issue: How do private-made-public documents catch and maintain the attention of a public? How is it that some people take years to make others in a certain public even care or do something about a problem, and then something like the Panama Paper leak immediately grabs the notice of a public so large it engulfs nations?

I think there are many, many multi-faceted answers to these questions, so I’m going to propose just one idea. But first, consider these excerpts from various news articles and note any thematic trends:

• True, the papers may not provide evidence of corruption involving these families. But they will strengthen perceptions that the elite enjoy enormous wealth and privilege, despite Mr Xi’s massive anti-corruption drive… The revelations could therefore pose a dilemma for Mr Xi. Does he push his anti-corruption campaign harder against some of the most influential families in China, or does he go easy on them, and tone down the anti-corruption campaign, which he has said he will not do? ~ “The Panama papers embarrass China’s leaders” by The Economist
•  John and Tony Podesta aren’t fooling anyone with this ruse. They are lobbyists for Vladimir Putin’s personal bank of choice, an arm of his Kremlin and its intelligence services. Since the brothers Podesta are presumably destined for very high-level White House jobs next January if the Democrats triumph in November at the polls, their relationship with Sberbank is something they—and Hillary Clinton—need to explain to the public. ~ “Panama Papers RevealClinton’s Kremlin Connection” by John Schindler, opinion piece in the Observer
•  Richard Burgon, the shadow Treasury minister, said Cameron’s admission showed a “crisis of morals” at the heart of the Conservative government. ~ “David Cameron admitshe profited from father's Panama offshore trust fund” by The Guardian

Okay, granted, what I asked you to do was very much directed by my own interpretation; to get the full context, check out the hyperlinked articles. One trend I noticed involved an implied tension between a future action and a current moral/ethical dilemma. Though this might be one of those “no-brainer” statements, it seems to me that publics are as much guided by issues of morality as much by practicality.

Publics are comprised both of rhetors and audiences, are they not? And audiences esteem rhetors they perceive to have a high ethos. An aspect of ethos involves practical wisdom “through the use of common sense and sound reason” (Palczewski 153). According to Christopher Lyle Johnstone, “Practical wisdom is the power of good deliberation. It is the excellence of the practical intellect, and its aim is to discover through deliberation ‘truth’ about rightness of desired ends. The objective of practical wisdom, therefore, is the apprehension of moral truth, of truth in the probable and contingent realm of action” (3).

Think of it this way: public discourse inherently involves a series of choices, both in the texts written and selected as well as the actions taken in response to those texts. Those choices are usually accompanied by some sort of justification/reasoning; we justify choice by explaining the rightness of its action. We don’t know who leaked the Panama Papers, but we could imagine what was going through his or her mind: “Should I leak these papers?” Apparently this person decided yes; I would argue that moral reasons probably most prompted this action. Why? Well, we use the word should to express obligation or duty. And personally, I think obligations and duties would hold little weight if they didn’t have a solid foundation in some type of morality.

So individuals may have their own moral code, but how would morals play a role in the public sphere? To say that publics don’t act according to morals might be inaccurate. Then what are those morals, and who decides which morals govern a particular public? In his analysis of a different scholar’s work, Andrew Lister proposes the idea of “moral compromise.” I haven’t read the entire article yet, but what I have read provides a lot of food for thought. If you’re interested in reading it yourself, this is the reference:

Lister, Andrew. "Public Reason and Moral Compromise." Canadian Journal of Philosophy 37.1 (2007): 1-34. Print.

Sources referenced:

Johnstone, Christopher. “An Aristotelian Trilogy: Ethics, Rhetoric, Politics, and the Search for Moral Truth.” Philosophy & Rhetoric 13.1 (1980): 1-24. Print.

Palczewski, Catherine Helen., Richard Ice, and John Fritch. Rhetoric in Civic Life. State College, PA: Strata Pub., 2012. Print. 

Case of the Public Presentation and the "Real" Audience

When: April 4, 2016

Where: MSU Writing Center

Victims: 6 Peer Tutors & 1 WC boss & 1 straggler (English Dept. Head)

At 4:30 pm the rainclouds rolled into Bozeman, and as the first drops hit the pavement, I trundled into the building, pulling my windblown hair from my face. The blustery weather had dampened my plans; I wanted my targets primed and in a good mood, but even something as subtle as outdoor conditions could affect how they receive my spiel.

No matter; I came prepared. Earlier that weekend I had taken the time to bake 48 individual bribes cloaked in sugar and dark-chocolatey goodness. What exactly was I bribing people to do? To come to my presentation on style, of course. The email announcement—which included the mention of cookies—set the bait, and all I had to do was follow through and cinch the deal. My training taught me well: “In order to have goodwill…the rhetor has to understand the frame of mind of the audience. When the rhetor assesses the audience and incorporates the appropriate appeals, s/he appears to be motivated by the audience’s interests and needs” (Palczewski 154). This basic concept is regularly practiced by groups aiming to sucker college students into worthwhile activities; what better universal appeal could you use besides that which is directed towards the stomach?

Armed with cookies, I felt confident I could lure some otherwise-reluctant people to participate. Plus, I thought my cover was pretty decent: fellow tutor concerned about cracking the code of dense, unclear writing. I even straightened my hair and applied makeup that morning in the hopes of appearing semi-professional. And I had a secret plan.

Yup. The plan was so secret, it wasn’t even written out—it was just all in my head. Okay, so it wasn’t fully rehearsed either. This particular assignment presented a new challenge for me: interacting with the subjects rather than speaking from a memorized script. Those “cold” cases are certainly easier to work with—less potential for messiness.

Didn’t some famous guy say, “What can get messy, will get messy?” (Or you know—something along those lines). Well, he was right. The most rehearsed part of my plan got messy. Or rather, my subconscious decided to rebel and mess up my plan. See, I had scoped out the situation beforehand and resolved not to lay all my cards on the table. If I revealed one of my primary motives for the presentation—an assignment given me by one of my superiors—then that information might not sit well with the audience.

I spilled the beans; at least it was a good cop out from my original plan.

Interestingly, the audience didn’t seem miffed at my divulgence. I figured, Well, I honestly told them that though the assignment prompted me to action, I have been interested in the topic a long time prior and felt it has been overlooked in WC discussions. Maybe they concluded that genuine interest on the part of the rhetor, albeit with mixed motives, is better than no genuine interest. Yet not only was the audience unperturbed, they also weren’t distracted by the cookies. Huh. They weren’t such a tough sell as I had thought they’d be. They didn’t need to be persuaded to listen to me; they were already personally intrigued by a topic directly relevant to their line of work. Then again, because I know these people, this shouldn’t have surprised me…

You know how some people have “light-bulb moments”? I think I had a strobe light epiphany. I realized that I had underestimated/misunderstood my audience because I hadn’t thought about them specifically going into the assignment; instead, I resorted to my “public” writing mindset.

“[P]ublics are different from persons, that the address of public rhetoric is never going to be the same as address to actual persons,” writes Michael Warner (58). His statement makes sense to me. My go-to writing mindset assumes a public audience; thus, I use all the ammunition available to me to persuade even the most hardened (and unknown) audience member—although obviously those homework assignments are rarely seen by more than two people.

Instead of tailoring my presentation to specific people I knew would attend, I prepared to meet the imaginary public in my mind, one that was less gracious than the actual.

Once the smoke cleared (since at this point the strobe light was scorched), I was able to relax and allow the presentation take a more conversational turn. We discussed the suggestions listed on the handouts (see the Evidence below) as well as other techniques that individuals have used in sessions.

During the conversation, I mentally jotted down two observations: 

The exclusivity of the first observation notwithstanding, I thought these indicated signs of a good day's work. No crimes were committed or detected that day, but perhaps future (writing style) ones were averted.

Evidence