Argument as emergence toward the other

From RhetorClick

Jim W. Corder claims his view of "argument as emergence toward the other, Rhetoric as Love," is an underlying extension from Carl Rogers, Rogerian method. However, Corder acknowledges that while Carl Rogers' insights into argumentation have been highly valuable and may work in some particular settings, they do not deal with the "flushed, feverish, quaky, shaky, angry, scared, hurt, shocked, disapointed, alarmed, outraged, even terrified condition that a person comes to when his or her narrative is opposed by a genuinely contending narrative" (418).

As Rogers created his method for the therapy session in which the patient understands that the therapist is trying to facilitate their own self-healing, Corder attempts to explain how the underlying principles of the Rogerian method can be taken into context while in a heated debate. Corder calls for a change in the way we talk about argument. The use of the words display and presentation offer a neat organization to argue a particular subject, yet this is not true argument that creates that flushed and feverish condition that a person comes to when facing a contending argument. Rather Corder states that "[Argument] is something to be. It is what we are" (422). Thus, if we are to value ourselves and our own argument, and are to value all others, "we must learn that argument is emergence." We can change the way we argue if we learn to love before we disagree, although generally the opposite situation happens and Coder gives an example of this: war veterans on opposing sides can forgive and love after they fought decades prior. Corder claims that although the arguer faced with a contending narrative has to go alone, the arguer must not hold his argument as priority when producing the argument.

Ultimately, Corder differs from using the Rogerian method, acknowledging that it is unrealistic for a rhetorical situation, as arguments that are most significant to us are just where threat occurs" (419). But, when we re-define rhetoric as love, then we acknowledge that "we must speak a commodious language, creating a world full of space and time that will hold our diversities, and we can learn to hear a commodious language" (428).