In his essay, “On Viewing Rhetoric as Epistemic”, Robert Scott criticizes Toulmin’s two types of arguments - analytic and substantial - for being “tenseless”, content-empty, and not coinciding with the truth (12). While Scott agrees with Toulmin’s a posteriori approach to epistemology, he feels that rhetoric should accomplish more: it should move past what is certain, and create truth on a situational basis, rather than “knowing” and then “acting”. Scott then turns to Ehninger and Brockriede’s concept of cooperative critical inquiry, which is useful in supporting and assessing knowledge claims. Scott holds the position that doing-is-knowing, and asserts “that truth is not prior and immutable but is contingent”; “not as something fixed and final but as something to be created moment by moment in the circumstances in which he finds himself” (13,17). The uncertainty of the world makes “knowing” impossible unless one acts with epistemic rhetoric, and in the “best possible” way that “maximizes the potential good”(17).
Scott’s view of epistemic rhetoric can be applied to the movie Avatar. A little background about the movie: A paraplegic former marine named Jake Sully is sent by the RDA Corporation to the planet Pandora in the hybrid form of a Na’vi/human. The goal of the RDA is to extract a large amount of the valuable mineral, Unobtanium, located underneath the Hometree of the Na’vi people. He is assigned to gather information about the species and to eventually convince them to leave the Hometree so that the RDA can excavate it. In return for intel, Jake will be rewarded with the ability to walk again. Below is a segment from the script which illustrates Scott’s assertion that “acting” like a Na’vi equates to “knowing” them.
SELFRIDGE
Look, you're supposed to be winning the
hearts and minds of the natives. Isn't
that the whole point of your little
puppet show? If you look like them, if
you talk like them, they'll trust you?
JAKE
How do we contact them?
GRACE
We don't. They contact us. If they see
us taking our samples, treating the
forest with respect --
(pointedly to Jake)
Not trampling everything in sight --
they may reach out to us.
Since no “prior truth” is available to the RDA Corporation about how to negotiate with the Na’vi people, Jake must “create truth” in gaining the trust and respect of the clan. Jake is not given a playbook or a case-by-case set of instructions for living among the Na’vi people. The only direct advice the RDA supplies him with is to “treat the forest with respect”. He has no choice but to live in a new world of uncertainty, where acting like a Na’vi can only come from learning the truth about them in daily life. Jake is forced to abandon living as a human would, and to live like a Na’vi. He has no “absolute” experiences to rely upon, therefore, his knowledge from living on the planet of Pandora is dictated by how he “acts”.
Periodically, Jake would keep his superiors updated via a video-log about his interactions and experiences with the Na’vi. It is a limited form of collaborative critical inquiry, in which Jake reports the “truth” about the Na’vi as he sees it. Over the three months of his assignment, however, Jake checks in with the RDA less frequently. He keeps the truth of his situation to himself, so that he can remain on Pandora. Jake is caught in a “conflict of duty” as result of his love for the Na’vi people, particularly Neytiri, the princess of the clan. His duty to as a soldier for the RDA corporation is compromised by his desire to protect the Na’vi. The segment below portrays Jake’s “world of conflicting claims”.
JAKE
But if I tell [Colonel] Quaritch the truth, he
yanks me out -- I never see her [Neytiri] again.
And if I tell her the truth, the clan
throws me out -- that's if they don't cut
my heart out and show it to me.
By not communicating with the outside world as he should, Jake feels more obligated to protect the home of the clan, rather than persuade them to re-locate. Jake realizes that he can never possibly convey the circumstances of living among the Na’vi people. The truth, in Jake’s case, cannot be “dual”. He can serve either the interests of the Corporation or the Na’vi, not both. By suppressing the collaborative critical inquiry that his superiors requested of him, Jake has transformed the truth of his situation. The result is horrific for Jake and the Na’vi: Colonel Selfridge of the RDA Corporation bulldozes and destroys the Hometree.
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