Reply to My Critic(s)Anderson, Amanda, 1960-Criticism, Volume 48, Number 2, Spring 2006, pp. 281-290 (Article)Published by Wayne State University PressDOI: 10.1353/crt.2007.0021For additional information about this article Access Provided by University of California , Santa Barbara at 02/28/12 12:13AM GMThttp://muse.jhu.edu/journals/crt/summary/v048/48.2anderson.htmlA M A N D A A N D E R S O NReply to My Critic(s)MY RECENT BOOK, The Way We Argue Now, has in a sense two theses. In the firstplace, the book makes the case for the importance of debate and argument to anyvital democratic or pluralistic intellectual culture. This is in many ways an unex-ceptional position, but the premise of the book is that the claims of reasonedargument are often trumped, within the current intellectual terrain, by appealsto cultural identity and what I gather more broadly under the rubric of ethos,which includes cultural identity but also forms of ethical piety and charismaticauthority.Inpromotingargumentasauniversalpracticekeyedtoahumancapacity for communicative reason, my book is a critique of relativism and iden-tity politics, or the notion that forms of cultural authenticity or group identityhave a certain unquestioned legitimacy, one that cannot or should not be sub-jected to the challenges of reason or principle, precisely because reason and whatisoftencalledfalseuniversalismare,accordingtothispatternofthinking,always involved in forms of exclusion, power, or domination. My book insists,by contrast, that argument is a form of respect, that the ideals of democracy,whether conceived from a nationalist or an internationalist perspective, rely fun-damentally upon procedures of argumentation and debate in order to legitimatethemselves and to keep their central institutions vital. And the idea that oneshould be protected from debate, that argument is somehow injurious to personsif it does not honor their desire to have their basic beliefs and claims and solidar-ities accepted without challenge, is strenuously opposed. As is the notion thatany attempt to ask people to agree upon processes of reason-giving argument issomehow necessarily to impose a coercive norm, one that will disable the freeexpression and performance of identities, feelings, or solidarities. Disagreementis, by the terms of my book, a form of respect, not a form of disrespect. And bydisagreement, I dont mean simply to say that we should expect disagreementrather than agreement, which is a frequently voicedif misconceivedcriticismof Habermas. Of course we should expect disagreement. My point is that weshould focus on the moment of dissatisfaction in the face of disagreementtheinternal dynamic in argument that imagines argument might be the beginning of281

Criticism, Spring 2006, Vol. 48, No. 2, pp. 281290Copyright 2007 Wayne State University Press, Detroit, MI 48201050 rev-robbins (263-290)9/6/0711:05 AMPage 281a process of persuasion and exchange that could end in agreement (or partialagreement).Forthosewhoadvocatereconcilingourselvestodisagreementsrather than arguing them out, by contrast, there is a complacentand in someversions, even celebratoryattitude toward fixed disagreement. Refusing theseoptions, I make the case for dissatisfied disagreement in the final chapter of thebook and argue that people should be willing to justify their positions in dialoguewith one another, especially if they hope to live together in a post-traditional plu-ralist society.One example of the trumping of argument by ethos is the form that wastaken by the late stage of the Foucault/Habermas debate, where an appeal toethosspecifically, an appeal to Foucaults style of ironic or negative critique,often seen as most in evidence in the interviews, where he would playfully refuselabels or evade direct answerswas used to exemplify an alternative to the formsof argument employed by Habermas and like-minded critics. (I should pause tosay that I provide this example, and the framing summary of the book that sur-rounds it, not to take up airtime through expansive self-reference, but becauseneither of my respondents provided any contextualizing summary of the bookscentral arguments, though one certainly gets an incremental sense of the booksclaims from Bruce Robbins. Because I dont assume that readers of this forumhave necessarily read the book, and because I believe that it is the obligation offorum participants to provide sufficient context for their remarks, I will performthis task as economically as I can, with the recognition that it might have carriedmore weight if provided by a respondent rather than the author.)The Foucauldian counter-critique importantly emphasizes a relation betweenstyle and position, but it obscures (1) the importance or value of the Habermasiancritique and (2) the possibility that the other side of the debate might have its ownethos to advocate, one that has precisely to do with an ethos of argument, an idealof reciprocal debate that involves taking distance on ones pre-given forms of iden-tity or the norms of ones community, both so as to talk across differences and toarticulate ones claims in relation to shared and even universal ideals. And this leadsto the second thesis of the book, the insistence that an emphasis on ethos and char-acter is interestingly present if not widely recognized in contemporary theory, andone of the ways its vitality and existential pertinence makes itself felt (even despitethe occurrence of the kinds of unfair trumping moves I have mentioned). We oftenfail to notice this, because identity has so uniformly come to mean sociological,ascribed, or group identityrace, gender, class, nationality, ethnicity, sexuality,and so forth. Instances of the move toward character and ethos include the laterFoucault (for whom ethos is a central concept), cosmopolitanism (whose aspira-tion it is to turn universalism into an ethos), and, more controversially, procedu-ralistethicsandpolitics(withitsemphasisonsincerityandcivility).Anotherversion of this attentiveness to ethos and character appears in contemporary prag-matism, with its insistence on casualness of attitude, or insouciance in the face of282 Amanda Anderson050 rev-robbins (263-290)9/6/0711:05 AMPage 282contingencyrecommendations that get elevated into full-fledged exemplary per-sonae in Richard Rortys notion of the ironist or Barbara Herrnstein Smiths por-traitofthepostmodernskeptic.Theseexamplesandthelargerclaimtheysupportare meant to defend theory as still living, despite the many reports of itsdemise, and in fact still interestingly and incessantly re-elaborating its relation topractice. This second aspect of the project is at once descriptive, motivated by thenotion that characterology within theory is intrinsically interesting, and critical, inits attempt to identify how characterology can itself be used to cover or evade theclaims of rational argument, as in appeals to charismatic authority or in what I iden-tify as narrow personifications of theory (pragmatism, in its insistence on insou-ciance in the face of contingency, is a prime example of this second form). And as acomplement to the critical agenda, there is a reconstructive agenda as well, anattempt to recuperate liberalism and proceduralism, in part by advocating the pos-sibility, as I have suggested, of an ethos of argument.Robbins,inhisextraordinarilyrichandchallengingresponse,zeroesinimmediately on a crucial issue: who is to say exactly when argument is occurringor not, and what do we do when there is disagreement over the fundamentals (theprimary one being over what counts as proper reasoning)? Interestingly, Robbinsapproaches this issue after first observing a certain tension in the book: on theone hand, The Way We Argue Now calls for dialogue, debate, argument; on theother, its project is potentially something a bit stricter, or pushier: getting us allto agree on what should and should not count as true argument. What this pointof entry into the larger issue reveals is a kind of blur that the book, I am nowaware, invites. On the one hand, the book anatomizes academic debates, and indoing so is quite debaterly. This can give the impression that what I mean byargument is a very specific form unique to disciplinary methodologies in highereducation. But the book is not generally advocating a narrow practice of formaland philosophical argumentation in the culture at large, however much its authormay relish adherence to the principle of non-contradiction in scholarly argu-ment. I take pains to elaborate an ethos of argument that is linked to democraticdebate and the forms of dissent that constitutional patriotism allows and evenpromotes. In this sense, while argument here is necessarily contextualized socio-historically, the concept is not merely academic. It is a practice seen as integral tospecific political forms and institutions in modern democracies, and to the moregeneral activity of critique within modern societiesto the tradition of the pub-lic sphere, to speak in broad terms. Additionally, insofar as argument impels oneto take distance on embedded customs, norms, and senses of given identity, it isa practice that at once acknowledges identity, the need to understand the per-spectives of others, and the shared commitment to commonality and generality,to finding a way to live together under conditions of difference.More than this: the book also discusses at great length and from several dif-ferent angles the issue that Robbins inexplicably claims I entirely ignore: theReply to My Critic(s)283050 rev-robbins (263-290)9/6/0711:05 AMPage 283question of disagreement about what counts as argument. In the opening essay,Debatable Performances, I fault the proponents of communicative ethics fornot having a broader understanding of public expression, one that would includethe disruptions of spectacle and performance. I return to and underscore thispoint in my final chapter, where I espouse a democratic politics that can embraceand accommodate a wide variety of expressions and modes. This is certainly adiscussion of what counts as dialogue and hence argument in the broad sense inwhich I mean it, and in fact I fully acknowledge that taking distance from culturalnorms and given identities can be advanced not only through critical reflection,but through ironic critique and defamiliarizing performance as well. But I doinsistand this is where I take a position on the fundamental disagreements thathave arisen with respect to communicative ethicsthat when they have an effect,these other dimensions of experience do not remain unreflective, and insofar asthey do become reflective, they are contributing to the very form of reasonedanalysis that their champions sometimes imagine they must refuse in order toliberate other modes of being (the affective, the narrative, the performative, thenonrational). If a narrative of human rights violation is persuasive in court, orin the broader cultural public sphere, it is because it draws attention to a viola-tion of humanity that is condemned on principle; if a performance jolts peopleout of their normative understandings of sexuality and gender, it prompts formsof understanding that can be affirmed and communicated and also can be usedto justify political positions and legislative agendas.Robbins claims that I violate my own ideal of dialogue by failing to engagethosewho,accordingtohim,are[my]mostsignificantantagonists:Jean-Franois Lyotard and Jacques Rancire. But it is simply not true that I fail toaddress the fundamental concerns that neither of these thinkers owns in anyabsolute sense. I might have addressed their work particularly (there are signifi-cant differences between them), and I think the example of Rancire is a particu-larly fruitful one, especially given his own critique of sociological reductionism(andidentitypolitics),andhisuniversalism,whichsharesaffinitieswiththeforms of poststructuralist universalism (notably, Etienne Balibars) that I addressin the third chapter of my book. But the relevant issues of incommensurability oflanguage games or cultural perspectives, and the question of intractable or hard-wired exclusion, are adduced and repeatedly critiqued throughout the book,across a range of disciplines. The debate between the accommodationist positionof Thomas McCarthy and the universalist position of Habermas addresses theseissues straight on, and the discussion of Habermas clearly maps out the two mainalternatives to his position as (1) incommensurable perspectives and (2) over-lapping consensus. The analysis of Satya Mohanty and Martha Nussbaum is alsodirectly relevant: Mohanty situates his project with respect to a well-known andparallel debate in anthropology represented by the opposed positions of ErnestGellner and Talal Asad. My emphasis on the newer discussions of accommoda-284 Amanda Anderson050 rev-robbins (263-290)9/6/0711:05 AMPage 284tion, rather than the incommensurability theorists (e.g., Lyotard), is meant toargue for the Habermasian position against its newer and more interesting chal-lengers, and I also wanted the book to move beyond the parochial referencepoints of literary and cultural studies to engage relevant work in political theoryand political philosophy. And of course I do discuss the work of many influentialtheorists and literary critics who oppose the approach I take in the book gener-ally. But Im not going to reproduce my complete range of references: readers arefree to decide for themselves how comprehensive and various the theoreticallandscape is in my book. But I will say in response to Robbins that my primaryantagonist considered as a position rather than a set of proper names is consis-tently present in the book, and taken on in a number of different ways.There is a deeper issue at play in Robbinss invocation of Lyotard and Ran-cire, especially given where his discussion of what he calls my argumentativenormativity ends up. On the one hand, Robbins wants to say that the argumentI am taking up is no longer relevant, that thankfully literary critics have movedpast the critique of Enlightenment. On this account I am sadly unaware that myearlier books have actually had some influence, and seem to be stuck in an ago-nistic position that has no traction, and that at this point constitutes a regressiontoward a naively pro-Enlightenment position that is likely to inviteand that atsome level deserves to invitea strong reiteration of the critique of Enlighten-ment. The moves need to be replayed in slow motion here to discover exactlywhat is going on, since the argument is quite kinetic, and involves a dubiousframing of my own project. It is certainly the case that in diagnosing the state ofacademic argument in the humanities today, I invoke, as one of the contributingfactors, the excesses involved in the critique of Enlightenment. It is not the onlyfactor I invoke, but it is certainly adduced as a major contributing factor to thedenigration of reason, critical distance, and formal argument. I do agree withRobbins that there are many critics challenging the critique of Enlightenment.There are also, as it happens, many critics who have walked away from the debateto do other things. But it remains the case, as Robbinss own response makes clear,that the stronger version of the critique has a kind of staying power, particularlyas a way of asserting political pedigree in the last instance. Indeed, Robbins mustinsist that I resurrect a version of the very form of Enlightenment that was oncethe whipping boy of poststructuralism, in order to himself reintroduce a high-stakes political allegory that will imagine cultural criticism to be an immediateactor in the current international political landscape.Lets first examine the claim that my book is unwittingly inviting a resur-rection of the Enlightenment-equals-totalitarianism position. How, one won-ders, could a book promoting argument and debate, and promoting reason-givingpractices as a kind of common ground that should prevail over assertions of cul-tural authenticity, somehow come to be seen as a dangerous resurgence of badEnlightenment? Robbins tells us why: I want argument on my own termsthatReply to My Critic(s)285050 rev-robbins (263-290)9/6/0711:05 AMPage 285is, I want to impose reason on people, which is a form of power and oppression. Butwhat can this possibly mean? Arguments stand or fall based on whether they aresuccessful and persuasive, even an argument in favor of argument. It simply is notthe case that an argument in favor of the importance of reasoned debate to liberaldemocracy is tantamount to oppressive power. To assume so is to assume, in themanner of Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, that reason is itself violent,inherently,andthatitwillalwaysmaskpowerandenforceexclusions.Buttoassume this is to assume the very view of Enlightenment reason that Robbins claimswe are thankfully well rid of. (I leave to the side the idea that any individual canproclaim that a debate is over, thankfully or not.) But perhaps Robbins will say, Iam not imagining that your argument is directly oppressive, but that what youargue for would be, if it were enforced. Yet my book doesnt imagine or suggest itis enforceable; I simply argue in favor of, I promote, an ethos of argument within aliberal democratic and proceduralist framework. As much as Robbins would liketo think so, neither I nor the books I write can be cast as an arm of the police.Robbins wants to imagine a far more direct line of influence from criticismto political reality, however, and this is why it can be such a bad thing to suggestnorms of argument. Watch as the gloves come off:Faced with the prospect of submitting to her version of argumentroughly, Habermass versionand of being thus authorized to disagreeonly about other, smaller things, some may feel that there will have beenan end to argument, or an end to the arguments they find most interest-ing. With current events in mind, I would be surprised if there were norecourse to the metaphor of a regular army facing a guerilla insurrection,hinting that Anderson wants to force her opponents to dress in uniform,reside in well-demarcated camps and capitals that can be bombed, fightby the rules of states (whether the states themselves abide by these rulesor not), and so onin short, that she wants to get the battle onto a ter-rain where her side will be assured of having the upper hand.Lets leave to the side the fact that this is a disowned hypothetical criticism. (Asin, Well, okay, yes, those are my gloves, but those are somebody elses hands theywill have come off of.) Because far more interesting, actually, is the sudden ele-vation of stakes. It is a symptom of the sorry state of affairs in our profession thatitplaysoutrepeatedlythistragicomictendencytogiveagrandiosepoliticalmeaning to every object it analyzes or confronts. We have evidence of how des-perate the situation is when we see it in a critic as thoughtful as Bruce Robbins,where it emerges as the need to allegorize a point about an argument in such away that it gets cast as the equivalent of war atrocities. It is especially ironic in lightof the fact that to the extent that I do give examples of the importance of liberaldemocratic proceduralism, I invoke the disregard of the protocols of interna-tional adjudication in the days leading up to the invasion of Iraq; I also speak286 Amanda Anderson050 rev-robbins (263-290)9/6/0711:05 AMPage 286about concerns with voting transparency. It is hard for me to see how my argu-mentaboutproceduralismcanbeassociatedwiththepoliciesoftheBushadministration when that administration has exhibited a flagrant disregard ofdemocratic procedure and the rule of law. I happen to think that a renewed focuson proceduralism is a timely venture, which is why I spend so much time dis-cussing it in my final chapter. But I hasten to add that I am not interested in imag-ining that proceduralism is the sole political response to the needs of culturalcriticism in our time: my goal in the book is to argue for a liberal democratic cul-ture of argument, and to suggest ways in which argument is not served by trump-ing appeals to identity and charismatic authority. I fully admit that my examplesarelesspoliticaleventsthanacademicdebates;forthoseuninterestedintheshape of intellectual arguments, and eager for more direct and sustained discus-sion of contemporary politics, the approach will disappoint. Moreover, there willalways be a tendency for a proceduralist to under-specify substance, and that ispartly a principled decision, since the point is that agreements, compromises,and policies get worked out through the communicative and political process.My book is mainly concentrated on evaluating forms of arguments and appealsto ethos, both those that count as a form of trump card or distortion, and thosethat flesh out an understanding of argument as a universalist practice. There is anintermittent appeal to larger concerns in the political democratic culture, andthat is because I see connections between the ideal of argument and the ideal ofdeliberative democracy. But there is clearly, and indeed necessarily, significantroom for further elaboration here.There is a way to make Robbinss point more narrowly, which would runsomething like this: Anderson has a very restricted notion of how argument shouldplay out, or appear, within academic culture, given the heavy emphasis on logical con-sistency and normative coherence and explicitness. This conception of argument is toonarrow (and hence authoritarian). To this I would reply simply that logical consis-tencyandnormativecoherenceandexplicitnessdonotexhaustthepossibleforms, modes, and strategies of argumentation. There is a distinction to be madebetween the identification of moves that stultify or disarm argument, and aninsistence on some sort of single manner of reasoned argument. The former I amentirely committed to; the latter not at all, despite the fact that I obviously favora certain style of argument, and even despite the fact that I am philosophicallycommitted to the claims of the theory of communicative reason. I do address theissue of diverse forms and modes of argument in the first and last chapters of thebook (as I discuss above), but it seems that a more direct reflection on the booksown mode of argumentation might have provided the occasion for a fuller treat-ment of the issues that trouble Robbins.Different genres within academe have different conventions, of course, andwe can and do make decisions all the time about what rises to the level of cogencywithin specific academic venues, and what doesnt. Some of those judgmentsReply to My Critic(s)287050 rev-robbins (263-290)9/6/0711:05 AMPage 287have to do with protocols of argument. The book review, for example, is judgedaccording to whether the reviewer responsibly represents the scholarship underdiscussion, seems to have a good grasp of the body of scholarship it belongs to,andconvincinglyandfairlypointsoutstrengthsandweaknesses.Thebookforum is a bit looserone expects responsible representation of the scholarshipunder discussion, but it can be more selectively focused on a key set of issues.And one expects a bit of provocation, in order to make the exchange readable anddramatic. But of course in a forum exchange there is an implicit norm of argu-ment, a tendency to judge whether a particular participant is making a strong ora weak case in light of the competing claims at play. Much of our time in the pro-fession is taken with judging the quality of all manner of academic performance,and much of it has to do with norms of argument, however much Robbins mayworry about their potentially coercive nature.From time to time I myself have wondered whether my book is too influ-enced by the modes of academe. But when I read a piece of writing like the onethat Elspeth Probyn produced, I find myself feeling a renewed commitment totheevaluativenormsofresponsiblescholarship,andtotheideathatclearlyagreed-upon genres and protocols of fair scholarship benefit from explicit affir-mation at times. Probyns piece does not conform at all to the conventions of theforum response. She may herself be quite delighted that it does not. Robbins mayfind himself delighted that she represents a viewpoint that does not agree on my(totalitarian) fundamentals of forum responses. But I would simply say that herewe do not have fair or reasoned argument, which is one of the enabling proce-dures of forum exchanges. Indeed, I hear a different genre altogether: the vent-ing phone call to a friend or intimate. In this genre, which I think we are allfamiliar with, one is not expected or required to give reasons or evidence, as oneis in academic argument. Heres how the phone call might go: Ugh. I have towrite a response to this awful book. I agreed to this because I thought the bookhad an interesting title; its called The Way We Argue Now. But I cant get throughit; it isnt at all what I expected. I find myself alternately bored and irritated. Its sofrom the centertotally American parochial, and I just hate the style: polemicalin a slam-bam-thank-you-maam wayreally quite mean-spirited. Shes so arro-gant. And you wouldnt believe the so-called critique of Foucault. I dont know, Ithink Im just sick of abstract theoryI mean, arent we past this? Its so stultify-ing. I wish there were some way to get out of the commitment. I dont know howIm ever going to get to it anyway, with all my journalism deadlines. The friend:That sounds awful. But just use the occasion to write about something else,something you think is important. Write about yourself. Direct attention to abook that you do like. Whatever you do, dont spend too much time on it. Anddefinitely call her out on the American centrism.Do we really want to overhear this kind of conversation when we turn to thereview section of a journal like Criticism? Of what intellectual value is it to know288 Amanda Anderson050 rev-robbins (263-290)9/6/0711:05 AMPage 288Probyns casual reactions to a book she wont bother responsibly to describe orengage, unless of course we accord to Probyn some sort of authority in advance thatmakesargumentunnecessary.Thatsheherselfbelievesinsuchargument-by-authority is evident when she tells us, As Stuart Hall would say, along with anyundergraduate in my classes, A discourse is a group of statements that provide alanguage for talking about a particular kind of knowledge about a topic. This isthe extent of Probyns searing critique of the problem with advocating debate gen-erally. But note that it relies, first, upon the invocation of an authority, Stuart Hall,and then upon the implication that her students have all entirely absorbed her ownchanneling of that authority. Probyn is entirely unbothered, moreover, that theundergraduates in her classes unblinkingly accept this empty statement withoutprotest or challenge or further inquiry into its aimless specificity.Probyns piece is a mixture of affective fallacy, argument by authority, andbald ad hominem. Theres a pattern here: precisely the tendency to personalizeargument and to foreground what Wendy Brown has called states of injury.Probyn says, for example, that she felt ostracized by the books content andstyle. Ostracized? Argument here is seen as directly harming persons, and this isprecisely the state of affairs to which I object. Argument is not injurious to per-sons. Policies are injurious to persons and institutionalized practices can alien-ate and exclude. But argument itself is not directly harmful; once one says it is,one is very close to a logic of censorship. The most productive thing to do in anopen academic culture (and in societies that aspire to freedom and democracy)when you encounter a book or an argument that you disagree with is to producea response or a book that states your disagreement. But to assert that the bookitself directly harms you is tantamount to saying that you do not believe in argu-ment or in the free exchange of ideas, that your claim to injury somehow damnsyour opponents ideas.When Probyn isnt symptomatic, shes just downright sloppy. One could workto build up the substance of points that she throws out the car window as shescreeches on to her next destination, but life is short, and those with consideredobjections to liberalism and proceduralism would not be particularly well servedby the exercise. As far as I can tell, Probyn thinks my discussion of universalism isof limited relevance (though far more appealing when put, by others, in more com-fortingly equivocating terms), but shes certain my critique of appeals to identity issimply not able to accommodate the importance of identity in social and politicallife. As I make clear throughout the book, and particularly in my discussion of theheadscarf debate in France, identity is likely to be at the center of key argumentsabout life in plural democracies; my point is not that identity is not relevant, butsimply that it should not be used to trump or stifle argument.In closing, Id like to speak briefly to the question of proceduralisms relevance todemocratic vitality. One important way of extending the proceduralist argumentsReply to My Critic(s)289050 rev-robbins (263-290)9/6/0711:05 AMPage 289put forth by Habermas is to work on how institutions and practices might betterpromoteparticipationindemocraticlife.Theapathyandnonparticipationplaguing democratic institutions in the United States is a serious problem, andcan be separated from the more romantic theoretical investments in a refusal toaccept the terms of what counts as argument, or in assertions of inassimilable dif-ference.Withrespecttothelatter,whichisoftenglorifiedpreciselyasthemoment when politics or democracy is truly occurring, I would say, on the con-trary, democracy is not happening thenrather, the limits or deficiencies of anactually existing democracy are making themselves felt. Acknowledging strug-gle, conflict, and exclusion is vital to democracy, but insisting that exclusion isnot so much a persistent challenge for modern liberal democracies but ratherinherent to the modern liberal-democratic political form as such seems to meprecisely to remain stalled in a romantic critique of Enlightenment. It all comesdown to a question of whether one wants to work with the ideals of democracyor see them as essentially normative in a negative sense: this has been the legacyof a certain critique of Enlightenment, and it is astonishingly persistent in the leftquarters in the academy. One hears it clearly when Robbins makes confident ref-erence to liberalisms tendency to ignore the founding acts of violence on whicha social order is based. One encounters it in the current vogue for the work ofGiorgioAgambenandCarlSchmitt.Sayingthatastateofexceptiondefinesmodernity or is internal to the law itself may help to sharpen your diagnoses ofcertain historical conditions, but if absolutized as it is in these accounts, it givesyounothingbutanegativediagnosticandacompensatoryflighttoarealmentirely otherthe kind of mystical, utopian impulse that flees from these con-ditions rather than confronts and fights them on terms that derive from the set-tledif constantly evolvingnormative basis of democratic modernity. If one isoutraged by the flagrant disregard of democratic procedures in the current U.S.political regime, then one needs to be able to coherently say why democratic pro-cedures matter, what principles underwrite them, and what historical move-ments and institutions have helped us to secure and support them. Argument asa critical practice and as a key component of democratic institutions and publicdebate has a vital role to play in such a task.Johns Hopkins University 290 Amanda Anderson050 rev-robbins (263-290)9/6/0711:05 AMPage 290