What to argue about

I have been teaching public policy here at PSU for almost fifteen years. During all that time, I have thought that making the distinction between a) what political actors are arguing about and b) what position each takes on the question they are arguing about, was "one of the major elements of the course." I am wondering today if it is THE major element of the course. Why would that be?

Is it counterintuitive? It's hard to think so. I am opposing you in the courtroom and you want to talk about how horribly heinous the crime was of which my client is accused. I want to talk about whether the evidence that he was involved at all, which was beaten out of him at the police station, is admissible in court. That seems clear enough, doesn't it? If I agree with the other attorney that the heinousness of the crime is the right thing to be talking about and my position is that the crime really wasn't all that heinous, I am going to lose and so is my client--his life, possibly. Unless he argues for an appeal on the grounds that his counsel was incompetent, which would certainly be the case.

My students want to argue aspects of the policy that they cannot possibly win. I want to teach them to look at the various kinds of arguments that are possible (I call the possibilities "axes," some call them "policy frames" or "problem formulations.'). If they know which ones are best for them and choose, let's say on moral grounds, that they want to argue the part of the issue that they will lose, I am fine with that in my role as a teacher. Teaching them the concept of "axis" and showing them how to separate one from another and how to tell which one will be best for them--or, in practice, for any political actor we might study--is my job. Which one they actually choose is their job.

But I'm not actually getting my job done. We are midway through the fifth week and I really believe that I could propose that the amount of work necessary to succeed in the course should be doubled because it would make them more competent students and engage most of them in a debate about whether it would or would not make them more competent. Let's pass by, for right now, what a silly thing that would be for me to propose. Let's talk, instead, about how silly it would be for them to accept "competence" as the right subject for debate. Any one of them might propose that we talk instead about a) the aggregate workload of university students or about b) the ethics of a professor suddenly doubling the amount of work required or about c) my responsibility to the syllabus, which specified the kinds of work to be done as well as the amount. They would win any of those three arguments, if...

...if they could see them. If they understood they can propose the axis they choose. If they can distinguish the course of the argument once the axis is established, and if they know what their own interests are.

The more likely it is that I could have the argument I choose and win it, the more evidence there is that I have not accomplished my goal as a professor and half the course is already gone. If some bright and capable students insisted that axis c), above, is the only really relevant axis, I would know right then that I would lose the argument. I'm entirely fine with that. It would also mean that I had taught them a crucially important skill in policy analysis and I'm fine with that, too.