Argumentation in a Culture of Discord

The general argument/point made by Frank L. Cioffi in his work Argumentation in a Culture of Discord is that students misunderstand the argument concept. More specifically, Cioffi suggests that students have a hard time learning this type of writing because of their education and the media. He writes about students that are “using writing only as an evaluative tool, these assignments invoke the consumer like currency exchange model…Like consumerism, this pedagogy reduces enormously complex issues down to simplistic solutions: canned answers qua canned soup. Or as one of my colleagues puts it, ‘Human beings, pork and beans, they’re all the same!’” (64-65) In this passage, Cioffi is suggesting that student’s writing is boring. In conclusion, it is Cioffi’s belief that educators need to help people learn how to have academic arguments and give them the right models of thinking.

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In my view, Cioffi is right because they should teach students about how intellectual discourse works. For example, students are learning a cookie cutter format to writing. Although Cioffi might object that students are getting by with the way they write now, I maintain that he is correct by saying that there needs to be a change throughout the world and creating an intellectual alternative to writing. Therefore, I conclude that the world today is becoming commercialized in our ability to write and to think.