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A Mere Rhetoric That Matters: Revisiting the Rhetoric of Inquiry in the Science<Middle Dot>Technology Debate in Japan

Satoru Aonuma, Tsuda College, JAPAN (aonuma@tsuda.ac.jp)

*A manuscript for presentation at the 4th International Conference on Argumentation, Rhetoric, Debate and the Pedagogy of Empowerment, Doha, Qatar, January 2013.

In August 2010, the Science Council of Japan (SCJ), the Japanese equivalent of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States, issued a peculiar public statement. Titled Toward the sustainable development of science and technology through the establishment of comprehensive science and technology policy (2010), the statement strongly recommended that kagakugijutsu, the term that puts together two Japanese words kagaku (science) and gijutsu (technology) in tandem (i.e., sciencetechnology), be replaced with kagakugijutsu, the one that combines yet separates these two words by the in-between insertion of (i.e., science<middle dot>technology), in the public discourse concerning the countrys science and technology policy. For the SCJ officers who drafted this recommendation, the need for this lexical change is compelling if we are to achieve the sustainable development of science and technology including basic research that encourages more innovation as well as to check and correct the unwanted outcome-oriented biases in the nations science and technology policy and administration (Science Council of Japan, 2010, p.1). On these accounts, the SCJ specifically suggested that this lexical change be reflected in the possible revision of the countrys Science and Technology Basic Law and other relevant legal and administrative documents and legislative statues. Several months prior to the SCJs recommendation, the Council for Science and Technology Policy (CSTP), a government-appointed advisory body consisting of the countrys leading experts in natural as well as in social sciences, also adopted this new

lexicon in their official discourses. The new term (kagakugijutsu) first appeared in the CSTPs Plenary Session held in December, 2009. From the March 2010 Session on, what used to be referred to as sciencetechnology, i.e., the expression without the middle dot, has all become science<middle dot>technology and this lexical change is now reflected in the session proceedings and other related documents currently available (in Japanese) on the CSTPs official web site (http://www8.cao.go.jp/cstp/giji.html).

----From a rhetorical and a rather innocent bystanders point of view, I found this apparently marginal lexical change proposed by the scientific community interesting. As Seanger (2003) points out, a middle dot between words has significant or signifying functions. In the West, for instance, it was used to indicate the presence of space between words in Latin texts (p.73; p.378). In case of the Japanese language, a space between words is extremely uncommon, if not ungrammatical; just as in many other East Asian languages such as Chinese and Korean, the Japanese instead use a middle dot to indicate the presence of a semantic space. In addition, in a way similar to e/a in Derridas (1982) diffrance in French, a middle dot is not pronounced in modern Japanese: Orally and aurally, there is no difference between kagakugijutsu (sciencetechnology) and kagakugijutsu (science<middle dot>technology). In written Japanese, however, that middle dot becomes significant and meaningful in the discourse as it marks the presence of a space between words. In other words, the middle dot inserted between kagaku and gijutsu denotes that there is a semantic gap or dissociation between the two, namely, the absence of necessary and essential relationship between science and technology. When I heard about this for the first time, I felt amused and pleased: Japanese techno-scientists finally came to terms with the significance of their own rhetoric! Having observed the respectable members of the Japanese scientific community engage in the issue of discourse and propose and practice a new language use, I had a feeling similar to the one Michael McGee and John Lyne, two of my mentors who first indoctrinated me

into the field of communication studies, once wrote regarding the relationship between science and rhetorical art. At the 1984 University of Iowa Humanities Symposium on the Rhetoric of Human Sciences, they kidded those who convened, including (but were not limited to) such big-name philosophers (of science) as Thomas Kuhn, Richard Rorty and Stephen Toulmin, What are nice folks like you doing in a place like this? I further took it that this development may well be an occasion for rhetoricians to celebrate the rhetorical turn [in human sciences], for the academic community at large now to acknowledge that the way scholars argue may in part determine what will be counted as an increment of the knowledge they are supposed to produce and preserve (McGee & Lyne, 1987, p.382). Yet, the celebratory feeling on my part waned as I discovered that this rhetorical turn is not without criticism. As it is reported in a national daily (No compromise on the , 2010; also see Motomura, 2010), there are some who take issues with the SCJ and resist the lexical change it proposed. Here we find the repetition of Platonism, the oldest and most typical denigration of rhetorical art. That is, in eyes of these critics, this middle dot insertion between science and technology is a rhetoric without substance. For them, the lexical change the SCJ proposed (and the CSTP adopted) is nothing but a matter of language and discourse that incurs no change in the substance of scientific research or the formation of the nations science and technology policy. Of course, as students of rhetoric, we have learned how to deal with this sort of criticism. In fact, we do know we could rebut these critics rather easily. Referring to the works of Kuhn, Rorty, Toulmin or other pieces in the rhetoric of inquiry literature, for example, we could try to persuade that science is just another rhetorical community. With some help of Aristotle or even of Kenneth Burke, we could even put blame back on their rhetorical insensitivity: Human beings, after all, are symbol (mis-)using animals! At the same time, however, I do think the criticism should merit our serious rhetorical consideration. As Pool (1997) observes, it is a society that shapes technology, not vice versa; further, that technology includes not only the narrowly-conceived

scientific and technological innovation but also the art or techne of rhetoric. In his brilliant social etymological study, for example, Hirano (1999) suggests that kagakugijutsu (sciencetechnology), i.e., the term without middle dot, was first invented and began being used in the early 1940s by scientists and technocrats to indicate that science and technology are inseparable and that their collaboration is indispensable for the wealth of the nation, i.e., the Great Japanese Empire. Namely, I realize that any attempt to rhetorically dissociate science and technology is extremely difficult, if not impossible, because their relations expressed in this very rhetorical idiom are always already grounded in the nations historical materiality. In this context, I again hear McGee and Lyne (1987) say, The art of rhetoric has always focused on the discourse of marketplace and forum, where the material power of contending factions holds more sways than academic notions of dispassionate and disinterested reason (p.382).

----Further dictated by my perspectival ambivalence described above, I now cannot not think about the issue of the SCJ-proposed middle dot insertion between science and technology against the backdrop of our peculiar politico-material condition and rhetorical situation, i.e., post-311 Japan where the nuclear accident at Fukushima Daiichi still constitutes our biggest science and technology concern. In fact, nuclear power has been a prime example of sciencetechnology problematic that draws the attention of rhetoricians and rhetorically-sensitive scholars. In his contributing essay to the Iowa Symposium volume, Shapiro (1987) writes, attitudes toward nuclear energy in the United States are, to a significant extent, a function of the discursive frame that competes successfully for public attention [T]he selling of nuclear energy has been effected primarily through the use of the venerable strategic code (p.367). In the same volume, McGee and Lyne (1987) also mention nuclear power as an example of the more common and pressing problems in the practices of techno-scientific rhetoric: Voters are asked to judge such matters as the construction of nuclear power plants and find the

experts serving up very different accounts of the facts, depending on their political or economic alignments, or simply on the different methods (p.386). Speaking specifically of Japan, sciencetechnology is what the Japanese could identify with, because doing so would help them to recover their national pride lost in World War II. Many still conceive that sciencetechnology is what has made Japan Number One in the world; for example, Toyota, Nissan, Toshiba, and Sony, to name a few, are all considered as the proud geniuses of countrys sciencetechnology. Regarding nuclear power in particular, nuclear power is presented as the significant national dream for the post-WWII generation Japanese (Yoshimi, 2011; Aonuma & Wright, 2012). This dream of technology (Farrell & Goodnight, 1981) has become part of the nationalistic discourse of sciencetechnology in Japan, playing a powerful role to promote the peaceful use of nuclear power as well as to shape a post-WWII politico-rhetorical climate where sciencetechnology-driven economic growth becomes of paramount important national imperative. Further, as Yoshioka (2011) succinctly puts, the Japanese nuclear power is part of the governmental-industrial complex (p.24) which many of us alternatively call nuclear power village. Just as in any Japanese village, the like-mindednuclear industry officials, bureaucrats, politicians and scientistshave prospered by rewarding one another with construction projects, lucrative positions, and political, financial and regulatory support. The few openly skeptical of nuclear powers safety become village outcasts, losing out on promotions and backings (Ohnishi & Belson, 2011). In this context, I would like to go back and shed a more critical light on the reasons the SCJ offered in support of the new term, i.e., science<middle dot>technology: the further encouragement of basic research and the need to check and correct the unwanted outcome-oriented bias in the countrys science and technology policy. Regarding the issue of basic research, as Polanyi (1946) suggests, perhaps we could call for the relative independence and freedom of science from its application and outcome: Throughout modern history, science has made an immense impression on the general

public, and this was strong ever, if not the strongest, in the earlier centuries of modern science when the practical value of science had been little thought of (p. 65). Given the unique politico-economic development in modern Japan and the historically-grounded rhetorical association between science and technology (of which nuclear power is a typical example), however, inserting a middle dot alone does not seem to help elevating the status of basic research without tangible outcome or evident applied values unfortunately. As for the problem of outcome-oriented bias, again merely inserting a middle dot between science and technology seems unable to penetrate the hegemony of the governmental-industrial complex deeply entrenched in the nations science and technology policy and administration. To give a more politically-enabling substance to this lexical change, there is a compelling need to create the counter-public sphere of democratic governance (Mitchell, 2001), a space where citizens can participate more critically in public deliberation over the nations science and technology policy. Namely, we need a space (marked by a middle dot) not only in writing but also in the politico-material world. Absent such a space, science<middle dot>technology will most likely remain marginal and inconsequential, despite its good intention and powerful politico-rhetorical potentials.

----Having probed rather randomly, my rhetorical exploration into the SCJ-proposed rhetoric of science<middle dot>technology leads to the pessimistic ending. There are good reasons that this lexical change is resisted; most likely that change alone would do little to help us penetrate the dominance of sciencetechnology in modern Japan even if it were fully implemented. Yet, as I am closing my own discourse, I do realize that, as a student of communication and rhetoric working in Japan, I should no longer be a third-person bystander regarding the issues I have discussed. It is important to note that the SCJ plays the umbrella-like role for various scholarly associations and societies

existing in Japan; the Communication Association of Japan (CAJ), the countrys premier scholarly organization for communication scholars to which I serve as an Academic Affairs officer, is one of the SCJs member organizations. Curiously enough, when the SCJ was drafting the statement in which the middle dot insertion between science and technology was proposed, to the best of my knowledge, no communication and rhetorical scholars (most of who consider themselves having humanistic orientations) were consulted. In fact, despite its function as the umbrella organization for disciplines and fields that encompass natural sciences, social sciences, and the humanities, the governing body of the SCJ has been primarily dominated by scholars in hard sciences. In other words, just as the middle dot inserted between science and technology, rhetorical and communication scholars are neither voiced nor heard in the SCJs statement of recommendation. As Article 1 of Science and Technology Basic Law currently in effect reads: The objective of this law is to achieve a higher standard of science and technology (hereinafter referred to as "S&T"), to contribute to the development of the economy and society in Japan and to the improvement of the welfare of the nation, as well as to contribute to the progress of S&T in the world and the sustainable development of human society, through prescribing the basic policy requirements for the promotion of S&T (excluding those relevant only to the humanities in this law) and comprehensively and systematically promoting policies for the progress of S&T.

(http://www8.cao.go.jp/cstp/english/law/law.html; italics added) Yet, as a member of one organization that comprises the SCJ, I am indeed part of it and held responsible for what it does. Namely, the issue boils down to the one concerns the dual question of academic integrity: One has to do with the credibility and accountability incurred on each member of the countrys scholarly community at large, the other with its unity and solidarity among disciplines and fields. And I submit that our integrity in the latter sense of the term is the one we should embrace and critically attend

to. It is equally significant to note that, in the very same statement that recommended the middle dot insertion, the SCJ also urged the deletion of a part of the Article 1 above that excludes the humanities from the nations science(<middle dot>)technology. In the spirit of the rhetoric of inquiry and the 1984 Iowa Humanities Symposium, rhetorical scholars should stay careful so that our expertise is not to be once again patronized (McGee & Lyne, 1987, p.382, italics in original; also see Gaonkar, 1990) to serve the interest of others in and outside Academia. As scholars, however, we are men and women of letters after all, at least in one way or another; we now have doctors of philosophy awarded in natural sciences, social sciences, and even in communication and rhetorical art. And that is exactly why I [spoke], therefore, of a letter (Derrida, 1982, p.3) and, equally important, of a middle dot.

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