Joel Best, Social Problems

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 At the other extreme are claims related to entrenched controversies that will probably never lead to consensus. The debate over abortion remains intense because it features people who have taken intractable, opposing positions: some pro-life advocates argue that abortion is murder and should never be tolerated, while some pro-choice proponents insist that women must be able to control their own bodies and therefore must be free to choose to have abortions. It is very unlikely that a new pro-life claim will persuade those who hold hard-core pro-choice beliefs to change their minds, and equally unlikely that pro-choice arguments can be devised that will change the opinion of those firmly committed to a hard-core pro-life position. When addressing such contested issues, or position issues, claimsmakers know that they cannot persuade everyone; they can expect their claims to encounter opposition from at least some people who hear them (Nelson, 1984).

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 The audience for claims is not an undifferentiated mass. Rather, it can be subdivided--or segmented--by race, age, social class, gender, region, and so on. Different segments of the audience tend to have different interests and ideologies. People may respond to a claim by recognizing that they stand to gain or lose if the claims succeed: claims probably seem more compelling to segments of the audience who perceive themselves as directly threatened by the troubling condition, while other segments may resist claims that might adversely affect them by, for example, restricting their freedom or raising their taxes.

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 Such perceptions of interest are often linked to ideologies or systems of beliefs, different segments of the population are likely to view the world differently, to place different emphasis on particular values, explanations, justifications, and so on. As a general rule, those who benefit from existing social arrangements are more likely to view those arrangements as just, fair, and reasonable, and they are less likely to be sympathetic to claims arguing that those arrangements need to be overturned. Thus, both their interests and their ideologies make them a tough audience, while those disadvantaged by the troubling condition are more likely to be receptive to such claims. Different segments of society, then, view the world differently, and persuasive claims need to match the various worldviews of the segments of the audience toward which they are directed.

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 Claimsmakers devise various methods to deal with audience segmentation. One tactic is to preach to the choir--that is, to direct claims toward those segments of the audience most likely to respond favorably. For example, abortion activists often direct their claims toward those who they believe already share their beliefs--as when they speak to sympathizers at pro-choice or pro-life rallies. Directing claims to those most likely to be supportive can be a particularly important tactic at the beginning of the social problems process, when claims are first being made: addressing a presumably sympathetic audience first can make more people aware of an issue, rally supporters to the cause, give claimsmakers a chance to hone their claims to make them as persuasive as possible, and create some momentum for carrying the claim to a broader, more diverse audience (such tactics for mobilizing supporters into a social movement are discussed further in Chapter 3).

和訳して／ An alternative approach is to craft claims so as to maximize their appeal to the broadest possible audience. Claims can incorporate multiple grounds, warrants, and conclusions that appeal to different people, thereby seeming to offer something for, if not everyone, at least lots of people. For instance, many advocates of vegetarianism see ethical issues as central to their cause, and they oppose meat eating as morally wrong. However, they also know that these ethical claims encounter widespread resistance; most Americans enjoy eating meat and don't consider it wrong, so moral arguments alone are unlikely to persuade a large audience (Maurer, 2002). However, other grounds and warrants are available: vegetarians can argue that eating meat is unhealthy, in that it fosters heart disease and other ailments, or they can claim that raising animals for food damages the environment. Such arguments add additional grounds and warrants to vegetarians' claims that might appeal to people who are worried about their health or the environment, even if they don't have moral qualms about eating meat. Expanding claims in this way offers vegetarians a chance to persuade people who could be expected to resist narrower ethical arguments that eating meat is wrong.

「代替のアプローチ」→「さらに別のアプローチ」；「訴求力」「訴求する」→もっと平たい言葉に変えて；「提供しているように見える」→「提供しているように見せることができる」；「そのような議論は、たとえ肉を食べることに道徳的な良心の呵責がなくても、健康や環境を心配している人々に訴求する可能性のある、菜食主義者のクレイムに追加の前提と論拠を加える。」→「そのような議論は、菜食主義者のクレイムに前提と論拠を追加するものであり、肉を食べることに道徳的な疑問がなくても、健康や環境を心配する人々にアピールできる可能性がある。」

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 Well-crafted claims sometimes create surprising alliances among people who usually don't agree, inspiring consensus and converting potential conflict into a valence issue. For instance, political liberals and conservatives often disagree about educational policies. Yet, during the 1990s, many liberals and conservatives joined forces to promote policies requiring public school students to wear uniforms (Brunsma, 2004). Liberals argued that uniforms would make social class differences among students less visible, reduce pressure on parents to purchase expensive clothes for children, and enhance students' self-esteem; conservatives claimed that uniforms would encourage discipline and orderly behavior among students. Both sides insisted that school uniforms could reduce violence and improve learning. In this case, people who usually disagree found themselves promoting the same solution, even though they disagreed about the precise nature of the problem.

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Similarly, advocates representing a wide range of ideologies support efforts to exclude troubling material from elementary and secondary school textbooks: liberals call for excluding material that might reinforce gender or racial stereotypes, fundamentalist Chris-

tians want to block content mentioning witches or other supernatural elements, and so on (Ravitch, 2003). Mandating school uniforms and regulating textbook content are just two examples of claims constructed in ways that build broad-based consensus among people who often disagree on other educational issues (see Box 2.3).

和訳して／  It is important to recognize that the audiences for claims are not passive. People who hear claims react, and claimsmakers must take those reactions into account, by adjusting, revising, and fine-tuning their claims to make them more effective, more persuasive. Claims should not be viewed as one-way messages, transmitted from claimsmakers/senders to their audiences/receivers. Rather, claimsmakers need to be sensitive to their audiences' reactions, to figure out which parts of their claims are working and which are not persuasive and need to be revised. In other words, claimsmakers and their audiences engage in a dialog in which the audience's feedback leads claimsmakers to modify their claims (Nichols, 2003).

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  If a particular ground or warrant fails to elicit a good reaction, claimsmakers may strike it from their claims and substitute something that they hope will evoke a more favorable response from their audience. For instance, activists campaigning to halt impending cuts

in programs that had provided support to immigrants began with general claims ("immigrant rights are human rights") that proved ineffective. However, they soon found that the media and politicians responded more favorably to claims about the vulnerability of elderly, disabled immigrants, so they refocused their campaign on these more sympathetic cases (Fujiwara, 2005).

和訳して／ Claimsmaking is usually not a one-shot effort; it takes time to develop effective claims. Most claimsmakers have to try again and again to achieve widespread attention for their claims; they must try out claims, assess the audience's response, revise the claims, and so on, until they develop a persuasive argument. After all, claims compete within a social problems marketplace (J. Best, 1990; Hilgartner & Bosk, 1988). At any given moment, countless claimsmakers are struggling to get their particular claims heard far more than can hope to capture the audience's limited attention. Moreover, it is usually impossible to control either the other claims competing to attract the audience's notice or what the audience will choose to notice. Imagine a claimsmaker who had scheduled a major event—say, a combination press conference and demonstration for September 12, 2001. Because the 9/11 terrorist

attacks monopolized the nation's attention for days, no one would have paid any attention to anything the claimsmaker had to say on the twelfth. Although extreme, this example illustrates that claims do not operate in vacuum.

和訳して／  The competition to capture the audience's attention helps explain some of the features of social problems rhetoric that we noted earlier. Why do claimsmakers so often begin claims with disturbing typifying examples? Why do claims usually settle for naming the problem--often with a catchy label like road rage--and avoid giving detailed (and therefore boring) definitions of the problem? Why do claimsmakers favor statistics that suggest the problem is surprisingly large? Why do they favor prominent targets? Each of these rhetorical devices is arresting, eye-catching; each can draw people's attention to this claim (and away from those other claims competing for the audience's attention). The goal is to grab and hold the audience. This competition in the social problems marketplace means that claimsmakers are encouraged to devise dramatic, disturbing, easily grasped claims that will command attention over competing claims. Simpler, stronger arguments work better.

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  In sum, claimsmakers present what they hope will be persuasive arguments, but they must then attend to the audience's responses, and those responses and their own sense of how they need to revise their rhetoric in turn may be affected by all the other claims and events that are competing for the audience's attention in the social problems marketplace.

クレイム申し立て者は効果的なクレイムを作らなければならない。ほかのクレイムと競合するために。そのために、オーディエンスの反応に注意を払わなければならない。しかし、どのように作らなければならないとクレイム申し立て者が「考える」かは、結局のところ、「ほかのクレイム」から多分に影響を受けて定めることになる。という循環関係を示しているのですね。

和訳して／EVOLUTION AND OPPOSITION

  Social problems claims are not static; rather, they keep evolving. This process continues even after the audience becomes concerned about the problem. Once a claim has attracted recognition and acceptance, we can consider it well established; that is, there is widespread agreement that this troubling condition ought to be considered a social problem. Yet this is not the end of the matter; even well-established claims need to change. However compelling claims may seem when they first gain acceptance, they tend to become familiar, stale, boring (Downs, 1972). Audiences find it easier to forget about or ignore claims that can be dismissed as old news, particularly because other, newer claims are always competing for

their attention. Audiences also may become frustrated by problems that aren't easily solved--where efforts to address the problem don't seem to make much progress. Each time a claim is repeated, it seems more familiar, less interesting--and less persuasive.

  Therefore, claimsmakers often find it necessary to revise and repackage their claims, just to make them seem fresh and interesting. They may add additional grounds, more warrants, or fresh conclusions to give their claims a new look. For instance, instead of simply criticizing the general problem of sexism, the women's movement has been successful at calling attention to a long series of women's issues, each revealing a different aspect of sexist practices, through claims about sexual harassment, date rape, the glass ceiling (which blocks female executives from rising to the top of corporations), and so on. Continually identifying additional forms of sexism keeps the women's movement's claims fresh.

和訳してください／  Once a claim has gained acceptance, it is often possible to build additional claims on that foundation. One possibility is domain expansion (J. Best, 1990, 2015). As we have seen, initial claims often emphasize disturbing typifying examples. In the 1960s, for example, claimsmakers described the battered child syndrome, the problem of brutal beatings of infants or very young children. Terrible examples tend to make claims more interesting and effective; they help raise concern about an issue. In turn, once this concern has been

established, it becomes possible to argue that other conditions are just as bad as--really just another form of, or the moral equivalent of--the initial problem. (Think of domain expansion as like opening an umbrella, so that more topics are covered by a social problem.)

和訳してください／  Once a claim has gained acceptance, it is often possible to build additional claims on that foundation. One possibility is domain expansion (J. Best, 1990, 2015). As we have seen, initial claims often emphasize disturbing typifying examples. In the 1960s, for example, claimsmakers described the battered child syndrome, the problem of brutal beatings of infants or very young children. Terrible examples tend to make claims more interesting and effective; they help raise concern about an issue. In turn, once this concern has been

established, it becomes possible to argue that other conditions are just as bad as--really just another form of, or the moral equivalent of--the initial problem. (Think of domain expansion as like opening an umbrella, so that more topics are covered by a social problem.)

和訳してください／  Once a claim has gained acceptance, it is often possible to build additional claims on that foundation. One possibility is domain expansion (J. Best, 1990, 2015). As we have seen, initial claims often emphasize disturbing typifying examples. In the 1960s, for example, claimsmakers described the battered child syndrome, the problem of brutal beatings of infants or very young children. Terrible examples tend to make claims more interesting and effective; they help raise concern about an issue. In turn, once this concern has been

established, it becomes possible to argue that other conditions are just as bad as--really just another form of, or the moral equivalent of--the initial problem. (Think of domain expansion as like opening an umbrella, so that more topics are covered by a social problem.)

和訳しなさい／  

　Once a claim has gained acceptance, it is often possible to build additional claims on that foundation. One possibility is domain expansion (J. Best, 1990, 2015). As we have seen, initial claims often emphasize disturbing typifying examples. In the 1960s, for example, claimsmakers described the battered child syndrome, the problem of brutal beatings of infants or very young children. Terrible examples tend to make claims more interesting and effective; they help raise concern about an issue. In turn, once this concern has been established, it becomes possible to argue that other conditions are just as bad as--really just another form of, or the moral equivalent of--the initial problem. (Think of domain expansion as like opening an umbrella, so that more topics are covered by a social problem.)

和訳して／  In the case of child beating, battered child syndrome was soon renamed child abuse, and then the boundaries of what was considered abusive began to expand: Abuse also could affect older children and even adolescents. People began to recognize new types of abuse;

beatings were now termed physical abuse, as distinguished from emotional abuse, sexual abuse, and so on. And advocates began applying the now widely accepted child abuse label to a range of other phenomena, so smoking around children, failing to strap kids into protective car seats, and circumcision, among other things, were claimed to be forms of child abuse. In other words, over time, the domain of child abuse expanded to include more and more phenomena. This sort of domain expansion can occur whenever initial claims become well established (see Box 2.4).

 和訳して／ In the case of child beating, battered child syndrome was soon renamed child abuse, and then the boundaries of what was considered abusive began to expand: Abuse also could affect older children and even adolescents. People began to recognize new types of abuse;

beatings were now termed physical abuse, as distinguished from emotional abuse, sexual abuse, and so on. And advocates began applying the now widely accepted child abuse label to a range of other phenomena, so smoking around children, failing to strap kids into protective car seats, and circumcision, among other things, were claimed to be forms of child abuse. In other words, over time, the domain of child abuse expanded to include more and more phenomena. This sort of domain expansion can occur whenever initial claims become well established (see Box 2.4).

和訳して／ Claims do not have to use the same terms--abuse, rights, rage, and so on--to piggyback on successful constructions. In some cases the rhetorical formula used to construct one social problem can be applied to other problems of the same general sort. There is, for example, a fairly standard recipe for identifying new drug problems: claims are made that a drug is particularly harmful, that its use is rapidly spreading, and so on (Reinarman, 1994). This familiar, well-established formula means that contemporary arguments about the dangers of Ecstasy or crystal meth do not look a great deal different from nineteenth-century warnings about opium smoking. Similarly, claims about new forms of victimization often use a well-established rhetorical formula arguing that victimization is widespread and serious yet remains hidden, so extraordinary measures are needed to identify it, and so on (J. Best, 1999). In other words, the structure of successful claims--combinations of grounds, warrants, and conclusions that have proved effective in bringing attention to one drug problem or one form of victimization--can be copied and brought to bear on other, analogous issues.

理解して／ Claims often inspire counterclaims, arguments in direct opposition to the original claims. Again, think of the pro-life and pro-choice movements' struggle over abortion; or the claims that climate change is a serious problem exacerbated by humans' activities, and the counterclaims that global warming may be neither as serious as has been feared nor caused primarily by people's actions. Or the disputes may be much narrower, focused on the meaning of a particular individual's life. In all of these cases, advocates with opposing views develop full-fledged arguments--each with its own set of grounds, warrants, and conclusions, and each trying to make the most persuasive case (see Box 2.5).

理解して／  Such debates often revolve around confrontations over grounds or warrants. Each side may challenge the evidence--the grounds--presented by its opponents, charging that those opponents have misunderstood or misrepresented the nature of the troubling condition "Stat wars" may arise in which each side denounces its opponents' statistics and argues that its own numbers are more accurate (J. Best, 2013). Similarly, opponents may insist that some

warrants ought to be more compelling than others; in the abortion debate, for example, there are sharp disagreements about whether the rights of the fetus or those of the pregnant woman ought to be considered more important.

理解して／  Many claims emerge within and are promoted as linked to particular ideologies—that is, more or less coherent sets of beliefs, such as libertarianism, feminism, liberalism, conservatism, or specific religious doctrines. Ideologies usually emphasize particular warrants; for example, libertarianism views liberty as a central value, and feminism opposes social arrangements that block opportunities for women. Often, too, those familiar with an ideology favor particular grounds; feminists, of course, look for evidence of sexism, and so on. In addition, ideologies often recognize competing belief systems, so liberals and conservatives anticipate disagreeing over many issues. These ideological disputes make it very easy to mount counterclaims; the news that someone associated with a rival ideology is making a claim invites counterclaims.

理解して／  Claims often have to be modified in response to counterclaims. Opposition means that one's arguments will be subjected to sharper scrutiny and criticism, and those elements that prove easiest to challenge may need to be changed or reinforced. A statistic that has

been debunked by one's opponents may be dropped and a more defensible number added to fill the gap, and so on. At the same time, the fact that there is opposition can be incorporated into one's claims. It may be possible to characterize one's opponents

as part of the problem, turning the fact of opposition into a new ground for the claims. At least for those who share our ideology, news that the opposition is making counterclaims can reassure us that we're correct.

  Opposition is often predictable. There are social problems clusters-sets of claimsmakers who take similar positions regarding related social problems (J. Best, 2015; Griffiths and Best, 2016). When new issues emerge, many of the same people are likely to find themselves making claims that resemble those they've made in the past. For instance, claims about a new drug problem are likely to resemble those made about older drugs, with drug control advocates calling for new laws and tougher enforcement, even as advocates

of drug abuse prevention and drug treatment warn that cracking down will only make things worse. There are lots of familiar social problems clusters: if you imagine some new issue related to guns, women, the environment, or race, you can probably predict some

of the people likely to make claims, the sorts of rhetoric they are likely to adopt, and the interplay between claims and counterclaims.

  In sum, claims are constantly in play. They evolve, and they can inspire both other claims and opposition, so new claims are almost always shaped by those that preceded them.

if you imagine some new issue related to guns, women, the environment, or race, you can probably predict some of the people likely to make claims, the sorts of rhetoric they are likely to adopt, and the interplay between claims and counterclaims.　について、「Guns」「Women」「Environment」「Race」を問題化している人々が実際にどのようなレトリック等を使っているか教えて。アメリカで