Intellectual self-legitimation based on knowledge and expertise

A second group of strategies of intellectual self-legitimation includes those aimed to construct the intellectual, implicitly or explicitly, as someone who possesses greater knowledge and expertise than the ordinary person. This corresponds to van Leeuwen’s (2008) category of expert authority (which is comprised under authorisation based on

recommendation). Strategies of this kind presuppose a distinction between expert or specialist knowledge, on the one hand, and folk or common knowledge, on the other. In some cases, this distinction may imply an evaluation of expert knowledge as somehow ‘superior’ to common knowledge; however, such a disparity is quite unlikely to be explicitly acknowledged or sanctioned by the intellectual-author, as this would easily be perceived by the readers as a pretentious move. The analysis of the opinion pieces from the Serbia sample seems to confirm this expectation. To be sure, many authors support their claims by drawing evidence from various areas of expert knowledge (primarily history, literature and law); however, in most cases this is not so conspicuous as to constitute a fully-fledged strategy of intellectual self-legitimation. Indeed, virtually no author treats her or his expertise as having an intrinsically higher value than the lay knowledge possessed by the (projected/intended) readership.

There are, however, some cases in which specialist knowledge and expertise indeed serve as grounds for intellectual self-legitimation, namely, when the author attempts to de-legitimise those who oppose her or his viewpoint by representing them as biased or as lacking the necessary knowledge to make meaningful contributions to the debate. This strategy is obviously fallacious, as it is intended to discredit the other party instead of tackling their argumentation. More specifically, calling into question the knowledgeability of the other party is explicitly recognised in the pragma-dialectical approach as the abusive variant of the argumentum ad hominem fallacy (van Eemeren & Grootendorst, 2004: p. 177).

A notable illustration of this strategy of intellectual self-legitimation is found in Milan Škulić’s commentary, Kosovo is Serbia [S12]. A salient feature of this text is the discursive construction of the debate about Kosovo as heavily polarised along two axes: expertise versus ignorance and truthfulness versus mendacity. The author stands on the positive side of each dichotomy, while the opponents are relegated to the negative side. Thus, Škulić constructs himself as an expert authority (specifically in the fields of law and history), while the other party to the debate is negatively represented not only as uninformed about, or even deliberately oblivious of, legal norms and historical facts, but also as mendacious. Take as an example the following passage:

(2) Sometimes, when they want to be ostensibly objective, Serbs accept the logic of those who are Serbia’s enemies, or at least not its friends. (3) Some Serbian citizens raise their voice publicly and quite extravagantly – at least insofar as their opinion concerns legal matters, but in any other respect unfoundedly – in favour of the recognition of Kosovo’s independence by Serbia. (4) A lie will not become a truth no matter how many times it is repeated, though this may create some propaganda effects, but certain truths are to be repeated many times.

Through implicitly targeting Vladimir Arsenijević,25 _{the author sets out to defame all} those who share the latter’s viewpoint on Kosovo. The opponents are referred to in a quite vague manner (“Some Serbian citizens”) and are portrayed in utterly negative terms, i.e. as unloyal to Serbia, too biased or incompetent to make valid claims about the Kosovo issue (and yet obstinate in speaking out), as well as mendacious. This passage appears largely fallacious (as it rests on an argumentum ad hominem deployed to discredit the opponents instead of addressing their claims), but only if it is taken in isolation. In fact, much of the subsequent text is devoted precisely to deconstructing the opponents’ standpoint. However, more relevant to our discussion of intellectual self-legitimation is to ask ourselves what Škulić achieves by means of this discursive strategy. The answer is that he indirectly emerges as an authority on the subject matter, i.e. a ‘repository of truth’ with regard to the debate about Kosovo.

There is an additional aspect that makes Škulić’s text particularly interesting in terms of the discursive construction of the intellectual standpoint, that is, the specific way in which specialist knowledge is combined with common knowledge and popular wisdom. Let us consider the following excerpt:

(6) It is known to Serbs that “He whose law is written by his cudgel leaves behind the stench of inhumanity”. (7) The “cudgel” can take the form of cruise missiles and “intelligent” bombs, but also of historical forgery and a sort of “rape” of international law. (8) But a “cudgel” will always be a “cudgel” and will never become law. (9) Hence Serbia will never recognise Kosovo as an independent state. (10) Perhaps some “other Serbia” could do that in different circumstances [...] but that would not be a legal or legitimate act, just like, for example, the so-called NDH26 _{never became a}

fully-fledged state although at the time it was recognised by some countries, Nazi

25 _{The piece was written as a response to Arsenijević’s commentary (S11). Furthermore, sentence (4) is} an implicit reference to Arsenijević’s claim that he “would like to repeat once more, twice, even a hundred times should it be necessary: Kosovo is not Serbia” (27).

Germany in the first place. (11) There applies also the traditional legal norm: “What is born crooked not even time can straighten”.

Škulić makes a case against the recognition of Kosovo’s independence by Serbia by weaving together a literary quote,27 _{a historical-legal reference to the Independent} State of Croatia, and a common proverb, conveniently passed off as a “traditional legal norm”. This strategy could be explained as an attempt to make the argument persuasive and appealing to a broader readership. Apart from its rhetorical force, however, this discursive construct is relevant also in terms of intellectual self- legitimation. Through employing popular knowledge to illustrate a (specialist) legal argument, the author seemingly ‘blurs the line’ between the two domains of knowledge. The distinction, however, is not obliterated but only dissimulated. Throughout the article, in fact, proverbs and popular expressions are used solely to exemplify or elucidate technical legal arguments; nowhere does folk knowledge surmount or replace professional expertise, which therefore retains its primacy over the former. The discursive construction of the intellectual standpoint is greatly shaped by this specific interplay. Although this strategy is most apparent in Škulić’s text, other authors employ it as well, albeit to a much lesser extent.

Finally, the analysis has revealed a very specific form of intellectual self-legitimation, which involves intentionally downplaying one’s knowledge or ability to comprehend reality (i.e. one’s epistemic stance) in order to conveniently make one’s authority less ‘visible’, so to speak. Instances of this strategy are found in Arsenijević’s and Samardžić’s opinion pieces. As they comment upon Serbia’s predicament, both authors understate their own capacity for ‘vision’ and analysis, and they do so in a similar manner. Arsenijević [S11] speaks of the unlikelihood that the country’s situation will improve by the tenth anniversary of Milošević’s demise:

(18) Things will hardly get fixed in a significant way by then – one does not need to be a prophet to guess that things may easily get worse than they are today.

26 _{The acronym NDH stands for Independent State of Croatia, which was a puppet state of Germany and}

Italy during World War II.

27 _{Sentence (6) contains a quote from The Mountain Wreath, a mid-nineteenth century poem written by} Montenegrin prince-bishop and poet Petar II Petrović-Njegoš (and translated into English by V. Mihailović). The poem is widely regarded as a masterpiece of Serbian literature, and the quoted line is well-known among the Serbian public.

Samardžić [S04], on his part, criticises the deterioration of the country’s social and political situation:

(7) It was not difficult to predict the components of the clerical-Marxist orgy which has once again pushed Serbia back into a state of officially managed barbarianism..

The two phrases “one does not need to be a prophet to guess that […]” and “It was not difficult to predict […]” indicate the writers’ attitude towards the quality and validity of the communicated information, and as such constitute markers of evidentiality. Specifically, they minimise or even abolish the authors’ vantage point by approximating their epistemic stance to that of ordinary observers. However, the two expressions can be regarded as understatements, insofar as they serve to reinforce the authors’ intellectual authority by making it less apparent and explicit, and therefore less exposed to objections and criticisms by the readership. In this respect, downplaying one’s intellectual authority seems to constitute a salient discursive strategy of intellectual self-legitimation.

In conclusion, the analysis illustrates that strategies of intellectual self-legitimation drawing on knowledge and expertise, and particularly on the (hierarchical) distinction between specialist and lay knowledge, are not commonly employed in the texts under consideration. In fact, although many authors mobilise their expertise in order to support their claims, almost none of them appears to establish her or his intellectual vantage point primarily on these grounds. As suggested above, the reason for this is that such a strategy would likely come across as self-aggrandisement, with predictable repercussions on the credibility of the author. However, self-legitimation through expertise can be achieved in other ways, for instance by representing one’s opponents as less knowledgeable than oneself (as Škulić does) or, conversely, by conveniently downplaying one’s authority (as seen in the last two examples).