Daniel Kies Department of English College of DuPage
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Value Claims

Value claims assert a writer's sense of values, a writer's sense of right and wrong, good and bad, just and unjust, the beautiful and the ugly. Value claims make judgments, and like all claims readers need to evaluate the evidence and assumptions supporting such claims. Value claims try to prove that some idea, action, or condition is good or bad, right or wrong, worthwhile or worthless.

1. Democracy offers the greatest chance for people to realize their full potential.

Others express our beliefs about beauty.

2. The State of Illinois building in downtown Chicago — sometimes referred to as "Spaceship Illinois" — is an aesthetic failure.

Value claims, as you can see, reveal much about a writer's personal beliefs. And so it is that many value claims are defended or attacked because different people have different sets of values: witness the abortion debate.

Value claims also rest upon some sense of a standard of justice, beauty, or goodness. They are also defended or attacked on the basis of differing standards between people. Some people, for example, feel that great literature must have a nobility of purpose, enduring significance, and creative use of language. Those are their standards by which they make value judgments about an author's work. By those standards, therefore, those people argue that writers like Danielle Steele or Stephen King will never be considered great writers. For others, the standard is different: if we consider how popular and how widely imitated a writer is, then Steele and King are important writers indeed.

Since we can not be certain of the values of our readers, it is necessary for us as writers to be sensitive to, and anticipate the reactions of, different people with different sets of values. In that way, we are better able to see the issue from our readers' points of view and offer our readers evidence to support a different set of values or to adopt a new set of values — to see the world from another perspective, so to speak.

For example, the essay by Margot Hornblower, below, questions the assumptions many Americans have about the generation of people who are now in their twenties, a generation sometimes called generation X. Aimed at readers a generation older, Hornblower's value claim attempts to convince her readers that the "slacker" image often presented in the media as an accurate portrayal of generation X is actually very wrong-headed. Indeed, Hornblower uses a classic technique to support her value claim: she attempts to show her readers that the values of generation X are not so different from the values of their predecessors after all:

Notice in the sections subtitled "Material Girls and Boys" how Hornblower attributes much of the conflict between generations to a faulty comparison of Xers to their parents. The correct comparison for Gen Xers, she argues, is between Xers and their grandparents. Notice too in the section subtitled "Gen O: For Optimism?" how Hornblower describes the idealism of Gen Xers, an idealism that the baby boomers were noted for in their youth. In these sections, Hornblower demonstrates that the values of the "slackers" are really not so different than the values of preceding generations. If the reader sees this is the case, it is easier for the reader to change his/her attitudes toward Gen X.

Supporting a Value Claim

At first blush, it may seem impossible to convince another that your values are superior to the others. Certainly, too, it is natural to feel that your values are the "best" ones or the "right" ones. Nonetheless, we all know of times in our lives when we were effective at getting someone to do something (or not to do something) simply by persuasion alone. At those times we did succeed at changing another's values. At other times, it may have been us who had our attitudes changed about a subject.

Although it may seem impossible, it does happen, both on the small scale and on the large scale. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is testimony to the fact that large scale shifts in attitude does take place. As writers, if we are to have any chance of succeeding, we must give good reasons why we think one thing is better than another.

To achieve such a transformation, classical rhetoricians give the following advice:

• Try to demonstrate that the values or principles you advocate should have priority on a scale that includes the reader's values. It is usually easier to have the reader reorganize priorities rather than adopt a completely new value system.
• Demonstrate that the values you advocate have a desirable, beneficial outcome — an outcome that can not be achieved without your set of values.
• Use specific examples that illustrate the values you advocate. Values are abstract notions and it is often easier to win another's assent if you couch those abstract ideals in concrete terms. For example, if I were to ask the average taxpayer if s/he would like to pay more taxes, s/he probably would say "No" without hesitation. But if I start by asking if s/he would like a strong nation defense, good schools for children, adequate health care for grandparents, and safe food and water, I probably would get general agreement that these are worthwhile goals. Now, if I add that these services can only maintained with a modest increase in taxes, say one half of one percent, and then ask if s/he would agree, I am much more likely to get that taxpayer to agree to pay more taxes!
• Finally, use ethical appeal in the form of testimony or quotes from highly knowledgeable or highly regarded people who share your values. (When I was a kid, for example, I was much more likely to get my mom to buy me a new Super-WhizBang! if I could convince her that all my friends' moms bought one too.)

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