The Rhetorical Situation

To take another example, a Harvard Business Review blog post from December 4, 2013, on “How to Argue across Cultures” recounts the story of a Western businessperson who was selling bicycles produced in China to a buyer in Germany. When the business owner went to pick up the bicycles, he noticed that they rattled. In considering how to bring up this defect with the Chinese supplier, the businessperson could have confronted him directly, relying on physical evidence to support his claim. He rejected this form of evidence, however, because he knew that such a confrontation would result in loss of face for the supplier and very likely lead to an undesirable outcome. So instead, he suggested that he and the Chinese supplier take a couple of bikes out for a ride, during which the bikes rattled away. At the end of the ride, the Western businessperson quietly mentioned that he “thought his bike had rattled” and then departed, leaving the Chinese supplier to consider his subtle presentation of evidence. And it worked: when the Germans received the bicycle delivery, the rattle had been repaired.

It’s always good to remember, then, that when arguing across cultural divides, whether international or more local, you need to think carefully about how you’re accustomed to using evidence — and about what counts as evidence to other people (without surrendering your own intellectual principles).