Comments on: Rhetoric ain’t what it used to be

By: Ryan

Ryan — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 18:53:30 +0000

Oratory has been downhill since mankind has had the ability to transfer ideas through other forms of media, ie. writing, printing, audio, video. Before, if you wanted to move people or share ideas, it was through speech. Now you can sit behind a computer and blog all day and change people’s mind’s on subjects.(hmmm…) There are merits for both sides. Nowadays, it’s easier for people to have their voices heard, which is good, but at the same time, it allows any numbskull to propogate their opinions without accountability. Orators in olden times had to cultivate a good reputation in order for their speeches to be taken seriously. This made it so that people who could speek in public had good character. So there are merits and drawbacks to both sides… anyways, I liked the post. My own blog, http://keyspeeches.blogspot.com is a resourse of some of the most famous/important speeches of history.(Not many added as of yet, but, more being added everyday) Anyone want to check it out? I’d be happy to exchange links with the owner of this blog or anyone with a relevant site/blog so please check out my blog and contact me!

By: Tom Grey - Liberty Dad

Tom Grey - Liberty Dad — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 14:45:47 +0000

I was so impressed with his rhetoric I forgot to spell check his Barack name! oops.

By: Tom Grey - Liberty Dad

Tom Grey - Liberty Dad — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 14:43:17 +0000

Neo, I’ve read some things other Reps have been saying about Barak, a Dem with whose policies I disagree. These Reps have said Barak is great orator, one rheotician (at Prof. Bainbridge?) said he’s the best orator since MLK.

I fear Barak may be that good, maybe as good as Hitler:
“I’m asking you to Believe
Not just in my ability to bring about
real change to Washington … I’m
asking you to believe in yours.”

http://www.barackobama.com/index.php

When I was watching documentaries on Hitler, his sincerity, desire for justice / anger at injustice, self-confidence, and often hope, were all easily felt. Without understanding the German (tho the justice issues were from historical context).

The best of JFK was not quite as rhetorically fantastic, but it was great WITH great and noble goals as well; very unlike the goals of Hitler.

What happens if Barak has great rhetoric but mediocre (=Dem policy) goals?

By: Beverly

Beverly — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 06:52:24 +0000

When I was in school, we memorized it. O tempora! o mores!

Gettysburg Address

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met here on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But in a larger sense we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled, here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract.

The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they have, thus far, so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

By: anon

anon — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 06:00:00 +0000

When I watched Ken Burns Civil War series I was struck by the eloquence of the ordinary soldier, in his letters to his family and so forth, and the journal entry of the officer who received the surrender of the Army of Virginia. But it also struck me how the sentiments expressed, so pure of heart and disturbingly honest, seemed foreign to me. And I thought the world a worse place for their loss. I guess it’s been downhill ever since.

By: Bugs

Bugs — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 02:00:52 +0000

That’s true. Edward Everett spoke for two hours before the Gettysburg Address. Anybody remember what he said?

By: neo-neocon

neo-neocon — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 22:54:48 +0000

Bugs: those aren’t the ones that are remembered. I couldn’t have stomached that, either. Think, instead, of the brevity and eloquence of the Gettysburg Address. Churchill’s speeches were not all that long, either.

By: Bugs

Bugs — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 22:31:09 +0000

On the other hand, I don’t exactly yearn for the days when your accomplished rhetoricians routinely made speeches that lasted two or three hours, sometimes longer. I can’t imagine how people could stand in the rain or sun listening to some politician bloviate half the day.

By: neo-neocon

neo-neocon — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 21:07:45 +0000

cgotharn: I agree. Biblical and Shakespearian references are part of the background that makes for some of the wonderful speeches of the past.

A related issue is the modernization of the King James Bible, something I’m not in favor of.

Hmmm, I may write a post on that some day.

By: gcotharn

gcotharn — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 21:07:43 +0000

addendum:

it is easier, today, to reference Yoda:

“Do, or do not. There is no try.”

or whatever else Yoda said, than it is to reference Jesus, Moses, Homer, or Plato. (Not that I am personally pretending to great expertise about any of the four! I am a child of this American age. Instead of reading Plato, I comment at neo-neocon)