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America, the Idea of America and the Art and Science of Rhetoric
Perhaps there is no other country on earth that is so also a concept as America. It is a thing we teach to our chidlren in schools, and to the world via the increasing intangibility of media. But there is America as it is, and that fictive place, America as it could be. America as it could be, America the concept, is not so much an idealized version of our national life as it is a belief that the framework of our government could creatve prefection for any man, woman or child if they could just convince enough people to agree with them.
If you live here, and you follow politics, or ever watch CSPAN late at night because you have insomnia, you might be giving a hollow little laugh right now. But it's my hunch that part of the reason our country's relationship with the rest of the world is so bad right now stems not just from the policies and actions of the current administration, but from that fact that those policies and actions have done more than effect the tangible world of countries, wars and lives. It's my feeling that this administration has severely wounded the concept of America and in doing so has betrayed not just nations and diplomatic conventions, but individuals who wanted to think the best things of our country, even when we were so imperfect.
Many of my friends have foreign friends, as do I, in part because of LJ. The discourse is usually civil, and it heartens me that my friends abroad know that what is happening here is not my fault. But I also have just as many friends who say the civil discourse has fled from their relationships with non-Americans and who are told over and over again why we are hated, and why we should be hated, even as individuals each and every one. For many Americans this election is our last best chance to believe in the concept of America; we need the voting process to be unambiguous and the change we seek brought into the world. This election matters to us, both because we believe in our lives, and in the concept of America. And this defense of an idea, which could perhaps reasonably be called foolish, or at least naive, makes us many enemies, because it is somehow difficult for too many to fathom how we can believe in the concept when all this mess is going on. Maybe it's a little like love the sinner, hate the sin. I don't know, but it is what we have.
To that end, I'd like to talk a little bit about the somewhat anachronistic fact of political conventions. Kerry gave an excellent speech last night, and I've seen reactions run the gamut on it. For those that didn't like it, weren't comfortable with it, or didn't feel it did what they wanted it to do, there are some things I want to say in response, but before I do so, I should probably note my obvious biases outside of the political.
I wish people would stop being mean to Kerry because he has a long face and a good education. I have a long face and a good education. And I've never in my life identified with a political candidate on any sort of personal level, but as much as Kerry hasn't been my ideal candidate, I do take this one personally because it is so rare that I see a face that moves in any way I recognize.
My other bias in the argument I'm going to put forth is that my early education was an education of another age that valued things like military history and rhetoric as a perfectly normal and expected part of a person's analytical framework. And while we all know I often note the peculiarity of my early education, I believe that outside its gendered aspects it was fundamentally correct, even if outside our modern world. This makes me biased, both to the existences of things like political conventions and to a signficant part of Kerry's speaking style (although Lord knows, if I were his speech coach I can thin of at least half a dozen things I'd be on him about).
Convention speeches are not policy speeches, and I don't think people should expect them to be. Just as there is a difference between America and the Concept of America, consider the differences between a State of the Union speech and a nomination acceptance speech. If you're looking for detail you're looking in the wrong place. While you may want it to be different, and to a given degree I wouldn't disagree with you, it is what it is, and would be surprised if the Bush speech next month has any more specificity to it.
That said, I also hear a great deal of people complaining about rhetoric, about speeches not seeming real, genuine, or honest. Or sounding aloof. Or being all artful craft and no detail. We use the word rhetoric like it's a bad word.
Rhetoric is not a bad word.
The primary definitions of rhetoric are
The art or study of using language effectively and persuasively.
A treatise or book discussing this art.
Skill in using language effectively and persuasively.
In fact it's not until you get to definition 3b that you get the increasingly common American usage of the word: Language that is elaborate, pretentious, insincere, or intellectually vacuous: His offers of compromise were mere rhetoric.
One day, I suspect the prominence of these definitions will be inverted and as a woman who had rhetoric classes in school, as young as seventh grade, this makes me sad. Crafting and delivering speeches is an art, and while I well know all politicial and economic figures have teams of people engaged in this effort with them, I believe rhetoric to be a singular and critical skill.
Yes, conventions speeches are all rhetoric. But they aren't _just_ rhetoric. It's like saying someone is _just_ your friend. It's a sleazy devaluing of something that's merely different than romantic love... or in this case, different than policy.
Rhetoric is one of the key skills by which we should judge our leaders, for it is in rhetoric that they transmit that Concept of America around the world, by which people are rallied to our banner or thrown from it. It is the skill by which even and especially in terrible times we can be unified, and it is the skill where for all its seeming simplicity, and perhaps even trivialness, diplomacy begins.
True skill with rhetoric is very much a thing from any number of lost worlds I romanticize, because, again of my very particular education. Rhetoric is that thing I do when I give my opinions and anger my friends because I act as if those opinions are truth. Rhetoric is that thing we do to make people believe that we speak in the name of more than ourselves.
The president of the United States of America should speak in the name of more than just himself.
Our president should be good at rhetoric. And we should judge our candidates on it. Plain-spoken too has it place, but when the man or woman gets up there to make his or her speech you listen for the beauty, and the art and the persuasion, which in speeches like those at nomination conventions is as important as any policy statement.
Our leaders should be our leaders not just because they are like us and we share with them some vision for this country, but because they are the best of us. And a formal grace with language is one of the many many things by which we should be making that determination.
Rhetoric is at the roots of our traditions as Americans, as a democracy, as a western nation that often foolishly idealizes itself through both ignorance and faith.
But it's there, and it's important, and it should be.
When a man gives a great speech, it doesn't mean you should trust him less, nor does it mean you should trust him more. But the trusting of how he speaks is a critical thing.
So if you listened to last night's speech and have a list of things you still need from Kerry, good. Look for them. Read the papers, read the platform, watch the news, and vote. But try to remember the things you're looking for, were probably not so much omissions, as just not related to the peculiar and singular purpose of the conclusion of the nomination process.
If you live here, and you follow politics, or ever watch CSPAN late at night because you have insomnia, you might be giving a hollow little laugh right now. But it's my hunch that part of the reason our country's relationship with the rest of the world is so bad right now stems not just from the policies and actions of the current administration, but from that fact that those policies and actions have done more than effect the tangible world of countries, wars and lives. It's my feeling that this administration has severely wounded the concept of America and in doing so has betrayed not just nations and diplomatic conventions, but individuals who wanted to think the best things of our country, even when we were so imperfect.
Many of my friends have foreign friends, as do I, in part because of LJ. The discourse is usually civil, and it heartens me that my friends abroad know that what is happening here is not my fault. But I also have just as many friends who say the civil discourse has fled from their relationships with non-Americans and who are told over and over again why we are hated, and why we should be hated, even as individuals each and every one. For many Americans this election is our last best chance to believe in the concept of America; we need the voting process to be unambiguous and the change we seek brought into the world. This election matters to us, both because we believe in our lives, and in the concept of America. And this defense of an idea, which could perhaps reasonably be called foolish, or at least naive, makes us many enemies, because it is somehow difficult for too many to fathom how we can believe in the concept when all this mess is going on. Maybe it's a little like love the sinner, hate the sin. I don't know, but it is what we have.
To that end, I'd like to talk a little bit about the somewhat anachronistic fact of political conventions. Kerry gave an excellent speech last night, and I've seen reactions run the gamut on it. For those that didn't like it, weren't comfortable with it, or didn't feel it did what they wanted it to do, there are some things I want to say in response, but before I do so, I should probably note my obvious biases outside of the political.
I wish people would stop being mean to Kerry because he has a long face and a good education. I have a long face and a good education. And I've never in my life identified with a political candidate on any sort of personal level, but as much as Kerry hasn't been my ideal candidate, I do take this one personally because it is so rare that I see a face that moves in any way I recognize.
My other bias in the argument I'm going to put forth is that my early education was an education of another age that valued things like military history and rhetoric as a perfectly normal and expected part of a person's analytical framework. And while we all know I often note the peculiarity of my early education, I believe that outside its gendered aspects it was fundamentally correct, even if outside our modern world. This makes me biased, both to the existences of things like political conventions and to a signficant part of Kerry's speaking style (although Lord knows, if I were his speech coach I can thin of at least half a dozen things I'd be on him about).
Convention speeches are not policy speeches, and I don't think people should expect them to be. Just as there is a difference between America and the Concept of America, consider the differences between a State of the Union speech and a nomination acceptance speech. If you're looking for detail you're looking in the wrong place. While you may want it to be different, and to a given degree I wouldn't disagree with you, it is what it is, and would be surprised if the Bush speech next month has any more specificity to it.
That said, I also hear a great deal of people complaining about rhetoric, about speeches not seeming real, genuine, or honest. Or sounding aloof. Or being all artful craft and no detail. We use the word rhetoric like it's a bad word.
Rhetoric is not a bad word.
The primary definitions of rhetoric are
The art or study of using language effectively and persuasively.
A treatise or book discussing this art.
Skill in using language effectively and persuasively.
In fact it's not until you get to definition 3b that you get the increasingly common American usage of the word: Language that is elaborate, pretentious, insincere, or intellectually vacuous: His offers of compromise were mere rhetoric.
One day, I suspect the prominence of these definitions will be inverted and as a woman who had rhetoric classes in school, as young as seventh grade, this makes me sad. Crafting and delivering speeches is an art, and while I well know all politicial and economic figures have teams of people engaged in this effort with them, I believe rhetoric to be a singular and critical skill.
Yes, conventions speeches are all rhetoric. But they aren't _just_ rhetoric. It's like saying someone is _just_ your friend. It's a sleazy devaluing of something that's merely different than romantic love... or in this case, different than policy.
Rhetoric is one of the key skills by which we should judge our leaders, for it is in rhetoric that they transmit that Concept of America around the world, by which people are rallied to our banner or thrown from it. It is the skill by which even and especially in terrible times we can be unified, and it is the skill where for all its seeming simplicity, and perhaps even trivialness, diplomacy begins.
True skill with rhetoric is very much a thing from any number of lost worlds I romanticize, because, again of my very particular education. Rhetoric is that thing I do when I give my opinions and anger my friends because I act as if those opinions are truth. Rhetoric is that thing we do to make people believe that we speak in the name of more than ourselves.
The president of the United States of America should speak in the name of more than just himself.
Our president should be good at rhetoric. And we should judge our candidates on it. Plain-spoken too has it place, but when the man or woman gets up there to make his or her speech you listen for the beauty, and the art and the persuasion, which in speeches like those at nomination conventions is as important as any policy statement.
Our leaders should be our leaders not just because they are like us and we share with them some vision for this country, but because they are the best of us. And a formal grace with language is one of the many many things by which we should be making that determination.
Rhetoric is at the roots of our traditions as Americans, as a democracy, as a western nation that often foolishly idealizes itself through both ignorance and faith.
But it's there, and it's important, and it should be.
When a man gives a great speech, it doesn't mean you should trust him less, nor does it mean you should trust him more. But the trusting of how he speaks is a critical thing.
So if you listened to last night's speech and have a list of things you still need from Kerry, good. Look for them. Read the papers, read the platform, watch the news, and vote. But try to remember the things you're looking for, were probably not so much omissions, as just not related to the peculiar and singular purpose of the conclusion of the nomination process.
no subject
*goes back to packing*
Speeches are important
Re: Speeches are important
no subject
no subject
The harm Bush has done to America is the result of some 200 years of meaningful rhetorical usage. We are nation built on rhetoric, powerful, moving, meaningful rhetoric, which has changed the course of nations (the Declaration of the Rights of Man could not have been written without the Declaration of Independence as precedent).
Which means the rest of the world has an image of us, and we have proven that our strengths, can be our weakness. We have feet of clay.
And part of that, I think, stems from how we, as a nation, have let the use of public rhetoric slip.
Kerry, four years ago, when he wasn't really a contender, was said to be a dynamic speaker... why? Because print journalists (of which I was one, once) saw him up close, they heard the whole speech, felt the impact.
Now, he is said to be weak, and flabby; as a speaker. Why? Because we live in a world of snippets, and to pass real meaning in a pithy phrase is damned hard. Few people are Lincolns, or Churchills, able to distill hard ideas into a pithy phrase ("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." It sums up the entire question of that war, in two sentences.
or
("I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat." and "We shall not flag nor fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France and on the seas and oceans; we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be; we shall fight on beaches, landing grounds, in fields, in streets and on the hills. We shall never surrender , which summed up, in different ways, for different levels of trial, the mission he wanted Britain to undertake, in a time of mortal peril).
Worse, because we don't (with rare exceptions... :) study rhetoric (the most common approach is a speech class, in high school, or college, taken because one must, and not with any real depth) we are, as a nation, easily taken in by cheap tricks, the slippery slope, the careful phrases, which are; independently, true, but combine to cast the opposite impression to the facts, the veiled innuendo, and the whips and scorns that patient merit of the unworthy gets one.
Public discourse needs good rhetoric, lest it rot, and that means we must struggle to keep it from slipping below the mire.
TK
no subject
I suppose that this is why I feel so alienated from both this nation and from mainstream US politics. I do not believe in America and haven't since the late 80s. I vastly disliked the US under Clinton for a host of reasons that would be tedious to list, my first reaction to 9/11 after shocked disbelief was to be terrified of what our government's response would be both here and abroad, and I see Bush's mad policies as nothing more than an extreme and deeply surreal extension of what this nation has been about for the last 20 years. In discussions of the US, I tend to agree far more with some of the more anti-American residents of the EU than with almost anyone here. Such feelings are why I increasingly think that I would prefer to leave the US regardless of the result of the election. If Kerry wins. I'll almost certainly stay, but only because most of my loved ones have no interest in leaving other than to flee Bush.
OTOH, I completely agree with your comments about rhetoric. Good speeches are exceedingly uncommon because most people would far rather come up with sound bytes that will play well on the evening news. I listened to a recording of Barack Obama's speech and while it did not touch me personally, it was a very good speech and that is a rare and precious thing these days.
no subject
Someone did need to point out what the actual definition of "rhetoric" is. Thanks. That's the best part of politics, in my opinion--how language is used, why, when, what of it is real, and what its effect is regardless of reality. In the past few days, there've been some amazing speakers and some great speeches. To me, that's interesting, but I'm a language freak. Even if you're not, though, it's stupid to dismiss rhetoric and uninteresting or unimportant.
I also think you're probably right about the American image--and how the differences between that and the reality of the current administration are probably strong factors in the dislike of America from abroad.
no subject
Are you going to post more now thatyou are awake and lucid?
no subject
I hope I'll be posting more, though my job sort of turns me off to the idea of typing anything. I don't know how awake or lucid I am, either. Half of my acquaintance is claiming I'm perpetually cranky from being so tired; the other half is claiming they don't see me because I'm always asleep. When your friends stay up til four am, you shouldn't get a job for which you have to be out of the house by seven.