The Death of Rhetoric

Talking points and sound bites have corrupted American oratory

By Patrick T. Brennan

On November 4, along with millions of other Americans, I watched President-Elect Barack Obama’s victory speech. I admit that I was less than overjoyed at his election, and this dissatisfaction tainted my impression of his speech. Even so, I could not help but notice that, quite frankly, his speech was disappointing.

Even if one ignores the arrogance in Obama’s constant flattery of those who voted for him, there were multiple instances of patently awful rhetoric, and no bright spots at all. Consider, for example, his description of the Coalition of the Hoping which elected him: “young and old, rich and poor, Democrat, Republican, white, black, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled.” He does not just waste the opportunity for effective parallelism in his demographic mélange. In fact, if there is one memorable moment of his speech, it would be history’s most awkward example of litotes: Obama’s acknowledgement of the “not disabled.” More feeble moments include his Father Christmas-esque proclamation that “change has come to America,” his grammatical foul of “who this victory belongs to,” and his uninspiring image (actually managing to worsen a cliché) of “block by block, brick by brick.”

But his speech flails further when he tries to speak to the world at large, characterizing their homes as “parliaments and palaces” and “forgotten corners,” an interestingly inaccurate and uninspiring picture of the world. When Obama proclaims, “our destiny is shared,” he makes, at best, an awkward attempt at solidarity. In one of his crescendos, he promises, “to those who would tear the world down, we will defeat you.” With the possible exception of Al Gore, it is unclear who Obama thinks might want to tear down the world. His treatment of the inspiring story of the daughter of slaves who voted for him stripped the story of all its meaning, by setting it to the hackneyed cadence of “Yes we can.” Obama’s election as president was a monumental occasion, which is why it is such a shame that he could not come up with a more original or inspiring way to mark it.

I do not criticize Mr. Obama’s speech to cast aspersions on his candidacy or even himself, as he likely did not compose a single sentence in that speech. Rather, watching his speech awakened me to a startling reality: Our generation has forgotten rhetoric. Not rhetoric as in speeches, but rhetoric as in the ἁρέστη of speeches. Our political campaigns, lecture halls, and churches do not lack bombast, but they have lost the air of dignified discourse.

Mr. Obama’s speech does not just demonstrate poor writing, but also a prosaic approach to speaking. His speech is not just poorly composed, but also poorly thought out. Where are the speakers who make insightful and eloquent points? For all the ballyhoo surrounding it, Obama’s speech on race in America climaxed with the declaration that he could no more disavow his pastor Jeremiah Wright than he could his white grandmother, which, let alone revelatory, is nonsensical. Contrast this with President John Kennedy’s declaration to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association to judge “not what kind of church I believe in, for that should be important only to me — but what kind of America I believe in.” He did not adorn his speech with flourishing phrases, subscribing to the Attic philosophy that a great speech is a good man speaking the truth. But his speech included a startlingly powerful declaration that a vote against him because of his Catholicism would shame the idea of democracy itself. This clarity of intent, this conviction, has disappeared from today’s discourse.

However, rhetoric has not just lost the surety that comes with a well-reasoned speech and a resolute mind. Recently, phrases like Sarah Palin’s assertion that “our nominee for president is a true profile in courage, and people like that are hard to come by” have supplanted soaring phrases like “they slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God.”

I do not suggest that Senator Obama should return to William Jennings Bryan-esque hyperbole and assert that President Bush has crucified our country on a cross of CDOs. But something has been lost when politicians are afraid to invert a sentence or employ vocabulary not covered by the fourth grade. Sometimes great ideas are simple. Kennedy’s command to “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country” is simply spoken, but not without a chiasmatic structure. 

For another example, take Robert Kennedy’s speech on April 4, 1968, to a group of African-Americans at a rally in Indianapolis. In the recording of his speech, he asked an aide, “Do they know?,” asking whether the crowd had been informed of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.’s death. They had not. In a brief speech—in which he quoted Aeschylus not once, but twice— Kennedy consoled the grieving crowd and offered an unwavering charge to persevere. Listening to the recording of that speech, I cannot help but wonder: “Where is the speaker today, political or otherwise, who will speak like that?” Surely a politician who dared to quote a dead white man would be laughed off the stage, jeered at for assuming that a poet who lived 2500 years ago could still speak to us. Can you imagine George Bush or Barack Obama trying to explain the boast of liberty by explaining the meaning of “civis Romanus sum”? Or having the poise and wit to thank his German translator for accidentally translating “Ich bin ein Berliner” back into English? 

All these failings of today’s rhetoric may have a common thread: the insipidly draining force of modernity. In a world where the president of the world’s greatest university proclaims that “truth is an aspiration, not a possession,” perhaps it is not surprising that her own speeches provide no direction to her students besides satisfying them with saccharine anecdotes. When the world is paralyzed with worry over giving offense with a categorical proclamation, it is no surprise that our rhetoric fails to inspire.

Instead, we are so inculcated with banal speeches that while Howard Dean’s “Byahhh!” was too Neanderthal for American ears, “Yes we can” is our generation’s rallying cry. When it is considered ignorant to call Oedipus Rex superior to Rent, we can only mourn the fact that Obama brags about his membership in the party of Kennedy and Roosevelt without saying another word about them. Similar compunction led Obama to describe America’s enemies as “those who would tear the world down,” a cowardly characterization to avoid offense . 

When politicians refuse to make substantial points, we end up with heroes like Joe the Plumber. The emasculating spirit of post-modernism has adulterated our speeches and consequently, our thoughts. Until our politicians regain the courage to speak with the best of their souls, and until we are willing to listen with the best of our minds, our discourse will remain shackled and anemic.