Okay, so what does all this have to do with speechwriting, you might ask?
Stay with me but a little longer, Dear Reader.
Someone once commented to me that “Objective Reality is about as meaningful as someone hitting .400 in spring training.” While I do think that objective reality has a sort of final significance, I also think that the term is problematic. Most people agree that material reality, from sense perception, also known as “common sense”, provides wide basis for agreement, commonly known as “evidence”.
A related issue concerning “objective reality” is the “descriptive” vs. the “predictive”.
Description of various things, whether events, objects, or whatever, can, to a degree, generate at least some agreement, based on the weighing of “evidence”. However, utilizing a description of the past in order to predict the future is “dicey”. David Hume, the greatest of British philosophers questioned whether we could expect a physical “law”, such as gravity, or the sun shining somewhere, to continually be true in the future, even though the occurrence has always played itself out in the past. He concluded that while we could, as a result of observation of past events, have a reasonable expectation of natural phenomena occurring the same way each and every time, we could not guarantee, in the manner of a “law”, that it WOULD CONTINUE to automatically occur.
What does all this have to do with speech?
Well, the art and arc of persuasion depend on compelling listeners to accept the subjective offered by the speaker. While the speaker may offer “evidence” in the common meaning of that term, he or she selects the evidence. As a result, the “values” of the speaker rely as much on the choices of his or her selection, as much if not more so than on the evidence presented.
So, the consistency of the evidence is a product of someone’s subjectivity, a combination of the objective (“evidence”) and the subjective (“choices” or “values”).
While the combination of “choice/value” and “evidence” may have moved each audience sufficiently to persuade them to agree with a speaker, the same speaker cannot guarantee that the same combination will “wow” a future audience.
Research your audience ahead of time, be flexible, and keep your expectations reasonable based on what you have observed in similar cases in the past.
Stay tuned.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Friday, December 26, 2008
Reality: Part I
You know you’ve been waiting for it, and I guess I had to write about…you guessed it, “reality” and its many, many meanings.
Someone who loves words has to write about their relationship to "reality" at some point. Today's the day!
I have to start with my late father’s diatribe against philosophers: “If they’d done more dishes, they’d have known better what reality was.” I don’t ever remember him doing any dishes; I’ll leave it at that.
(Correction: Family members have pointed out that they remember him doing dishes, so I need to set the record straight in that regard; obviously, he strove, at least at some points, to attain reality, at least as he saw it. Please note these issues of consistency and selectivity in my next post.)
I can also remember the anger from a classmate who had just been introduced to Plato. She pointed skyward, like Plato in the “School of Athens”, but without conviction, only with a kind of betrayal, as if class had ruined her day. “You mean, the real world is up there?” Her single and final afterword was unprintable.
Imagine the implications: If you’re a Boston Celtics fan, the essence of Kevin Garnettness lives in the celestial “form” of Kevin Garnett, in that basketball game in the heavens than which none greater can be imagined. The Kevin Garnett who labors somewhere near where the Mass Pike begins (or ends, depending on your point of view), is only an imperfect copy.
Yes, friends, what we consider “realism” and “idealism” in current parlance were actually reversed in the Middle Ages. Realism had to do with the forms in heaven, and “ideas” were the imperfect, sense-derived human notions that individuals labored under, far removed from celestial “universals”.
Thinkers who took after Plato were known as “realists”, while those who followed Aristotle’s more earth-bound ideas (remember him pointing downward in the “School of Athens”) were Nominalists, those concerned with the “names” of things (also called “Terminalists”, after terms for things). Realists thought that you knew what a tree was because you were born with an imperfect copy of “treeness” in your mind, while Nominalists figured you looked in a book, saw a picture of a tree, then read the caption.
In the Enlightenment, when thinkers considered sense perception the baseline for reality, these “Empiricists”, or insisters on the primacy of sense perception, had to account for extra-sense images in some way, so they came up with “innate ideas”, or ideas you were born with.
You might find these sorts of disputes quaint, or not so quaint, simply irrelevant.
But they’re not.
Linguistic Analysts of recent decades still think that all we can “know” boils down to language, and the rest is, well, something that mystics worry about.
You might think that scientists would be the greatest believers in reality, or common sense; well, what about nuclear physics, particle theory, etc….when was the last time you saw a “quark” or some other sub-atomic particle?
Or, consider the ongoing, seemingly intractable disputes between religious fundamentalists and those who consider themselves more “open” to multiple realities, Biblical criticism, etc. The problem for fundamentalists is NOT convincing others of “miracles”…in fact, their insistence is the opposite. Their obsession is and must be proving that all their beliefs can be proven in material fashion so that it can be common sense reality, empirically able to test and prove. If they can make that case, then, they can say that their religious outlook is “true” and cannot be disproven. What does that need do for mysticism, that root of all religion? Such materialism, such an insistence on material, “objective” reality kills mysticism, that most subjective impulse.
Social control in totalitarian regimes, whether religious or secular, depends on just that, the control of reality for a populace at large.
Stay tuned.
Someone who loves words has to write about their relationship to "reality" at some point. Today's the day!
I have to start with my late father’s diatribe against philosophers: “If they’d done more dishes, they’d have known better what reality was.” I don’t ever remember him doing any dishes; I’ll leave it at that.
(Correction: Family members have pointed out that they remember him doing dishes, so I need to set the record straight in that regard; obviously, he strove, at least at some points, to attain reality, at least as he saw it. Please note these issues of consistency and selectivity in my next post.)
I can also remember the anger from a classmate who had just been introduced to Plato. She pointed skyward, like Plato in the “School of Athens”, but without conviction, only with a kind of betrayal, as if class had ruined her day. “You mean, the real world is up there?” Her single and final afterword was unprintable.
Imagine the implications: If you’re a Boston Celtics fan, the essence of Kevin Garnettness lives in the celestial “form” of Kevin Garnett, in that basketball game in the heavens than which none greater can be imagined. The Kevin Garnett who labors somewhere near where the Mass Pike begins (or ends, depending on your point of view), is only an imperfect copy.
Yes, friends, what we consider “realism” and “idealism” in current parlance were actually reversed in the Middle Ages. Realism had to do with the forms in heaven, and “ideas” were the imperfect, sense-derived human notions that individuals labored under, far removed from celestial “universals”.
Thinkers who took after Plato were known as “realists”, while those who followed Aristotle’s more earth-bound ideas (remember him pointing downward in the “School of Athens”) were Nominalists, those concerned with the “names” of things (also called “Terminalists”, after terms for things). Realists thought that you knew what a tree was because you were born with an imperfect copy of “treeness” in your mind, while Nominalists figured you looked in a book, saw a picture of a tree, then read the caption.
In the Enlightenment, when thinkers considered sense perception the baseline for reality, these “Empiricists”, or insisters on the primacy of sense perception, had to account for extra-sense images in some way, so they came up with “innate ideas”, or ideas you were born with.
You might find these sorts of disputes quaint, or not so quaint, simply irrelevant.
But they’re not.
Linguistic Analysts of recent decades still think that all we can “know” boils down to language, and the rest is, well, something that mystics worry about.
You might think that scientists would be the greatest believers in reality, or common sense; well, what about nuclear physics, particle theory, etc….when was the last time you saw a “quark” or some other sub-atomic particle?
Or, consider the ongoing, seemingly intractable disputes between religious fundamentalists and those who consider themselves more “open” to multiple realities, Biblical criticism, etc. The problem for fundamentalists is NOT convincing others of “miracles”…in fact, their insistence is the opposite. Their obsession is and must be proving that all their beliefs can be proven in material fashion so that it can be common sense reality, empirically able to test and prove. If they can make that case, then, they can say that their religious outlook is “true” and cannot be disproven. What does that need do for mysticism, that root of all religion? Such materialism, such an insistence on material, “objective” reality kills mysticism, that most subjective impulse.
Social control in totalitarian regimes, whether religious or secular, depends on just that, the control of reality for a populace at large.
Stay tuned.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Scrabble
Scrabble
I am blessed with, as my sons would term it, a “ridiculous” vocabulary, so much so, that my wife accuses me of making words up. My wife’s “directness” (for which I love, admire, and prize her greatly) is an appropriate reminder that the bottom line in speech, whether speechmaking, speechwriting, or speech of any kind, is communication. The trick, of course, is knowing what to say, how to say it, and when to say it.
I have to admit that I’m a lousy scrabble player; vocabulary is meaningless in scrabble, utilization of letter capability to obtain the maximum point value…that relationship between letters and best possible use is the ballgame. A visual sense is the key to maximizing potential at every turn. I don’t have that spatial gift, so my verbal endowment doesn’t mean much. However, in my head, I play a mean game of “scrabble” in the widest sense. I do well on the conceptual boards that life presents me with at any given moment of every day.
I wasn’t always such a good player. I had the vocabulary in a superficial sense, but I didn’t “own” it. I played the game as a bystander, eager to impress others, not caring about context or communication.
That shallowness changed at college. My friends and classmates challenged me with their specificity, and I internalized the challenge; I take it up every day, looking for the right word. Plus, to let you in the big secret: I find that searching in the fraction of a second for the right word is one of the great delights of my life. Sometimes the right word is simple, sometimes the right word is complex. (By the way, just to set the record straight, polysyllabics are NOT those who practice having more than one spouse at a time.)
The major change at college occurred not only in terms of usage; it also occurred in terms of written style.
I abandoned adjectives, the passive voice, and the “one does this or one does that” mode of expression. I insisted on the declarative; after I left college and went into the corporate word, I learned just how dangerous the declarative is…it demands an unambiguous subject, a clear agent. People in business do not want to take responsibility, so the passive is a handy tool. “The numbers were given to me only last night.” Well, that action was late. Who gave them to you last night, and not two days ago? Or, dead agents become the subjects of declarative sentences, as when “The situation demands new leadership.” When was the last time a situation rose at a meeting after politely raising its hand and receiving recognition?
Speak clearly, not to impress, but to communicate. Play scrabble for your best speech: use the best letters and words you can to cover the board for maximum points.
Next time: “Reality”
Stay tuned.
I am blessed with, as my sons would term it, a “ridiculous” vocabulary, so much so, that my wife accuses me of making words up. My wife’s “directness” (for which I love, admire, and prize her greatly) is an appropriate reminder that the bottom line in speech, whether speechmaking, speechwriting, or speech of any kind, is communication. The trick, of course, is knowing what to say, how to say it, and when to say it.
I have to admit that I’m a lousy scrabble player; vocabulary is meaningless in scrabble, utilization of letter capability to obtain the maximum point value…that relationship between letters and best possible use is the ballgame. A visual sense is the key to maximizing potential at every turn. I don’t have that spatial gift, so my verbal endowment doesn’t mean much. However, in my head, I play a mean game of “scrabble” in the widest sense. I do well on the conceptual boards that life presents me with at any given moment of every day.
I wasn’t always such a good player. I had the vocabulary in a superficial sense, but I didn’t “own” it. I played the game as a bystander, eager to impress others, not caring about context or communication.
That shallowness changed at college. My friends and classmates challenged me with their specificity, and I internalized the challenge; I take it up every day, looking for the right word. Plus, to let you in the big secret: I find that searching in the fraction of a second for the right word is one of the great delights of my life. Sometimes the right word is simple, sometimes the right word is complex. (By the way, just to set the record straight, polysyllabics are NOT those who practice having more than one spouse at a time.)
The major change at college occurred not only in terms of usage; it also occurred in terms of written style.
I abandoned adjectives, the passive voice, and the “one does this or one does that” mode of expression. I insisted on the declarative; after I left college and went into the corporate word, I learned just how dangerous the declarative is…it demands an unambiguous subject, a clear agent. People in business do not want to take responsibility, so the passive is a handy tool. “The numbers were given to me only last night.” Well, that action was late. Who gave them to you last night, and not two days ago? Or, dead agents become the subjects of declarative sentences, as when “The situation demands new leadership.” When was the last time a situation rose at a meeting after politely raising its hand and receiving recognition?
Speak clearly, not to impress, but to communicate. Play scrabble for your best speech: use the best letters and words you can to cover the board for maximum points.
Next time: “Reality”
Stay tuned.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Earliest Images
Now that one chapter in our national political narrative is over, I’m going to make this blog broader, deeper, and more personal.
Like many people, now that the national narrative (an episode, at least), has ended, and our vicarious thrill and/or defeat has occurred, I’m returning to something more internal.
In the interests of full disclosure and full advice to those who consider speech and speechwriting essential, I’m going to work with my personal narrative and tell my faithful few readers about my dialogue with words since the beginning.
My earliest memories of my experiences with words vary. Some are episodic and good for the occasional anecdote, “breaking the ice at parties" material, while others form their own rooms in the verbal house I’ve constructed.
Some anecdotes…
At the age of four, falling in love with a particular phrase on a family vacation, “I wouldn’t say that”, and, I am sure, reaching the heights of the obnoxious.
At the age of six, cursing (I don’t remember the actual words) the siren (I don’t know what it ever did to me; it was just there) with some of my friends from the apparent safety of a tunnel in the spillway of a creek in our little town. My oldest brother, may he rest in peace, came to collect me so that I could come home and receive some punishment.
At the age of about ten, riding a bike down to a spot near that spillway, saying proudly to one of my friends, “Fancy meeting you here!”, then promptly hitting a mud puddle and wiping out. I doubt I ever rode a bike again.
As a sophomore in college, at a friend’s suite for dinner, gulping down some wine because we were in a hurry to see the movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”, and getting slightly inebriated. As a result, I whispered repeatedly, “That Katherine Ross, what a piece!” to the endless amusement of my friends, because I had the reputation of a straight arrow.
The more fundamental associations: Psalm settings and biblical imagery in general, famines, thirsts, deserts, sheep, all these hot and dry elements juxtaposed against the often cold and snowy reality of the upstate New York hamlet where we lived.
Probably the most striking verbal images had to do with the speech of North American Indians, particularly those in the Northeast. I became quite an expert, at an early age on the Algonquins and Iroquois of New York, and New England, part of my fascination had to do with the rich and fundamental vocabulary of these tribes. The biggest impediment to the forming of the League of the Iroquois was the Onondaga wizard, Atotarho, a sorcerer so terrifying that his hair teemed with snakes. When the great orator Hiawatha, (“He Who Combs”), along with the inspirational genius behind the League’s forming, Dekanawidah, persuaded Atotarho to lend his support to the forming of the league, Hiawatha combed the snakes from Atotarho’s hair. In parallel, Prophetic terms, Hiawatha “made the crooked straight”.
Tribal imagery was immediate and concrete. While white authorities relied on their notion of exploration, treaty, precedent to buttress land claims, the Iroquois proclaimed that they “sprang from the ground”.
And the loss of land became the most descriptive and heart-rending: “We barely have the place to spread our blankets.” Amazing how poverty's descriptions provide the richest images...
Next time: language and learning. Stay tuned.
Like many people, now that the national narrative (an episode, at least), has ended, and our vicarious thrill and/or defeat has occurred, I’m returning to something more internal.
In the interests of full disclosure and full advice to those who consider speech and speechwriting essential, I’m going to work with my personal narrative and tell my faithful few readers about my dialogue with words since the beginning.
My earliest memories of my experiences with words vary. Some are episodic and good for the occasional anecdote, “breaking the ice at parties" material, while others form their own rooms in the verbal house I’ve constructed.
Some anecdotes…
At the age of four, falling in love with a particular phrase on a family vacation, “I wouldn’t say that”, and, I am sure, reaching the heights of the obnoxious.
At the age of six, cursing (I don’t remember the actual words) the siren (I don’t know what it ever did to me; it was just there) with some of my friends from the apparent safety of a tunnel in the spillway of a creek in our little town. My oldest brother, may he rest in peace, came to collect me so that I could come home and receive some punishment.
At the age of about ten, riding a bike down to a spot near that spillway, saying proudly to one of my friends, “Fancy meeting you here!”, then promptly hitting a mud puddle and wiping out. I doubt I ever rode a bike again.
As a sophomore in college, at a friend’s suite for dinner, gulping down some wine because we were in a hurry to see the movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”, and getting slightly inebriated. As a result, I whispered repeatedly, “That Katherine Ross, what a piece!” to the endless amusement of my friends, because I had the reputation of a straight arrow.
The more fundamental associations: Psalm settings and biblical imagery in general, famines, thirsts, deserts, sheep, all these hot and dry elements juxtaposed against the often cold and snowy reality of the upstate New York hamlet where we lived.
Probably the most striking verbal images had to do with the speech of North American Indians, particularly those in the Northeast. I became quite an expert, at an early age on the Algonquins and Iroquois of New York, and New England, part of my fascination had to do with the rich and fundamental vocabulary of these tribes. The biggest impediment to the forming of the League of the Iroquois was the Onondaga wizard, Atotarho, a sorcerer so terrifying that his hair teemed with snakes. When the great orator Hiawatha, (“He Who Combs”), along with the inspirational genius behind the League’s forming, Dekanawidah, persuaded Atotarho to lend his support to the forming of the league, Hiawatha combed the snakes from Atotarho’s hair. In parallel, Prophetic terms, Hiawatha “made the crooked straight”.
Tribal imagery was immediate and concrete. While white authorities relied on their notion of exploration, treaty, precedent to buttress land claims, the Iroquois proclaimed that they “sprang from the ground”.
And the loss of land became the most descriptive and heart-rending: “We barely have the place to spread our blankets.” Amazing how poverty's descriptions provide the richest images...
Next time: language and learning. Stay tuned.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Victory and Defeat
It happened quickly, considering how long the whole process had gone on.
By election night at 11:00 EST, someone had won, and someone had lost.
Barack Obama's victory speech, as elegant as it was, paled against the reactions of an expectant and moved crowd, from small children, college students, and young adults, to veterans of many political and social battles, like Jesse Jackson.
"Yes, we can," became the coda as the curtain came down on the Obama campaign, and the curtain went up on the Obama Administration.
John McCain was gracious in defeat, calling for unity and solidarity with the majority's choice.
What do we take away from all that we have witnessed over the past couple of years?
Dismissing someone as only an "orator" or "talker" isn't necessarily an effective campaign tool.
Neither is utilizing those labels as if they negate and compromise capacity for action.
Words matter.
Let's consider this in the posts and polls and passions ahead.
Stay tuned.
By election night at 11:00 EST, someone had won, and someone had lost.
Barack Obama's victory speech, as elegant as it was, paled against the reactions of an expectant and moved crowd, from small children, college students, and young adults, to veterans of many political and social battles, like Jesse Jackson.
"Yes, we can," became the coda as the curtain came down on the Obama campaign, and the curtain went up on the Obama Administration.
John McCain was gracious in defeat, calling for unity and solidarity with the majority's choice.
What do we take away from all that we have witnessed over the past couple of years?
Dismissing someone as only an "orator" or "talker" isn't necessarily an effective campaign tool.
Neither is utilizing those labels as if they negate and compromise capacity for action.
Words matter.
Let's consider this in the posts and polls and passions ahead.
Stay tuned.
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