The decline of political rhetorical style
The folks here decided to do an analysis of presidential speeches over time:
Using the Flesch-Kincaid readability test””the most well-known reading comprehension algorithm””Vocativ analyzed over 600 presidential speeches, going back to George Washington. We measured syllables along with word and sentence counts, and gave each speech a numerical grade. For instance, a grade of four means the content is accessible to a fourth-grader, while a grade of 12 corresponds to that of a high school graduate, a 15 to that of a college graduate and a 21 or higher to that of a PhD.
They found that speeches have grown less sophisticated over time, and that “despite President George W. Bush’s reputation as a poor speaker, Obama’s speeches are only slightly more sophisticated.”
I think that, although the language of Obama’s speeches may (accent on the “may”) be a bit more sophisticated and—er—nuanced—than that of Bush’s, the thoughts expressed in Obama’s speeches are less sophisticated, really remarkably so.
The study didn’t mention frequency of lies, either. We’re talking style here.
I found this comment very interesting:
It’s tempting to read this [trend over time] as a dumbing down of the bully pulpit,” Shesol explains. “But it’s actually a sign of democratization. In the early Republic, presidents could assume that they were speaking to audiences made up mostly of men like themselves: educated, civic-minded landowners. These, of course, were the only Americans with the right to vote. But over time, the franchise expanded and presidential appeals had to reach a broader audience.”
Maybe. But if that’s true, it’s definitely not just due to that. I’ve noticed that the level of discourse in general—not just of educated, civic-minded landowner men—used to be much higher. Look at letters, including letters from women, from the past. Look at plays, such as the plays of Shakespeare, which were meant to be understood and enjoyed not just by the educated but by the groundlings. Nowadays, most people can’t follow them, even with the CliffsNotes.
Take the quiz at WaPo.com comparing Gwenyth Paltrow’s GOOP with Obama’s speeches.
I got 3/8 correct.
“In 1940, teachers were asked what they regarded as the three major problems in American schools. They identified the three major problems as: Littering, noise, and chewing gum. Teachers last year were asked what the three major problems in American schools were, and they defined them as: Rape, assault, and suicide.” William Bennett
Anyone who doubts the dumbing down of the American public is either not paying attention and thus speaking out of ignorance or a liar.
Of course, the dumbing down of the public is one of the main stratagems of the left.
Read the Lincoln-Douglas debates. The debates were in front of local farmers and towns people in Illinois.
http://lincoln-douglasdebates.weebly.com/transcripts.html.
I assume that they used the official versions of speeches and not a true transcript of what was spoken.
I cringe every time Obama speaks because I cannot stand the “ahs”, “ums” and the “let me be clear” phrases. I also dislike the rambling long sentences which would be a pain to diagram.
Do they even diagram sentences in English classes?
Looking through the speeches given by FDR, I was struck by about how uncompromising his speechwriters were in their choice of words vs. those used in today’s contemporary speeches; back then they did not “dumb them down. ”
FDR’s speech writers obviously expected that the audiences they wrote for–supposedly, on average, far less “educated,” “sophisticated,” and “aware” than those of today–could, nonetheless, keep up, and understand the sometimes complex and sophisticated ideas they were trying to communicate to them.
So, they chose words that were sophisticated and by today’s standards “difficult,” and they met with great success in doing so.
Whatever you think of FDR–and the more I’ve learned about him the less I like him–his very often quite sophisticated speeches, rich in vocabulary, ideas, and meaning, were head and shoulders above the kinds of political speeches given today.
I think that is a sign that today’s audience has changed, and despite its paper credentials testifying to its supposedly advanced levels of education, has become less truly “educated, ” possessing far less solid knowledge, and far fewer of the analytical tools that Roosevelt’s largely high school educated audiences had and obviously employed in daily life.
Me and mine have not changed and we are not dumbed down. And we, as an extended family, are tribal in the sense that we feel family is the most important focus of loyalty and mutual support. Family, assuming it is cohesive, is more important than nebulous concepts like loyalty to the nation state. The government will arbitrarily grind people like my family into dust without any concern for the ‘rule rule of law’. We no longer live under the umbrella of the rule of law. We live at the whim of lazy but ruthless men/women. Color me godfather, but I believe in my family and friends beyond any other construct.
I’m far from a professional writer, but in all my daze I was taught that the most effective form of writing was to get to the point, using more common words whenever they would suffice.
The absolute worst writing I’ve ever encountered was in a psychology text book. It was written in PC style — over forty-years ago.
It was as if Jackson Pollak had been its author, for the word sausage had been stepped onto the page.
I would’ve hated to have parsed even a paragraph. Its logical arguments went go up and down — then back and forth — before hitting a period. Linguistic vapors, if you will. It would score very, very, high on ‘sophistication’ – if that means jargon.
I had to drop the course then and there. There was no there, there.
&&&
I wonder how Daniel Greenfield or Mark Steyn would score?
I was shocked when talking to the person who is now my ex-wife, who is from France and possessed what I understood to be more or less a master’s degree in lliterature — how little she had read. I had read a translated paper of hers, which certainly “talked the talk” in terms of Deleuze, Foucault and so on, and she at least knew the names of Bataille and Blanchot, but insofar as actually having read the novels which comprise world literature — or having any curiosity about reading all that she had not yet read — nothing, nada, rien.
It’s like those (and there are many) who read the 500 word review in the New York Times and then imagine forever ever that they’ve read the book or seen the film, seen the painting, etc.
We have the scribes, and the pharoah consults the scribes.
Not sure if this is directly on-topic or not. It seems related.
I was born in New York but all of my elementary schooling was in Puerto Rico. When I returned to New York, I having yet to complete the 6th Grade I was enrolled in one of New York City’s many bi-lingual schools.
English became my second language, this was a problem early on, but on the other subjects I soon found out that I was well ahead of the other students.
As I became more and more proficient in the language, I was shock as how infantile was the language the teacher used in her lessons. The use of slang and general colloquialisms was a changed from the academic language that I was used to in my simple rural school in Puerto Rico.
It appeared to me that the words I was learning using my 1905 World Encyclopedia that my aunt had purchased to assist me in my learning were now obsolete. Things have gotten progressively worse in time.
P.S.–And I have written here before, one major line of attack in Antonio Gramsci and the Left’s “march through the institutions” was the general paring down and dumbing down of K-12 and College curriculums (why do you think Bill Ayers went into the field of teacher education and curriculum formulation?)–as over the decades subjects, approaches, and topics were jettisoned, and replaced with disinformation, useless twaddle, and skepticism about and hatred of our country and its history.
This was not an accident, but a deliberate plan, carried out under the guise of “progress” and supposedly with the best of intentions, with its goal to create a citizenry that–progressively deprived of the knowledge, thought processes, standards, behaviors, and the analytical tools that past generations were routinely taught–would be much more pliable, more easily duped, and led.
Liz – I’m glad to hear that “let me be clear” bothers other folks too. However, it is one of his “tells.” That is you know he is about to tell a big fat lie.
And, no, they don’t diagram sentences in English class any more. They stopped that decades ago.
Getting back to Presidential speeches, I like Eisenhower’s farewell address from 1961.
It’s only 15 minutes long, and it’s worth watching the whole thing. This speech is best known for his warning about the influence of the military-industrial complex, but of equal or greater importance is the passage immediately following, about the danger of government control of funding for scientific research. (Global warming, anyone?)
But beyond that, I was struck by how he spoke to the audience as mature, intelligent adults. He talked about challenges facing the nation and our governing traditions, without resorting to cheap sound bites. He clearly had respect for the American people, and didn’t talk down to them. I can’t imagine a modern politician of either party giving a speech like this today.
Obama is smart guy. Got big brain. Talks to me in his speech- makes me feel smart like him. Why I vote for him.
Whatever you think of FDR—and the more I’ve learned about him the less I like him—his very often quite sophisticated speeches, rich in vocabulary, ideas, and meaning, were head and shoulders above the kinds of political speeches given today.
FDR was talking to free citizens. Not merely slaves and wards of the state, as it now exists.
To convince free citizens that they need to rely on the gov in a war or that the gov should even be in a war, takes a different caliber of persuasion than the denizens of DC now a days.
Last year I reread “A Tale of Two Cities” for the first time since childhood, and was shocked at how difficult it was to immerse myself in the book — the syntax seemed to obtrude whereas previously I had been swept along with the plot, rushing downstream. I chalked it up to google-brain.
This year, forewarned as I was before embarking on “Middlemarch”, I was still awestruck by the immense subtlety and intelligence contained in Eliot’s prose. I — we? — are probably more stupid than the Victorians, certainly more superficial.
I started blogging in 2002, and I have freelanced now and then for three local newspapers. (The former means I have written a lot for free; the latter, that I’ve actually been paid to write.) But I have been a bibliophile and voracious reader since childhood.
I have two observations to contribute to the discussion.
First, the most intelligent persons who are the best writers can write plainly and simply so just about anybody can understand them.
Second, writing plainly and simply is awfully hard to do.
Whether these observations are really pertinent or significant… I don’t know.
The witticism and flexibility of English for formulating exact thoughts have been downgraded by PC or aka EngSoc.
But what replaced it was the kind of pseudo intellectualism found amongst the Brights, Born to Rule DC pols, and the Ruling Class. It’s a language designed specifically to support religious thoughts dogmatic to the Leftist cult.
Translating various thoughts from English to Japanese and vice a versa, it is quite obvious English has been crippled, even though the specificity and vocabulary are far stronger than the Japanese art of words.
There are literally concepts and visualizations which are missing from the English language and use, even though the words are there to define such things. They just aren’t organized because nobody uses them together or thinks of them. Language as thought control there.
Normally a pacifist culture shouldn’t have too many words for war, since the concept shouldn’t be massaged or thought about by the populace too much to need that many distinctions and common usages. But in English, there should be concepts derived from hierarchy and social tradition, but they no longer exist to such a degree that people can no longer describe the problem the Left is causing in marriage or social harmony. They can describe the problem’s consequences, but they cannot describe the actual poison or function used to destroy.
The Left’s true power isn’t politics or the law, but mind control. And they have done an amazing job with certain Western civilizations.