What, I wondered, would today's audience of Americans, inured as so many seem to be to the free-wheeling scatological mouthplay, think of seeing those same words coming from our 16th president as he spoke of the North's impending victory over the South? What would the reaction be if they saw Roosevelt's words of "infamy" turned into mere memes of crude epithet and coarseness, branding the Japanese in terms we now seem eager to associate with...well, I still can't write that word here. What would (had I chosen two more presidents) John F. Kennedy's words of inspiration to go to the moon, or stand up to Khrushchev have looked like if I'd given him free reign to speak in today's "new normal" language? What would Ronald Reagan’s “shining city on a hill” or "Tear down this wall!" look like under the gauze of gutterspeak?
I tried to do it. I'm a good speechwriter with thousands of speeches and millions of words beneath my fingers. This self-imposed task to repurpose those speeches should have been a walk in the park to make the point that I don't like the new normal; that I just don't think crassness and earthy directness help anyone accomplish a higher goal, or speak to a greater good. So I tried. And when I saw on my screen what words I'd given those leaders, I was so shocked and saddened at the crude cleverness of my own work--at the subversion I'd achieved--I hit the delete key and let the electrons drift off into their indeterminate domain.
In this morning’s Washington Post, columnist Michael Gerson, on the topic “Trump’s ‘authenticity’ is merely moral laziness and cruelty,” writes:
There is little doubt in my mind that I am more inclined toward the Aristotelian world view than the free-will world view of Rousseau. I do believe there are reasons for self-limiting, self-critiquing, self-filtering, and self-editing that are crucial to our interactions in civil society. To me, reasoned language is a part of any civil social compact that seeks to bind, not differentiate, disparate points of view into rational argument and debate.
In this morning’s Washington Post, columnist Michael Gerson, on the topic “Trump’s ‘authenticity’ is merely moral laziness and cruelty,” writes:
“In any ethical system derived from Aristotle, human beings fulfill their nature by exercising their reason and habituating certain virtues, such as courage, temperance, honor, equanimity, truthfulness, justice and friendship. Authenticity — at least, authenticity defined as congruence with your unformed self — is not on the list. In fact, this view of ethics requires a kind of virtuous hypocrisy — modeling ourselves on a moral example, until, through action and habit, we come to embody that ideal. Ethical development is, in a certain way, theatrical. We play the role of someone we admire until we become someone worthy of admiration.
But there is a rival tradition. In any ethical tradition derived from Jean-Jacques Rousseau, authenticity is at the apex of the virtues. This view begins from the premise that man is born free but is everywhere in social chains. Being true to yourself, and expressing yourself freely, is seen as the chief requirement of a meaningful and happy life. In this system, the worst sin is hypocrisy — being untrue to your real self.”
There is little doubt in my mind that I am more inclined toward the Aristotelian world view than the free-will world view of Rousseau. I do believe there are reasons for self-limiting, self-critiquing, self-filtering, and self-editing that are crucial to our interactions in civil society. To me, reasoned language is a part of any civil social compact that seeks to bind, not differentiate, disparate points of view into rational argument and debate.
The Founders did not expect perfection, either among themselves or the people, writ large. They were often weak, indecisive, and, yes, profane men whose manifold sins of thought and flesh are cataloged in hundreds, if not thousands of biographies. And they were influenced in their time by philosophers like Rousseau, Hobbs, Locke, and Montesquieu, so they were well-aware of the conundrum of encouraging the creation of a civil and democratic society built on higher values than those which they and their fellow citizens demonstrated in their daily lives.
Despite their flawed characters, the Founders pushed on to write documents of great power and noble purpose without revealing their baser instincts through “authentic” speech. From the Declaration of Independence to the Federalist Papers to the Constitution itself, the beauty and unassailable clarity of the language those purpose-driven papers embody is the foundation upon which all leaders, with notable (and present) exceptions, have sought to inspire and assure the American people, in good times and in times of crisis.
I do not believe “authenticity” is an apex virtue if, by giving license to “authentic” behavior, today’s society means to give a pass to those who might otherwise be capable of making their points through sound explication of facts and reason. I had trouble re-writing Lincoln’s and FDR’s speeches using the increasingly normalized language of today’s authentic language not because I am prudish, but because I believe in the beauty of language and in the power of words, carefully chosen, deliberately spoken, to clarify, not obfuscate, to illuminate, not dim, to motivate, not incite.
There is no way the speeches of Lincoln, or the Roosevelts, or Kennedy, or Reagan, could ever be tailored to incorporate the base, or authentic, speech currently in vogue on the Hill, in the White House, and around the country. It is not a matter of their time, either; no man or woman who seeks high office and whose greatest aspiration is to lead us out of this divisive moment in history, will succeed in the future by resorting to socially-defined authenticity of speech. If they are to succeed at all, they will do so on well-chosen words reflecting the higher values of our American experience, supported by careful thought and comity, not the normalized words of lazy spontaneity and spitted venom.
So, I failed at my task. And I am glad I did. For when I hit the delete key, I turned to an old literary friend, William Faulkner, whose words in 1950, as he accepted the 1949 Nobel Prize for Literature, still inform my every personal goal. Let me share with you the last few paragraphs:
Despite their flawed characters, the Founders pushed on to write documents of great power and noble purpose without revealing their baser instincts through “authentic” speech. From the Declaration of Independence to the Federalist Papers to the Constitution itself, the beauty and unassailable clarity of the language those purpose-driven papers embody is the foundation upon which all leaders, with notable (and present) exceptions, have sought to inspire and assure the American people, in good times and in times of crisis.
I do not believe “authenticity” is an apex virtue if, by giving license to “authentic” behavior, today’s society means to give a pass to those who might otherwise be capable of making their points through sound explication of facts and reason. I had trouble re-writing Lincoln’s and FDR’s speeches using the increasingly normalized language of today’s authentic language not because I am prudish, but because I believe in the beauty of language and in the power of words, carefully chosen, deliberately spoken, to clarify, not obfuscate, to illuminate, not dim, to motivate, not incite.
There is no way the speeches of Lincoln, or the Roosevelts, or Kennedy, or Reagan, could ever be tailored to incorporate the base, or authentic, speech currently in vogue on the Hill, in the White House, and around the country. It is not a matter of their time, either; no man or woman who seeks high office and whose greatest aspiration is to lead us out of this divisive moment in history, will succeed in the future by resorting to socially-defined authenticity of speech. If they are to succeed at all, they will do so on well-chosen words reflecting the higher values of our American experience, supported by careful thought and comity, not the normalized words of lazy spontaneity and spitted venom.
So, I failed at my task. And I am glad I did. For when I hit the delete key, I turned to an old literary friend, William Faulkner, whose words in 1950, as he accepted the 1949 Nobel Prize for Literature, still inform my every personal goal. Let me share with you the last few paragraphs:
“I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last dingdong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking.
I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet’s, the writer’s, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.”
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