anarchonomicon.substack.com
A piece I wrote on one of the most fascinating and incredible thriftstore finds I've ever stumbled upon.
The Edwardians and Victorians were not like us, they believed in a nobility of their political class that's almost impossible to understand or relate to, and that believe, that attribution of nobility is tied up with something even more mysterious: their belief in the fundamental nobility of rhetoric.
Still not sure entirely how I feel about this, or how sure I am of my conclusions but this has had me spellbound in fascination and so I wrote about it.
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Notes -
Your posts often have an effect where they play fast and loose with facts in service to some vibe or message. The message is often good, but there's a sense of being intentionally averse to things like 'analysis of opposing viewpoints' or 'ways in which I might be wrong' because that's not with the vibe. That, generally, weakens your position, because the vibe you're trying to give off may be wrong, or confused, in meaningful ways, and contradictory facts illuminate those.
It's arguable that oratory has declined not due to a loss of "vital spirits", but due to ... modern media. The speech connects the politician's visceral voice and, often, appearance to his constituents, which is very appealing when the alternative is the telephone game or pamphlets. But when one can produce videos splicing your words with weak moments of your opponents, animations, videos of real-world events, the medium of a clearly-delineated 'oration' will declin simply because it has competition.
Politicians today still give speeches - some people even cried at ... Adam Kinzinger's ... moving words. Obama's "well spoken" and, i guess, reasonably competent speeches were often praised as moving, compelling, causing goosebumps or tears! obama speeches.
There's also the obvious - you're comparing the best of the past to the mediocrity of the present. You note how most politicians are unsurprising, and stick to common themes, ... while Hitler and Napoleon broke new ground? Did Hitler and Napoleon's thousands of political contemporaries, a few decades past and future, all do the same? Is mathematics in decline because professors at community colleges aren't as accomplished as Einstein or Erdos?
And here's the usual equivocation between 'complex dynamics and confusions lead to bad things, in ways entangled with existing power structures and media' and 'the all-powerful enemy is intentionally destroying truth, beauty, and love because they hate you'.
I think there's something significant to the decline of oration - both the text, and vocal intonation. I'm not sure your post really gets at what, or why, it did though.
I am not sure it's a good example, as Obama is practically a religious figure to many, they'd be in tears if he read the yellow pages. The question is, in a hundred years, which of Obama speeches would they study in high school as an example of rhetoric brilliance? I'd go for "none of them".
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