Reading: The Cause of Cultural Demise

Well, you asked for it. Sort of.

I am reading a fabulous book, a book anyone who is interested in teaching writing using Classical Writing, or in the analysis of what makes a speech great enough to move a nation, or in Lincoln per se should read. It is called _Lincoln's Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural_, by Ronald C. White. The author spoke at our church a while back, and said that he wanted to call the book _Lincoln's Sermon on the Mount_ but was overruled by publishers. Anyone who wants to understand how to analyze a speech, or this speech in particular, should read this book.

On page 71, the author talks about the art of oratory, how it was used and regarded in Lincoln's time (and probably most of the time before his time). He talks about how an orator had to have a *real* audience in mind, one which would challenge his words and ideas, and how this sharpened both his thinking and presentation and the audience's critical reception of it. The author quotes a critic contemporary to Lincoln, who calls the 19th Century in America "The Golden Age of Oratory". The critic, one Edward Griffin Parker, did not mention Lincoln by name. In his writings, he laments an age fast disappearing. He said that "the age of heroes is over, and the age for their statues has come. The jubilant age of the Republic is drawing to a close." He said we are left with a "brazen age...when sordid, calculating interest, rather than conscious merit dares to run after renown." (He didn't know the half of it--can you say "Hollywood"?) Parker suggested that the demise of oratory aids and abets this larger cultural demise.

Continuing to quote: "Most intriguing is Parker's suggestion as to a major cause for the decline of oratory: reading. 'The eyes in a measure supercede the ears.' Why was reading the culprit? 'The press carries the day against forum, tribune and government.' Parker's analysis, in comparing reading with speaking, was more than simply the view of an old fogy. The reality of change in antebellum America from a society of small, independent communities to a mass society was that a thousand people might hear the orator but tens of thousands would read the speech. The result might be a split verdict: 'If the speech reads well, the verdict of the readers altogether outvotes those of the hearers.'"

The book continues: "Parker anticipated the work of later rhetorical criticism when he observed that the shift from the spoken to the written word was 'shifting the real (audience) for the ideal (audience).' In the spoken word, the speaker must at every moment be conscious of a specific audience. One of Lincoln's strengths as a speaker was his ability to adjust and amend his remarks in response to the questions and concerns expressed by a live audience. In the written word, the real audience becomes an ideal audience. This audience does not ask questions and does not speak back."

There is a lot more in here to interest the classical educator. But does not Mr. Parker seem prescient? What say you to the charge? Let me be generous and assume that the average person--the kind of person who listened to what Lincoln had to say in his time--reads an entire speech by our current president. (Let us assume he can even find the complete text, these days--which he can with internet access, but not in the press...) What percentage of modern readers will attempt the reading? And the reading attempted, what percent are able to ask meaningful questions *and listen to the answers*? Are not most stump speeches--and I don't even have to get into the party system here or the Great Divide in American Politics--delivered to be read, not heard? But the hearers are cheated, because hardly anyone reads the speeches anyway. And without having to think, or bear the responsibility for responding to a political position in a face-to-face manner, have we not indeed become more polarized?

This book is fabulous. It's wonderful as history, as analysis, and as criticism. Get it and read it, if you are attempting a classical education for your children. This is what your end result could be!