Seven hour debates? And he questions the readers in the time before information was the fastest, most concise, and most accessible it has ever been if they could handle that? How about today, does anyone have sufficient attention span in order to handle something like that? We live in our argument culture where a debate is more about who can come with an answer the fastest in place of who can come up with the best and most beneficial eloquently explained answer.
And on with the eloquence, it may seem like an okay idea for politicians to dumb down language of bills and amendments so the general public can understand, but why should the general public not smarten themselves up in order to understand the politicians more?
We are certainly a long way away from the time of the Lincoln-Douglas debates and it seems like we might only be getting farther. Attention spans and IQs at an all-time low do not necessarily bode well for a flourishing society.
--Jon
Yeah. The contrast is stark and unappealing. Seven hour debates. Hmmmmm. I'm not sure I could sustain attention for that long, even if I were really interested. But I'd feel embarrassed not to be able to. I know I'd love the sentences--complex, elegant, packed with embedded qualifications. I surely wish our society wished to smarten up. Part of the problem, I'm sure, is the level of cynicism that grows because of the all-too-evident buying of favors. I wonder how much of our inability to attend to complex issues is really an unwillingness to seem to be taken in by high-sounding rhetoric that doesn't match actions on the ground.
ReplyDeleteThat's a bit more cynical that I'll wish this comment sounded in four or five minutes.
Gordon C
does this work?
ReplyDeleteThis is Courtney. In talking about people not being able to speak eloquently I thought back on rehearsal for a Shakespearean play I did in high school. At rehearsal many of the actors couldn't even pronounce the words, much less know what they mean! Clearly, in today's society we don't speak in the same way, and for that I am thankful- at least when refering to Shakespeare. I think in today's society we are influenced greatly influenced by the media, and we learn how to speak from media and outside forces. When my nephew was born my brother insisted that we speak to the baby like an adult- no baby talk!!! We did our best to fulfill my brother's,and sure enough, when my nephew started speaking he didn't use any incomprehensible baby talk. People who listen to rap music tend to use the same words as the rappers. This goes for many things in media. I believe it is crucial to have a vast vocabulary, and the vocabulary we have can be largely attributed to the media we listen to.
ReplyDeleteI could not agree more! We live in a world of words and the more of them we have to deploy, the better off we are.
ReplyDeleteBaby talk, too. Same with my sons. No baby talk and I think they benefited. In indulged myself with each one, sort of prolonging (as long as I could) a mispronunciation. For "spaghetti" one guy said "subehgi" for awhile. It was so cute I wouldn't do what I usually would do: just use the word or verb tense or whatever was incorrect in my reply but pronounce it correctly. I never had to "correct" anything. The guys just started to absorb it. For instance, 'Hey Dad, I brang home that football." Me: "Great! You brought the football home?" Kind of overt, but it worked.
Imitation like that doesn't just have to do with diction (words themselves). It also has to do with sentence structure (syntax) and idea development. If your world of words includes well-written prose (or poetry), you'll talk and write better than those whose model is television, for instance.
Gordon C