Wednesday, July 1, 2020
Complex Speeches to "Plain Language" Speeches
In the chapter “The Typographic Mind” of Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, by Neil Postman, Postman talks about the Lincoln-Douglas debates back in the 19th century. The debates would last for many hours; Douglas providing his views, Lincoln then states his counterarguments, and then back to Douglas. In fact, one time Lincoln told his audience to go have dinner, go home, and be refreshed for the continuation of the debate because it had already been three hours with probably a few more to come. The speeches were also full of very complex sentences and would be very hard to follow. Postman brought it to our attention that if someone in our society today that spoke like Lincoln or Douglas ran for president, people would not have the attention span nor the reason and analyzing abilities to sit through their speeches. The speeches back then were all talk as well; no pictures, no ads. Just talk. The concentration of today’s society would not be able to keep up with the very elaborate speeches of the literate America of the 1800's. People today, of the television culture, need simple, understandable speeches; Postman calls it “plain language.” This got me thinking, even though few would completely understand a modern-Lincoln presidential candidate, would they still vote for them because they seem smart? I feel like today’s society would listen to the way they talk and just assume that they are very intelligent and would be fit for president, without really elaborating on anything he said. Or, on the contrary, would they be out in the first round because nobody wants to deal with listening to their intricate speeches? In either situation, people are short minded and do not have the ability to reason as well as we used to a couple hundred years ago.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Society today people don't have the attention span to listen for hours of a debate. As a society today many people have a lot of things going on in there life and many just don't have the time. If there were modern Lincoln presidential candidates I feel that some people would just vote for them because they think they are smart. However debates that Lincoln had could also challenge people to a more complex speech. Many people don't really dive deep into what people truly say and try to understand. A lot of people in society today want more straight to the point speeches rather than to use poetic and complex vocabulary. Television has also played a role in how we see speeches and debates. Many people can't sit on their couch and watch for three hours on end.
ReplyDeleteI believe that people of Lincoln's era had more of an attention span because there wasn't anything else to take their focus away. For example, in Lincoln's era, there were no distractions from cellphones and other electronic devices and people actually cared enough to listen to these debates. However overtime, more distractions were created causing people to be less likely to understand and listen when someone is speaking for longer than 30 minutes. When someone is running for president or any other position that is critical to the country, people don’t want to listen to what they have to say about the whole situation rather they sign a paper and hope that this person that they just elected is the best one to run the country. Nowadays, people sign a ballet and when it doesn’t go their way with how the country is run, then everything goes downhill. The attention span between the 1800s and now has dramatically changed and I personally think it wasn't for the better.
ReplyDeleteI acknowledge your point of view, however, like Brandon mentioned, people today are much busier and simply do not have the time nor will to sit down and engage in long speeches in order to decide who to vote for in a presidential election. Not only are we busier, but our values are also different, so such speeches seem inconvenient and unnecessary. Throughout the book, Postman stresses how televised media has directly impacted public disclosure, but he often overlooks the fact that the invention of television was not an isolated event that alone changed all aspects of society. Despite its ability to in part change how we communicate, it was not the only thing that shaped how people today think. For that reason, people today should not be seen as dumber or less capable of choosing a good president because with less time engaged in exaggerated conversation, society has been able to evolve all around.
ReplyDeleteAlthough many people may be unsatisfied with our current president elect, bad and unpopular presidents have been a reoccurring thing throughout US history. No speech, regardless of length, can ensure that the president-elect will be favorable. People are not less capable of reason because of television but simply have more things to devote their attention to than listening to the speeches of others, and this has made people today more independent minded than people before.