Yesterday we established that New Yorker writer Ezra Klein's four-thousand-word observation that individual presidential speeches don't change the world was little more than a magnificent grasp of the obvious.
Today, let's be a little more generous to Klein, who was only reporting the "insights" of a George Edwards, director of the Center for Presidential Studies at Texas A&M University. "Like many political scientists, Edwards is an empiricist," Klein writes. "He deals in numbers and tables and charts …."
Propeller Headwards once delivered a presentation titled, "Presidential Rhetoric: What Difference Does It Make?" In it, he made a study of President Reagan's rhetoric, and found that it wasn't Reagan's speeches that convinced everyone that tax cuts were a good idea. No, Reagan was merely the beneficiary of trends in public opinion, "rather than their instigator."
"As one could imagine," Klein quotes Edwards as writing, "I was a big hit with the auditorium full of dedicated scholars of rhetoric."
Now it may be true that rhetoric scholars make unsupportable claims about the wonders that rhetoric can work. I don't know. I drink with practitioners of rhetoric, who can and must keep things in perspective, if only to manage the expectations of their client.
In fact, among speechwriters and other professional communicators, the problem isn't their overestimation of the power of rhetoric, but that of their clients, who need to be reminded endlessly that their having said a thing doesn't equal the audience having heard it, let alone believed it.
"Edwards' views are no longer considered radical in political-science circles, in part because he has marshalled so much evidence in support of them."
But mostly, I reckon, because he has presented such "evidence" as a flash of blinding insight—and gotten a fancy New Yorker writer to do the same.
They can't fool us. But their ability to impress others—at least, the editors of The New Yorker—should teach us something about how people misperceive the purpose and the power of speeches and other communication.
But what? I'll think about that tonight and get back to you in the morning.
“Propeller headwards once deliver a presentation”
I do like the new English.
OK, fixed “deliver,” left Headwards.
Occasionally, when writing for a top public or private leader, the speech is the first-instance medium for making policy. That’s one of the real rewards in this racket -influencing the exercise of power for a greater good.
Yes, Emerson, OCCASIONALLY. I was just telling somebody at the Speechwriters Conference (over my fourth Johnny Walker) that despite being editor of Vital Speeches of the Day, I’m not any more interested than the man on the moon in 99% of speeches delivered.
It’s that one percent, where the speaker and the message and the audience and the occasion meet to truly interact some business … them’s the speeches that I live for–and that you write for.
Baseball players do well if they get on base a third of the time. For speechwriters, a good batting percentage is .010.
Schadenfreude. Hesitated between “headwards” and “headwords”. Gave you the benefit of the doubt.