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"Traits of the Greats"
Most speeches, the vast majority, are instantly forgettable. But some speeches really do change the world. They endure, inspiring new generations of speakers and thinkers. How? Well, a number of ways. Great speeches may capture a moment in time. Some visionary comments move a debate or a nation forward. Landmark speeches articulate important ideas. And some great speeches touch the heart with authentic humanity, often expressing appropriate joy or grief. These speeches stand apart. They are worthy of comment and acute examination. Great speeches have historical value, becoming a referential benchmark. Great speeches are examples of what can be done when the right words are expressed at a crucial moment. So I applaud those who remind us of the power of public speaking. For example, over a two week period in July 2007, the Guardian generously offered fourteen of the greatest speeches of the 20th Century in booklet form. These speeches are now online at http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/series/greatspeeches. In July of 2008, the Independent ranked the 25 greatest political speeches of all time at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/barackobama/2446608/%20Top-25-political-speeches-of-all-time.html. These rankings reproduce the words themselves, and offer short biographical background of the speakers and the history behind the events. But we should do more to examine the techniques or traits that made the speech memorable. Great speeches achieve a sort of immortality because they change the course of history. We can see how they do this through identification of common elements. Here are a few Traits of the Greats. 1. Vision. Great speeches almost always have a vision of the future. They compare a known present with a possible future. Those that persuasively articulate a better future help people visualize, then actualize, change. One of the most famous examples is Ronald Reagan’s constant reference to the “Shining City on the Hill,” a future where America remains a beacon of hope for the world. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., had a dream he shared with others: “With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.” Margaret Thatcher spoke at Brighton in 1975 of freedom of choice and personal fulfillment: “Let me give you my vision: a man’s right to work as he will, to spend what he earns, to own property, to have the State as servant and not as master – these are the British inheritance.” When George Herbert Walker Bush was criticized for not having a vision, the “vision thing” became more than an issue. Its absence was fatal. 2. Conviction. Great speakers believe in their vision. President Kennedy said “We will pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” That is conviction. Prime Minister Thatcher said “The lady’s not for turning.” That is what conviction sounds like. There is no doubt, just confident articulation of direction and purpose. Conviction is not to be confused with stubbornness or short-sightedness. 3. Hope. President Reagan instructed his speechwriters to make his words uplifting, to give people hope, to help them believe that the future could be better. Time and again, audiences identify with those who offer a positive message of hope. One of the most stunning examples was by Pope John Paul II in Czetochowa in 1983, when he spoke to the large audience in a kind of code, comparing Our Lady of Jasna Gora to Poland itself: “You who have been given to us by Providence for the defense of the Polish nation, accept this evening this call of the Polish youth together with this Polish Pope, and help us to persevere in hope!” Remember the idealistic hope offered by Woodrow Wilson in fighting for America’s involvement in the League of Nations. Tony Blair spoke with a strong emphasis on hope and empowerment in his speeches. So did Barak Obama in his presidential campaign. 4. Unity. Great speeches heal division. Great speeches unite. They use the power of speech as action. Speeches that fragment the audience with the words of class warfare, the use of economic or ethnic division, or enflame an audience with vile hatred are dangerous and ultimately self-defeating. Such an approach does not win elections anymore in American politics and it is certainly not sustainable in an 21st Century election in the United Kingdom. Nelson Mandela understood this when he said in his inaugural address in 1994 that “We must therefore act together as a united people, for national reconciliation, for nation building, for the birth of a new world.” That language contains the inclusion and respect that flows from unifying words. In my mind, the template for healing division is a phrase once used by the Oxford philosopher Derek Parfit: “What we together do.” Every great speech is about what we could do together – all of us. No one can be expendable. No one can, or should, be left out. 5. Collective assent. Great speeches make the speaker the “voice of collective assent.” This means that the speaker gives voice to the hopes, aspirations, and dreams of the audience, becoming the oracle of the words that others would say, if they could. I believe this is the underlying greatness of Pericles “Funeral Oration” or Abraham Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address” or President Mandela’s wonderful inaugural address. Collective assent can happen even with a hostile crowd. If you listen to a tape of Neil Kinnock’s remarks at Bournemouth in 1985, you can actually hear that audience’s affirmation when he says “You can’t play politics with people’s jobs and with people’s services or with their homes.” He becomes one with, in his own words, “The voice of the real people with real needs.” In the dark hours of May 1940, Winston Churchill did become the voice of the people in the “Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat” speech or later in June of that year, when he rallied the nation for the Battle of Britain, predicting this would be “Their finest hour.” 6. Principle. Great speeches advocate equality, dignity and respect. They stand for moral purpose and embody moral clarity. There is a feeling expressed among certain historians that a great speech can emerge from even the most difficult situations, if the remarks are grounded in universal principles. Time and circumstance change, but the principles remain. A profound, moving example of this use of morality and articulation of rights is the speech Vaclav Havel gave on New Year’s Day in 1990. Contrasting the climate of lies and violence under communism in Czechoslovakia with the expectations of a society ruled by law and respect for human rights, he spoke of the need for truth in speech, of the need to create a “moral atmosphere,” of a country that emphasized responsibility, freedom, and democracy. And that speech had a unifying theme of moral conduct, overtly referencing two great figures in Czech history: Tomas Masaryk and Comenius. 7. Action. Great speeches inspire action. Probably no one did this more effectively than Theodore Roosevelt. His speeches about “The Strenuous Life” or the “Man in the Arena” are models about personal responsibility and political participation. Roosevelt argued that each person could make a difference, but he or she had to try, to take a risk, to enter the arena and work for the betterment of others. That action can be non-violence, as articulated by Mahatma Gandhi, educator and theologian Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays, or his Morehouse College student, Dr. King. The power of action is part of Robert Kennedy’s moving speech at the University of Capetown in 1966: “Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.” 8. Compress the message. All great speeches are known by a phrase that condenses the message and the entire argument of the speech. In 1953, Kwame Nkrumah spoke of Ghana’s liberation as “The motion of destiny.” John Kennedy’s “Ich bin ein Berliner’ is a fantastic display of one sentence expressing the whole point of the speech. Earl Spencer’s comment about Princess Diana as “The most hunted person of the modern age” abbreviates the speech in a haunting sentence. And we can’t forget Reagan’s demand in 1987, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” These elements of great speeches deserve notice. They are an important part of what makes a speech memorable. While they have a sort of immortality, great speeches are human creations, the product of the speakers and their writers, a skillful triumph over cliche and dreary prose. We remember them because they will not let us forget. Great speeches demand to be heard. And, as current interest in these speeches demonstrates, we still seem to be listening. ####
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