Political speech today -- it's not Bobby Kennedy's America Because we're literally bathed in politicized speech, which is different than political speech, when rhetoric turns ugly, it seems as if it is all around us because in some sense it is. In former eras we were buffered by constraints of time and distance, which new media have erased.
The Internet has been a great enabler of incivility, not only because it so easily allows the anonymous or pseudonymous expression of the most violent or hurtful opinions but because it reinforces the illusion of a virtual world in which there is nothing but speech. Anyone with a laptop or a smart phone can engage in endless wrangling with the political figures they know only as broadcast images flickering across the video screen. In such an environment, there is no need for the restraint or civility that is an essential part of dealing with flesh-and-blood people or the actual consequences of a real world. Beyond the influence of technological change looms a substantive political uncertainty. Over the last quarter of a century, our politics have divided most contentiously over the so-called values issues — abortion, gay rights and same-sex marriage, for example. Though politics and values obviously intersect, the languages they speak are distinctly, and necessarily, different: Values do not admit compromise; politics, which is the prudent application of values in pursuit of the common good, requires compromise. It's important to recall that the way out of that deadly impasse was found not only in force of arms but in the ennobling and balanced wisdom of Abraham Lincoln's political rhetoric. And let's remember that the 1960s, when the country was racked by bitter divisions over war and civil rights and by far more violence than we now experience, also produced some of the wisest and most humane political speech in our history. Tom Hayden recently reminded me of this memorable passage from one of the speeches Bobby Kennedy gave in the hotly contested 1968 presidential primary campaign: "The gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans." Much would be accomplished if all who assume the responsibility that ought to accompany the impulse to speak publicly would keep the examples of Lincoln and Kennedy in mind, recalling that there is no necessary connection between bitter political rhetoric and hard and dangerous times. [email protected] -- http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jan/15/opinion/la-oe-rutten-rhetoric-20110115 Via InstaFetch -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Sixties-L" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sixties-l?hl=en.
