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KulakRevolt  1yr ago (anarchonomicon.substack.com)   3382 thread views

Crowned Masterpieces of Eloquence: We used to be a Civilization

anarchonomicon.substack.com

A piece I wrote on one of the most fascinating and incredible thriftstore finds I've ever stumbled upon.

The Edwardians and Victorians were not like us, they believed in a nobility of their political class that's almost impossible to understand or relate to, and that believe, that attribution of nobility is tied up with something even more mysterious: their belief in the fundamental nobility of rhetoric.

Still not sure entirely how I feel about this, or how sure I am of my conclusions but this has had me spellbound in fascination and so I wrote about it.

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Your posts often have an effect where they play fast and loose with facts in service to some vibe or message. The message is often good, but there's a sense of being intentionally averse to things like 'analysis of opposing viewpoints' or 'ways in which I might be wrong' because that's not with the vibe. That, generally, weakens your position, because the vibe you're trying to give off may be wrong, or confused, in meaningful ways, and contradictory facts illuminate those.

It's arguable that oratory has declined not due to a loss of "vital spirits", but due to ... modern media. The speech connects the politician's visceral voice and, often, appearance to his constituents, which is very appealing when the alternative is the telephone game or pamphlets. But when one can produce videos splicing your words with weak moments of your opponents, animations, videos of real-world events, the medium of a clearly-delineated 'oration' will declin simply because it has competition.

Politicians today still give speeches - some people even cried at ... Adam Kinzinger's ... moving words. Obama's "well spoken" and, i guess, reasonably competent speeches were often praised as moving, compelling, causing goosebumps or tears! obama speeches.

There's also the obvious - you're comparing the best of the past to the mediocrity of the present. You note how most politicians are unsurprising, and stick to common themes, ... while Hitler and Napoleon broke new ground? Did Hitler and Napoleon's thousands of political contemporaries, a few decades past and future, all do the same? Is mathematics in decline because professors at community colleges aren't as accomplished as Einstein or Erdos?

It makes sense the American education system, state and media have set about trying to destroy oratory

And here's the usual equivocation between 'complex dynamics and confusions lead to bad things, in ways entangled with existing power structures and media' and 'the all-powerful enemy is intentionally destroying truth, beauty, and love because they hate you'.

I think there's something significant to the decline of oration - both the text, and vocal intonation. I'm not sure your post really gets at what, or why, it did though.

Obama's "well spoken" and, i guess, reasonably competent speeches were often praised as moving, compelling, causing goosebumps or tears!

I am not sure it's a good example, as Obama is practically a religious figure to many, they'd be in tears if he read the yellow pages. The question is, in a hundred years, which of Obama speeches would they study in high school as an example of rhetoric brilliance? I'd go for "none of them".

Your posts often have an effect where they play fast and loose with facts in service to some vibe or message. The message is often good, but there's a sense of being intentionally averse to things like 'analysis of opposing viewpoints' or 'ways in which I might be wrong' because that's not with the vibe.

That's Kulak in a nutshell, really.

There's an oft-repeated line about how institutions are run counter to how society is. For example, corporations don't constantly rely on contracts for every little thing, but run as a command economy of sorts. I think of Kulak in the same way, and if this was an ideologically diverse space with a more relaxed environment, I wouldn't mind because he provides a similar thing - a strong idea which can be walked back from in the discussion around it.

But given the space we have, it's just annoying to see more of the same ideas without discussion of their flaws.

Yeah, my criticism of this piece goes something like this:

I agree that something has declined WRT oratory, but is it that things genuinely declined post-WWII, or is it more that the message has new channels through which it can be spread?

Certainly, a liberal might counter with FDR, JFK, or MLK, people who are literally popularly-quoted, whose most famous speech quotes formed the backbone of the 90's version of American Civics. Nowadays, memes are the most evocative vehicles for the transmission of ideas.

Certainly, a liberal might counter with FDR, JFK, or MLK

That would be a terrible counter. The youngest of those (MLK) was 12 when WWII started, and had shown significant oratory prowess before the end of WWII (winning an oratory contest in 1944). It would be hard for the intentional de-prioritization of oratory in the aftermath of WWII to impact any of them.

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