Nation's public discourse gets dumb and dumber

0 Comments | Insight on the News, April 17, 1995 | by Tom Shachtman

Aiming higher in the political arena also is essential to encouraging and sustaining an articulate society, if for no other reason than the populace's inclination to follow and replicate the behavior of its political leaders. Although the responsibility for better political discourse lies principally with the electorate, a program for reform certainly must mandate changes for the speakers. Presidents should speak less and say more. Giving fewer speeches will ensure that audiences will pay greater attention to each one. Candidates at all levels ought to be required to debate the issues with their opponents on a regular basis throughout primary and election seasons. Strict limits should be imposed on campaign spending for television commercials to prevent the better-heeled candidate's message from overwhelming that of a candidate who might have an equally important message but less money to spread his or her word. The same fairness and truth-in-advertising standards that apply to messages for deodorants, automobiles and children's toys ought to be applied to political advertising, with substantial penalties if boundaries are crossed.

The entrenched power structure benefits from a passive and largely inarticulate populace. Politicians, entertainment and news media producers, child-care entrepreneurs and marketers of all sorts of products and services will fight increased articulateness in all aspects of life, fearing the innovations will reduce their power. So the efforts and innovations suggested above will amount to no more than a hill of beans unless they are championed, replicated and improved upon by more and more individuals throughout the country.

For individuals to seek to raise the level of articulate behavior in the country constitutes the opposite of a revolt of the masses: It is a revolt of the articulate elite, a revolt that has as its goal not the usurpation of power but the uplifting of more of the masses to the elite. Articulate behavior is an elite virtue, but the articulateness I advocate is not exclusive; rather, it seeks to include more and more people in its group. Earlier in this century, George Santayana wrote that in the United States, more so than in any other country, "eloquence is a republican art" that could bring the best impulses of the community to fruition and "could be turned to guide or to sanction action, and sometimes could attain, in so doing, a noble elevation."

We need that noble elevation now more than ever. But because those who now benefit from inarticulateness will consider a broadening of the articulate elite to be dangerous, the task of attaining the goal inevitably will devolve upon individuals. It has been demonstrated amply in the 20th century that for evil to triumph, it is necessary only that good men do nothing; certainly in the 21st century, to achieve the triumph of a public good such as articulate behavior, it will be necessary for individuals to do something - to do a great deal, actually, to take responsibility for achieving the goal and to take actions toward it in the many roles we fill every day.