The Touro Communication Club Notes - #113 –April 21, 2010 Tourocommunicationclub.blogspot.com
Seven Quotes by Martin Luther King, Jr.
US black civil rights leader & clergyman (1929 - 1968)
Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it.
Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.
Segregation is the adultery of an illicit intercourse between injustice and immorality
We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.
Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for mankind to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Mankind must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love
Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
The Touro Communication Club
2 pm - Wednesday, April 21, 2010– Room 223
The “I Have a Dream” Speech of Martin Luther King Jr.
We are introducing the Critical Listening Institute with this Club session. We listen but we don’t consciously practice our listening skills. For this first session, we will listen to the famous speech to discover how MLK constructs his message, the images he uses and how he uses repetition to make his point. We’ll also observe how his vocal cadences enhance his message. (We’ll do Ravel’s “Bolero” next)
Logical Fallacy of the Week #4: “Appeal to Fear”
Thus far we have looked at three logical fallacies – Ad Hominum, Straw Man, Argumentum ad Populum – each of which are designed to steer an audience’s thinking toward a negative feeling about a person or an issue. This week we have another popular negative fallacy, Appeal to Fear.”
As Professor Gary Sheinfeld often says in our Communication Club meetings, “We are trapped by language.” The language the speaker chooses to frame his/her argument governs the impact of the message on the audience.
If the speaker uses words that resonate with gloom and doom, a veiled threat or conjures images of danger, then the listener needs to be awake to the underlying message which is costumed with direct or indirect negative rhetoric.
A particularly effective use of the Appeal to Fear has been the Republican party’s current campaign against President Obama, both the person and his policies. The goal is to discredit everything about Obama for the purpose of winning the 2010 Midterm election and eventually the 2012 Presidential election. Here are some of hundreds of examples:
· The Birthers who continue to challenge his Hawaiian birth certificate.
· The phrase, “Let’s Take Our Country Back!” is another fearful warning against the Armageddon and the end of the world.
· A third rhetorical Appeal to Fear is the oft-stated danger that America is speeding toward “Socialism” with Obama’s policies.
There are many, many rhetorical opportunities with an Appeal to Fear. As a standard part of their literary tool bag, writers use language consciously to shape a character or a situation. Advertisers are also master linguistic technicians. But it is the politicians for whom rhetorical manipulation is manna from heaven.
Strategy: Listen closely to the words of the writer, the advertiser and the politician. Even teachers and parents - and song lyricists. Notice if a repetition of a certain negative category of word repeats itself. If you hear such a thread, you know the speaker is trying to manipulate you – consciously or unconsciously – to persuade you to behave or believe in a certain way.
A Note to Communicators:
Critical Listening: Martin Luther King, Jr. and his Rhetoric
Listening is a rare commodity in communication. To paraphrase Mark Twain’s comment about the weather, “Everybody talks about listening, but no one does anything about it.” We don’t know the difference between hearing and listening. We fake listen in class and with our loved ones. Virtually all of the Critical Thinking efforts focus on writing and reading, rarely on speaking and listening. Who talks about Critical Listening?
Our Communication colleague, Jason Carvell, mentioned that when he was in high school in Pittsburgh, they had a mandatory Critical Listening session for students. Major documents were read aloud and then discussed. Today we are plagiarizing Carvell’s experience and adapting it to Touro’s purposes.
Therefore this week we are launching a new forum for the Communication Club – the Critical Listening Institute. The first piece we will exam is Martin Luther King’s famous “I have a dream” speech, presented in 1963. In future Critical Listening sessions we will focus on a piece of music, a painting and sculpture (listening with our eyes), etc.
In this session we are only going to listen to King’s speech, although videos are available. To eliminate the distractions of our dominant sense, we will discover how difficult serious listening is.
After we listen to the speech, then we are going to have
· Some general discussion about the speech,
· The occasion,
· The audience,
· How the speech is constructed and
· Its use of rhetorical devices.
All of King’s techniques are in service of his message
And in the second half of his speech he was speaking extemporaneously. (In college, King received a C+ in public speaking.)
The occasion is one of the critical elements in analyzing the effectiveness of the speech.
· August 28, 1968
· in Washington, D.C.
· On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial overlooking the reflecting pool with the Washington obelisk at the other end,
· “The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom”
· 200,000 people
· In the midst of the Vietnam War
· Richard Nixon is President
Here are four of the rhetorical devices used to increase the impact of his words.
- Allusions – implicit or explicit reference of another event or work; may be paraphrased.
o The Old Testament: Psalm 30.5; Amos 5.4; Isaiah 40.4-5
o The Emancipation Proclamation
o Shakespeare’s play “Richard III”
o “Inalienable rights”
- Repetition of phrases
o “I have a dream’ 9 times’
o “Now is the time”
o “Free at last”
o “Let freedom ring:” – 8 times
o “Free at last”
· Analogies to money
o “insufficient funds”
o “cash a check”
o “a promissory note”
o “a bad check
· Metaphors
o “the flames of withering injustice” “the drug of gradualism
o “chains of discrimination”
o “the vast ocean of material prosperity”
o “The long night of captivity
The speech is so rich with literary language too many to examine here. Some English or Speech teacher could easily use the speech to count the number of rhetorical devices in it.
We haven’t even examined the structure and progression of the ideas of King’s speech that suddenly shifts in tone in the second half of the speech. The two repeated phrases increase in number (“I have a dream,” and “Let freedom ring.”)
An anecdote tells the story that Mahalia Jackson, the famed gospel singer, shouted during the speech, “Tell about the dream, Martin.” This may account for the sudden change that made the exhortation to action soar rhetorically
Although we don’t get the vocal impact of King’s delivery in reading the text, we can tell how certain phrases are to be paced. In the video of the speech, King uses at least two times an unusual technique of attaching the first phrase of the following sentence to the preceding sentence. So “I have a dream” seems attached to the sentence that ends “content of their character.”
For me, this kind of academic deconstruction is lots of fun. By doing an autopsy or deconstruction of the speech (or poem or literary work), the listener can quickly understand how the speaker (or artist) manipulates the language to create his/her effect.
But maybe this kind of microanalysis is boring for some. You would prefer to be washed over with beautiful emotive language and become enthralled (read: persuaded) without knowing why.
Your choice.
UPCOMING CONVERSATIONS:
April 28. 2010 - “Freedom”- We have grown up in America believing that freedom is precious. We believe we are not bound by the limits of other countries. The American Dream is to be able to achieve anything you want. Should everything be “laissez-faire”? Are there any limits on that freedom? Can we yell “Fire!” in a theatre? What kind of government should exist in a “free” society? We should have another enjoyable exchange this week!
May 5, 2010 – “The Seven Heavenly Virtues” Last October, we had a spirited discussion about “The Seven Deadly Sins.” This week we turn to the Seven Heavenly Virtues: Faith, Hope, Charity, Fortitude, Justice, Temperance, Prudence Originating with the Greeks and codified by the Roman Catholic Church in the Dark Ages, these seven virtues are designed to teach positive lessons about behavior in an unruly world. We’ll explore as many as time allows.”
May 12. 2010 -“Distractions” We are bombarded with some 2 billion stimuli each day. Until recently, people seem to be able to juggle the external “noise” and the internal “noise.” But recently many of us are on stimulus overload. We cannot concentrate. We cannot focus. Our minds wander. We are glued to our BlackBerrys wherever we are. We seem to be reduced to Pavlovian dogs responding to stimuli that we cannot or choose not to control. We seem to have become a nation of ADD people. Lots of opinions here. Perhaps even a case or two of denial?
What about one of these topics?
“Rodney King: ‘Why Can’t We Get Along?”
“Repetition”
“Meaning”
“Why Does History Repeat Itself?”
“Heroism”
“Concentration”
“Coping with Adversity”
Student Poetry showcase
“Empathy”
“Connecting the Dots”
Role play of cynical people
“Cold Calling in Sales”
“He’s Just Not That into You”
“Money”
“Criticizing”
And dozens of others!
Compare the notice of the session with what really happened!
What happened on Wednesday, April 7, 2010
“Jokefest”
In response to a member request to have more comedy, we will ask everyone to bring at least 3 jokes to try out on the audience. We’ll open with one joke after another. After several rounds, then we’ll stop our laughing and ask ourselves what have we heard, why did some jokes work and others did not, what have the jokes communicated, what kinds of jokes are offensive, etc. At least we should have a good time, yukking at ourselves.
One newcomer, Michael, an instructor from DMX, saw the Jokefest sign and thought he’d see what this stuff was about. He made significant contributions during the discussion. Old timers included Jean Missial, Lorinda Moore, Gary Sheinfeld, Charles Mason, Richard Green, Warren Kunz, Ronald Johnson, Pamela Sheppard and Hal Wicke
Since Michael and Jean were the first ones in the room, each shared a joke. Those jokes generated a continuing discussion about the subject of humor, what’s funny, what’s offensive and the question of “political corrected ness”
:
Michael’s comment, “People choose to be offended,” created a lot of disagreement. He cited himself as the object of many possible jokes and said that he was not offended if he were the target of any of those jokes. He argued that there were no “bad” words; they were just air moving about.
Later in the discussion, he allowed that he might be a little offended at jokes about people who were helpless.
Other comments:
· Jokes at defenseless people showed disrespect.
· The issue of intention.
· Humor changes over time.
· Use common sense
· A comparison of humor across cultures – what do different cultures laugh at?
· What generates laughter?
· A nervous reaction.
· Someone’s misfortune.
· Sudden reversal – a unexpected cognitive shift
· The unexpectedness of humor - is culture specific
· Gary – “We are trapped in language”
· Gary - “I can tell Jewish jokes because I’m Jewish”
· Lorinda raised to hand to speak and Charles Mason began to speak – everyone laughed
· Offensive jokes were not in public favor until Lenny Bruce, a 60’s comedian broke the profanity language barrier, followed by Richard Pry and his heirs like Chris Rock.
· We are all still quite “Victorian” in our split attitudes toward impolite jokes.
· After Lenny Bruce was arrested.
· The raunchiness of: the movies “Animal House” was specified approved by Richard Pryor as not extremely offensive.
· In a joke, the structure remains the same, but the subject changes.
· Several jokes – Lorinda, Gary
· Gary read a joke which progressed from English to German as a German diplomat insisted that German replace English as the language of diplomacy. Gary sounded like Hitler at the punch line.
· Doublespeak – Gary demonstrated his specialty based on the work of Al Kelly, the world’s foremost authority.
· Use a metaphor to make a point.
· The “N” word – the “B” word – some were uncomfortable, others were not.
· For some, both are fighting words.
· It’s ok for some if a friend uses the word; for others, neither is acceptable.
· When someone says something offensive, you can separate the joke from the content.
· Which term is acceptable?
· Black, African-American, Negro?
· Disability – cripple, physically challenged, differently abled.
· Fat jokes
· Jokes require a familiarity with the context of the joke.
A post session discussion generated ideas about how to increase attendance to these worth-while sessions. Lots of ideas were offered, including an imaginative one of “bribing” the students. No conclusions were arrived at. So the status quo remains.
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We always have a great time exploring these issues. So often our daily life never focuses on these Communication issues. If you have something you want us to discuss please let us know and we’ll add it to the list.
Next time bring a friend. The Communication Club is always an open discussion, limited only by time. Everyone gets a chance to speak. All opinions are welcome. Here is an opportunity for students to challenge professors’ views outside the class without any homework or assignments. You just have to show up and listen and talk if you want.
Hal Wicke
Hal Wicke
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