I'm far less concerned with the niceties of formal oratory than I am with the ability to deliver a cogent message and have it understood, and Reagan was unsurpassed at that as far as I'm concerned. He may have been no Edward Everett, but Edward Everett would have been booed off a modern stage after the first fifteen minutes, before he had even begun to warm up.
I'm far less concerned with the niceties of formal oratory than I am with the ability to deliver a cogent message and have it understood, and Reagan was unsurpassed at that as far as I'm concerned. He may have been no Edward Everett, but Edward Everett would have been booed off a modern stage after the first fifteen minutes, before he had even begun to warm up.
Which is why, to all intents and purposes, oratory is essentially dead in the public sphere. Circumstances and culture have changed enough that there are more effective ways to get the cogent message out.
So if oratory is dead, why don't we let it die a peaceful death instead of torturing it with things like SOTU ;)
There are still uses for it and circumstances for it.. IF you have a person that is capable of doing it. Few these days are--and it isn't so much about doing or recapturing what people like Everett did (especially in terms of "art") as it is about using it effectively as a tool to achieve a goal beyond simply communicating a message.
I'm far less concerned with the niceties of formal oratory than I am with the ability to deliver a cogent message and have it understood, and Reagan was unsurpassed at that as far as I'm concerned. He may have been no Edward Everett, but Edward Everett would have been booed off a modern stage after the first fifteen minutes, before he had even begun to warm up.
Which is why, to all intents and purposes, oratory is essentially dead in the public sphere. Circumstances and culture have changed enough that there are more effective ways to get the cogent message out.
So if oratory is dead, why don't we let it die a peaceful death instead of torturing it with things like SOTU ;)
There are still uses for it and circumstances for it.. IF you have a person that is capable of doing it. Few these days are--and it isn't so much about doing or recapturing what people like Everett did (especially in terms of "art") as it is about using it effectively as a tool to achieve a goal beyond simply communicating a message.