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Commentary by Halstead: The Speeches

The two recent conventions prompt me to think about speeches:
Lincoln’s of course.  And Bryan’s ‘Cross of Gold’: one of the very
few which actually swayed a hostile crowd to a prompt consensus.
Soon regretted.

The theory of parliaments has it that a group of people with open
minds get together to reason with one another towards an emerging
consensus.  Or at least a rough consensus held by a large enough
majority that policy may be attempted.  That’s the theory.  In
practice, the machinery of reasoning involves speeches, and the
quantum of those speeches is the ‘sound bite’.  After a very short
time, those bites are all that we remember.

Very few speeches affect anyone or any decision.  The way parliaments
really work is, first of all, badly, and secondly thru complex
personal interactions that involve social gossip and much coffee.
Did you see the game last night?  How’s the wife and kids?  Were I a
parliamentarian I’d ask my staff to list the names of wives and kids
and dogs of all my colleagues, and I’d bone up on them before every
coffee break.  Alas, this would be useless nowadays, as my memory
closes down.  I must be losing my, my .. what’s the name of that thing
we think with?

The point of all of this is that we don’t trust strangers.  To
convince others, we must first form tribes.  Solitaires are expelled,
and peculiar chickens are pecked to death.  Politics is the art of
isolating the opposing chickens.

Have I convinced you?  Any good sound bites?  How’s the wife?

Cheers,
Halstead


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