After watching via online video Obama's Cairo speech - well after he gave it - I began reflecting on the issue of words. I remembered back the criticisms he received during the primary about his speeches, and wondering how many who were skeptical then might respond now, after even more speeches that inspired, in Cairo and then in Germany, and with full expectation of something similar today on the 65th anniversary of D-Day.
This morning in my daily perusal of op ed columns I encountered three pieces that deal with words, by Derrick Jackson, Dana Milbank, and Colbert King. I urge you to read all three, for which I will provide links. My intent is to use their words as a starting point for my own mental meanderings.
The first piece I read this morning, by the irreplaceable Derrick Jackson o the Boston Globe, describes the Cairo speech as A Welcome Shade of Gray, placed in the context of other Obama speeches, on race in Philadelphia and abortion at Notre Dame. Jackson notes Obama's ability to bring together opposing sides in heated disputes, doing so by seeking out what common ground is possible. Here is how Jackson begins:
PRESIDENT OBAMA is in the White House in no small part because he persuaded Americans to see race in shades of gray. He asked hard-liners on both sides of the abortion debate to do the same in a May commencement speech at Notre Dame. Now he is asking the Middle East to also find middle ground.
Jackson notes that in the Philadelphia speech on race Obama
asked white Americans to understand very real vestiges of racial injustice and African-Americans to "embrace the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past."
and concludes by noting
The new black in politics is a black and white president, a living embodiment of gray, telling everyone that a brighter future begins with the dullest of colors.
The second piece I read was, to me, a surprisingly moving tribute to a deceased Wall Street Journal investigative reporter by Dana Milbank, entitled Mourning the Scourge of the Comfortable in which Milbank offers and reflects upon the eulogy offered by the reporter's brother. John Wilke died at 54 after a remarkable career as an investigative reporter. Milbank tells us
t was John's work that led to the indictment of former representative Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.) over his financial dealings. Six months after John's story about mutual fund giant Mario Gabelli, the investor settled civil fraud claims with the government for about $100 million. John cared not about political party as he detailed the dubious uses of federal funds by Reps. John Murtha of Pennsylvania and Alan Mollohan of West Virginia, both Democrats, and former representative Charles Taylor of North Carolina, a Republican.
He quotes from the Rev. Kit Wilke's eulogy, how a search for truth as an investigative reporter takes on the quality of a moral mission. For example,
"You journalists seem to me to believe that knowing the truth, or at least seeking the truth, is far better than accepting the fables that this town and so many other places pass off as the truth," Kit went on. "That elusive truth that you as journalists, as scientists and poets, seek is the One we religious types still insist knows our pain and in some way echoes through this universe."
Milbank's final two paragraphs places the work of Wilke - and other journalists who pursue the truth - in a proper context:
That's all the more true because we won't have John Wilke on the case. He was the perfect answer to complaints about the "elite" media; he drove a cab before going to journalism school, preferred a bomber jacket to a business suit and liked to end the workday with a few beers. He never flagged in his belief in the old adage that a newspaperman's job is to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable" -- a sentiment adapted, as it happens, from the Psalms.
Brother Kit returned to the theme in his closing prayer for John -- and for the rest of us. "Embrace our brother, our friend, the source of so much intensity and laughter, so much truth, so many wrongs righted, so many lies exposed, so much love," the minister said. "May his friends still put fear in the hearts of those who think they have won a victory because of prevarication."
And finally, Colbert King's Where the Angriest Words Can Lead, which takes O'Reilly and others to task for the actions that can flow from words. King begins by recounting an episode where his exposing of the truly bad decision by a D. C. government official having led to that man's firing got him an angry phone call from the man's wife. While acknowledging that it was ultimately the man's actions which had cost the job, not King's writing about it, he writes
Still, I wasn't untouched.
I could not, with wide-eyed innocence, pretend that the harsh editorial had no impact on her husband's fate. I felt then, and I believe now, that I could not be absolved of what happened to him. The editorial may have had a bearing on the outcome.
He immediately follows this with the line whose first three words become a refrain that ties his piece together
Words have consequences -- a lesson I've learned, and relearned, after nearly 20 years of editorial and column writing.
He does so in the context of Bill O'Reilly's attacks on Dr. Tiller and the subsequent assassination - my term for it, for it was not only a murder, it was a clear political action. King then writes bluntly
But to suggest that O'Reilly should not hold himself accountable for his incendiary words is to ask too much.
Words have consequences.
King further explores the idea of the consequences of words: in the anti-Obama screeds on pro-gun web sites; in the shooting of the police by Poplawski in Pittsburgh; in the words of Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh on Fox, where they misapplied the term fascism to Obama and his administration. King points out the inaccuracy of applying that term to Obama by offering a definition, then concludes his powerful piece like this:
And they must know how their characterization of Obama goes over with those Americans who live in fear that all they hold dear is coming under attack by a fascist in the White House.
My words may have helped get a man fired.
What do Hannity, Limbaugh and the pro-gun lobby expect theirs will do?
Words, after all, have consequences.
Words have consequences That is the idea with which I have been wrestling recently. Those consequences can be positive, as we have seen with Obama's ability to inspire using words during his candidacy and since he assumed his office. They can also be negative, as the death of Dr. Tiller so tragically demonstrates.
Perhaps it is better framed as words have, at least potentially, the power to move others to action.
The Orthodox Church of America (OCA) priest who married Leaves on the Current and me once gave a sermon in which one line stood out. He worried about the future spiritual leadership of the OCA and asked "Where are all our priests and nuns?" From the attendance at that sermon came at least three vocations to the priesthood, men whose lives were changed by hearing that sermon, and who now give of themselves to others.
I once heard a story about Albert Schweitzer that also illustrates this. Late in his life when visiting his home area he told a tale on himself in answer to a question about what had moved him on the path that led him to Lambarene. He spoke about a cold and wintry Sunday where his family insisted he go by himself to church so that the family was represented. To his surprise when he got there, he was the only congregant. A young clergyman preached a sermon about service, a sermon Schweitzer said began his own path of service. At the end of the event an elderly clergyman came up to Schweitzer and identified himself as the speaker of that sermon, saying that he had always thought the sermon was a failure.
I am a teacher and I try to be a writer - here and elsewhere. While I am completing my 14th year of public school classrooms, I previously served as a teacher's assistant at a Quaker secondary school in New Jersey several years back. As a public school teacher I am beginning to experience students coming back or contacting me to tell me the difference my words and accompanying actions had on their lives. These are usually the positive effects of my words, but they make me wonder about the damage I might do with a remark intended to be humorous but perhaps too cutting, or an unintentional hurting of someone. Like Colbert King, I know I am not responsible for the actions of others, but cannot help but recognize that, for good or ill, my words can play some part in what others do, in how their lives unfold.
I mentioned the brief stint in the Quaker secondary school because it was my recounting an incident that had happened there which led to my wife encouraging me to explore teaching as a late career change. It involved finding a way to connect with one student. Several years ago, around three decades after the incident had occurred, my wife tracked down contact information for the young man in question. When I sent him an email, he was delighted to hear from me and told me the words I exchanged with him then were the first time an adult had taken his political thinking seriously, and had meant a great deal to him at a difficult point in his adolescent life.
Words have the power to move others to action. Words have the power to console, to provoke, to bring together, to cause conflict.
We have different motivations for why we come to a political website. We read a variety of expressions, we post diaries and comments that sometimes seem as far from politics as possible. Yet politics should not be something done in isolation from the rest of the human experience. Politics is a tool that enables us to bridge our differences, to advance our society, to comfort the afflicted and afflict - or at least challenge - the comfortable.
I admire greatly those whose words move and inspire me, and I feel obligated to make them better known. Similarly I find myself motivated by anger and outrage at words that mislead or inflame, that seek to move others to destructive actions, that seek to divide us for political, economic or personal gain or power.
Yet I must recognize the imperfections of my own words, the unintended consequences they can have.
That does not, and should not, move me or anyone else to silence for fear of the negative results of our expressions. Rather, it should encourage us to work on our expressions, spoken as well as written, for it is often by by words that we can break out of our isolation and find meaningful connection with others.
Sometimes it is not words that have the greatest impact - since we are commemorating 20 years of Tiananmen and 65 years of DDay, think of the power of images: of tank man in the square, of the opening scene of "Private Ryan." Or, since I am a musician, of the impact of music (and of course of the other non-verbal arts).
And yet so often I find myself returning to words.
It has been the words of others that have helped me clarify my own understanding, which is why I am unashamed at a tendency to quote
words of others that express better than can I what I may be experiencing, that can provide common ground through which to connect with others.
I have been thinking about words. Imagine how much has been accomplished because we have had leaders whose words encouraged us to try when times were difficult, who set forth for us the challenges we had to face. Think of Lincoln and FDR, of King and of Kennedy. Perhaps it would be words of Eisenhower on the military industrial complex and what it cost us, or Hubert Humphrey on the moral measure of a government and a society. Perhaps one can be an effective leader without a personal command of words but an ability to deliver the words of others in a convincing way. Perhaps one can empower others to speak the words the people need to here.
But we cannot live without words. Jefferson said he could not live without books. I am also like that. I need the words contained therein. I need to connect with the lives and insights of others as expressed in words.
Today I read three examples of people addressing the importance of words. The expressions of all three - Jackson, Milbank and King - moved me to want to ensure others were aware of what they wrote. And for better or worse they moved me to offer some words of my own.
Words about words.
Always remembering what King repeats in his piece:
Words have consequences
Peace.