Celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday is an opportunity to learn from his strategic thinking and mastery of rhetoric.
Consider King’s powerful words about the civil rights struggle, which echo today in the climate battle:
We are faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. The ‘tide in the affairs of men’ does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: ‘Too late.’
Note how King repeatedly uses key figures of speech — alliteration, metaphor — and extends the metaphor of another master of rhetoric, Shakespeare (Julius Caeser), all of which are classic oratorical strategies (see “How to be as persuasive as Lincoln, Part 1: Study the figures of speech and Shakespeare“).
Science has mostly told us what it can about the fiercely urgent need to act swiftly to avoid adding the bleached bones and jumbled residues of our civilization to the pile (see “An Illustrated Guide to the Science of Global Warming Impacts: How We Know Inaction Is the Gravest Threat Humanity Faces“). Our urgent need now is for much more persuasiveness (see Why scientists aren’t more persuasive, Part 1 and Part 2: Why deniers out-debate “smart talkers”).
I have a dream that progressives will some day have the winning words to match their vital ideas. After two decades of research and writing and rewriting, I will finally be publishing my book on rhetoric this summer!
King’s most famous speech illustrates the rhetorical principle of foreshadowing, as I discuss in the book, excerpted below:
As a theatrical device, the essence of foreshadowing can be found in Anton Chekhov’s advice to a novice playwright: “If there is a gun hanging on the wall in the first act, it must fire in the last.” Create anticipation and then fulfill the listener’s desire.
Foreshadowing is related to the figure of speech ominatio (Latin for omen), which, one Renaissance rhetoric text explains is “when we do show & foretell what shall hereafter come to pass, which we gather by some likely sign, and in ill things we foretell it, to the intent that heed may be paid, and the danger of avoided; and in good things to stir up expectation and hope.”
In Julius Caesar, Shakespeare has a soothsayer famously and futilely warn Caesar, “Beware the Ides of March”-a foreshadowing ominatio that Caesar famously and fatally ignores: “He is a dreamer,” shrugs Caesar. “Let us leave him.”
Bob Dylan’s tragic “Like a Rolling Stone” heroine is similarly warned, and by many: “People’d call, say, ‘Beware doll, you’re bound to fall’ “-which she also unwisely pays no heed to: “You thought they were all kiddin’ you.”
Dramatic foreshadowing has an even more important rhetorical counterpart. The golden rule of speechmaking is “Tell ‘em what what you’re going to tell ‘em; tell ‘em; then tell ‘em what you told ‘em.” The first part of that triptych is the rhetorical foreshadowing of the main idea of your speech, the introduction of the dominant theme of your remarks.
I HAVE A DREAM
I can think of no more remarkable combination of dramatic and rhetorical foreshadowing in a modern public address than the opening lines of Martin Luther King’s keynote address at the August 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial (video above and text here).
The speech is often presented without his introductory sentence, which is unfortunate since it is an essential element of his message. King began, “I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.” This opening line foreshadows that the intellectual focus of the speech will be “freedom,” a word that, with its partner “free,” King repeats twenty-four times in his 1500-word oration. As we will soon see, it also anticipates his optimistic message.
King uses the word “history” twice in this simple prefatory line, foreshadowing that he will be taking a historical perspective, which he does from the start.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity.
Echoing Lincoln’s famous formulation, “fourscore and seven years ago,” in the literal shadow of the Lincoln monument, King here combines the verbal with the visual to turn Lincoln’s two great 1863 acts of communication-the Emancipation Proclamation and Gettysburg address-into a symbolic foreshadowing of his own remarks 100 years later. In doubling this historical connection, he underscores what will be his main theme: Emancipation has not yet been realized:
But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition.
We hear again King’s favorite rhetorical device in this speech, anaphora, in the repetition of “one hundred years later” to help him refine the central idea that “the Negro is still not free.” King’s speech makes the words “Emancipation Proclamation” cruelly ironic: The Negro was proclaimed free, but still is not.
The body of the speech lays out King’s nonviolent approach to fulfilling the “quest for freedom” and restates again and again both his dream and his demand for freedom. He says that “in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment I still have a dream “¦ a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.” An essential goal of the speech is to instill hope, optimism, and faith in the listeners that the dream of freedom will be achieved, to urge with a powerful metaphor that they “not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.” He describes his stirring dreams, which are themselves ominatio, foretelling a future without racism, a future of freedom for all. He builds to the climax using the phrase “Let freedom ring” a dozen times and ends with the final repetitions of the key word as he says we can “speed up that day when all of God’s children “… will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’ ”
Now we see what was powerfully foreshadowed in the opening line: “I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.” He is foreshadowing-prophesying-the success of this demonstration and the realization of his dreams. Through the figure of ominatio King did “show & foretell what shall hereafter come to pass ” … in good things to stir up expectation and hope.”
That King would be a master of rhetoric and foreshadowing is not unexpected since he was, after all, a Reverend, a preacher, a student of the Bible. Foreshadowing and ominatio are the foundation upon which the Bible’s scaffolding of rhetoric was built-and the power of dreams to foretell the future is a Biblical truism. For Christians, the words in the Old Testament foreshadow the coming of the Messiah in the New Testament. The gospels are clearly written to echo the prophecies and promises and proverbs in the Old Testament. If you are a believer, that is because Jesus is the Messiah, the fulfillment of the words in the Old Testament. If you are not a believer, that is because the writers of the New Testament were trying to portray Jesus as the Messiah. Either way, by God’s design or man’s, the Old Testament foreshadows the New Testament again and again.
Jesus himself makes many prophecies that show and foretell what shall hereafter come to pass. He foretells events that happen very soon, such as when he tells Peter, “Verily I say unto thee, That this night, before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.” He foretells events a long time off: “And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” And he foretells events that have not yet come to pass-his return.
Foreshadowing and ominatio are key elements of poetic justice. Consider the story of Joseph. His brothers hated him because their father loved him the most, which the gift of the coat of many colors showed only too clearly. Joseph dreamt that he and his brothers were collecting stalks of grain, and when his own grain stalk stood up, those of his brothers bowed down before him. “Shalt thou indeed reign over us?” his brothers said. The text goes on, “And they hated him yet the more for his dreams, and for his words.” Dreams are classic foreshadowing in the Bible as well as many other holy books.
One day, when Joseph’s brothers saw him in the field, “they said one to another, ‘Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit “… and we shall see what will become of his dreams.’ ” This is best labeled ironic foreshadowing, a favorite device also of Shakespeare’s and other great writers. The final line is intended as sarcasm, that the dreams will be dashed in death, but it soon becomes dramatic irony.
Instead of killing him, his brothers sold him into slavery. Joseph ended up in the Egyptian prison, but using his power to interpret dreams, he not only won his freedom but soon became Pharaoh’s right hand man, after predicting that Pharaoh’s dream of seven lean cows eating seven fat cows meant there would be seven good harvests followed by seven years of famine, and thus, during the good years, Pharaoh would need to store up the grain. Every single thing Joseph said comes true. Then, during the famine, Jacob sent his sons to Egypt for grain so the family would not starve. Joseph thus gained power over his brothers, whom he put through various trials. But instead of seeking revenge, he saved his family from starvation.
This is poetic justice, that Joseph’s dreams of having power over his brothers came true precisely because they abandoned him, making their words dramatic irony that foreshadowed the end of the story. This is irony of fate.
The enduring power and poignancy of this story can be found in the words on a plaque at the Lorraine Motel, in Memphis, Tennessee, the site of Martin Luther King’s assassination (with a slightly different translation than the King James): “Behold the dreamer. Let us slay him, and we will see what will become of his dream.”
King’s dream did survive him, and, some might argue, in the election of Barack Obama, witnessed its apotheosis, though not its completion.
Whereas the civil rights movement was trying to undo a terrible multi-century-long moral wrong, the challenge for climate science activists (the future-generations rights movement?) is that we are trying to prevent a terrible multi-century-long moral wrong. That mission will require even more eloquence, even more commitment.
I have a dream of clean air and clean water for my daughter and all the children of the world. I have a dream of clean energy jobs for millions of Americans and tens of millions of people around the globe. I have a dream we saved this garden of Eden for generations to come, saved it from the greed and myopia of the 1%.
Related Posts:
- How to be as persuasive as Abe Lincoln, Part 2: Use irony, the twist we can’t resist
- “The greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor”: How to be as persuasive as Lincoln, 3
- How Lincoln framed his picture-perfect Gettysburg Address, 4: Extended metaphor
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
“On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, “Is it safe?” Expediency asks the question, “Is it politic?” And Vanity comes along and asks the question, “Is it popular?” But Conscience asks the question “Is it right?” And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.
I thought of Kerry Emanuel and the many others who have chosen to speak out and take action on climate change when I read these words this morning.
King was a giant, whose words reflected infinite love, which is the main quality we will need. There is nobody remotely like him today. Knowing how to inspire with words is a declining art, and thanks for reviving it, Joe. I look forward to your book.
I recently attended an exhibit at the Los Angeles County Art Museum called 5 Car Stud, a tableau so horrific that it gave me waking nightmares. It is an inspired work by one of our great sculptors, Edward Keinholz:
http://www.lacma.org/art/exhibition/edward-kienholz-five-car-stud
This is the kind of inspiration we will need in the struggle ahead. The racist torturers are chillingly portrayed as the psychotic monsters that they are. This exhibit is so powerful that it’s worth a trip to Los Angeles.
These days, it’s the fossil fuel and banking sectors that live out our dark side. Unlike the murderous hillbillies at LACMA, they wear nice suits, are well spoken, and their kids go to lovely private schools.
The consequences or their actions are worse, and they must be called to account. Nobody in Washington is doing it, so once again, as with OWS and 350.org, it’s going to be up to the people. Let’s hope that our best artists step up here, and inspire the rest of us to insist on the kind of changes that we so desperately need.
Footage from Occupy Kansas City, New-Orleans-style funeral for the social safety net, with audio of Dr. King. Just. Beautiful.
http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/2012/01/occupy-freedom-martin-luther-king.html
In the context of rhetoric and climate change, I’m always reminded of these words by another great orator:
“For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.”
(John F. Kennedy at American University, 1963)
I’m not sure who wrote the speech. It obviously referred primarily to the threat of nuclear war at the time, but sounds very true beyond that today, I think.
Hmm..
“Martin Luther King,…”
This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by EMI Music Publishing.
This is an exceptionally beautiful essay about foreshadowing and climate change. I look forward to buying your book. Your discussion of foreshadowing brings to mind Aeneas’ description of the Trojans dragging the deadly horse, “pregnant with enemies,” into Troy. Virgil writes that the horse “cast a shadow over the city’s heart.” (Robert Fitzgerald translation of the Aeneid)
I think this is a wonderful example of foreshadowing because there is literally a shadow in the passage covering the heart of the doomed city. Maybe you could use this passage in your book.
Three times the weapons in the belly of the horse clanked when the Trojans tried to pull the horse over the threshold. Aeneas says a serpent devoured the prophet Laocoon who tried to warn them that the horse was a weapon. nobody listened because the gods had made the people deaf, blind, and crazy.
I sometimes feel like the Trojans who were fooled by all of the Greek double-agent Sinon’s slick lies. I want to know what is true, but it is difficult. Still, I believe the scientists; they are our modern prophets.
Actions Speak Louder (and are much more credible, persuasive, inspiring, and so forth)
I admire Dr. King greatly, and I would imagine that he (especially the strategic thinking part of him) would want the effectiveness of his efforts to be properly understood. Yes, sincere, persuasive words, phrases, and speeches are important, very helpful, and probably necessary, but they are nowhere near sufficient — AND they ring hollow without the corresponding actions.
In other words, actions speak louder than words, AND words without actions lose a great deal of their force.
(Can anyone deny that this is one of our chief problems today — perhaps THE chief problem?)
I am a great fan of, and studier of, words and the things that words can do. I love Shakespeare, Jefferson, Lincoln, Gandhi, MLK Jr., Bob Dylan, and etc. But all of these folks surely understood that actions speak louder than words, and that actions are needed to give words credibility. MLK’s ACTIONS were vital to his effectiveness, and (for example) Rosa Parks “spoke” with her actions, not with words.
Consider President Obama. (I think it was Robert Brulle who pointed out that one of the main reasons that climate change is not enjoying much coverage in the media, or much focus in the public dialogue, is that President Obama isn’t talking about it as if it’s a top priority for him and should be a top priority for us.) Of the various problems we’re having with President Obama — (1) that he isn’t talking about climate change, treating it as a top priority, or using the bully pulpit (lack of action); (2) that his policy decisions are sending a mixed signal, at best, and that they certainly don’t reflect the vital importance of addressing climate change (again, a problem of action); and (3) that in the rare instances that he does manage to talk about climate change, his rhetoric isn’t very good (the problem of words and rhetoric) — the latter problem is the least of the three.
We are lacking ACTION much more than we are lacking excellent rhetoric. We need both — and I do appreciate the power of words — but the phrase ‘actions speak louder than words’ is very appropriate here, and we’re missing the key point if we don’t start to act on that idea.
Three or four years ago, back when I spent my commenting time on Dot Earth, Andy Revkin would periodically — once every couple months — do a post that was, in essence, a plea and quest for the magic word or magic phrase that would (presumably) cause some sort of breakthrough in the public’s understanding of climate change and/or in the public’s motivation to do something about it. Readers of Dot Earth could count on such a post every couple months. It began to get tiring. At this point, I can’t recall any of those posts. No magic words were found. What I DO remember are actions, like those of “Bidder XX” (can’t recall his actual number).
So I find it odd and discomforting: President Obama is dropping the ball, more so from lack of action than from poor rhetoric when he does actually manage to talk about climate change. Meanwhile, we can’t even manage to “get tough” with him, letting him know (even clumsily would do!) that he’ll lose our support and votes if he doesn’t get with the program, quick. Yet we’re talking about rhetoric. Again, it’s ACTIONS that we lack, much more so than good rhetoric.
To be clear, I DO think that words and (sincere) rhetoric are vitally important, so my point is not that we should drop those subjects. Instead, my point is that we should take ACTIONS much more seriously, and begin to think much more creatively about what ACTIONS are at this point necessary.
Watch what I do, not what I say.
Cheers,
Jeff
Jeff,
Your comment that Obama shouldn’t be supported if he doesn’t start doing more is one you make frequently.
It sounds to me that whereas Mr. Revkin was on a quest for the magic word or phrase, you, in turn, are on a quest for a magic leader.
Isn’t it far more likely we can take something that is good and make it better rather than holding out for the perfect leader and increasing the probability of getting a nightmare instead?
You talk about ACTION. So please, lead by example, and give us concrete actions you are taking for changing Obama and the congress he must work with. We can all use inspiration and ideas in this area.
Brooks, there is a vitally important distinction that many people seem to miss. It has to do with action, what we can do, Obama, making considerably more progress, and so forth … all sorts of other good things.
The Action (on our part) of telling Obama, credibly and seriously, that our support (including votes) for him will depend on what he starts doing now, does not mean that he won’t change, and thus does not mean that we won’t vote for him. Indeed, the assumption that such an action would fail, and that he wouldn’t change, misses the entire point, of course. The point of the action IS (or would be) to prompt him to get his act together — that’s what we want, right? And if he does, we’ll vote for him. People who assume that placing a condition on voting for him would result in not voting for him, are essentially assuming that he won’t meet the condition. Why make such an assumption? That stance is defeatist and counterproductive — it is the reverse of taking action. And those same people want to, and will, vote for him. In other words, the very people who seem to think that he won’t be responsive to demands that are totally warranted, sensible, and sane are the people who have committed themselves to vote for him. Great logic — to commit yourself to voting for someone who you believe won’t be responsive to conditions tied to demands that are totally warranted, sensible, and sane?
I have been saying, for a long time now, that we (in very large numbers) should make clear demands of Obama (demands that are warranted, sensible, sane, and at this point necessary) and let him know that he’ll get our votes if he meets them, and won’t get our votes if he doesn’t. That is action. Any assumption that Obama won’t do it misses the entire point. By NOT making such a demand, we’re choosing a path of inaction where there could be action. (I’ve written this quickly, but I hope well enough that my point is clear.)
That said, as far as my own experience has gone, CP/Joe dismissed the idea of even airing a concrete dialogue around this particular question. It seems fine to critique Obama — and of course he deserves critique — but openly hosting a dialogue that raises, for open discussion, the idea of the strategy of placing demands on President Obama (as conditions for supporting him) is beyond CP’s comfort level. I’ve proposed that discussion numerous times, and (as far as I can tell) it hasn’t happened.
In any case, hopefully my explanation has been clear. (I had written an entire proposed guest post on this subject, but it was too long, and the subject itself wasn’t to Joe’s liking, as far as I can tell based on responses from him to some of my comments here on CP.)
I’m in favor of action, and I think we are missing opportunities to act. But I don’t favor actions that say, in essence, ‘please do this, President Obama, but we’ll vote for you no matter what you do’. Those are self-defeating and don’t make much sense to me, at this point.
Cheers,
Jeff
King had a dream, I have a nightmare.
PubMedCentral is a free online library of many things medical.
Doctors may have a difficulty when now young of thinking that nice climate will last their lifetimes.
Good incomes depend on ins. Ins. depends on premiums. Premiums depend on people being able to pay or Gov. paying. New markers show Gov. not being able to cover bets quite so well. People not being able to cover bets so well.
Doctors may want to be realistic about bets concerning long term income ability.
PubMedCentral is a library of many things medical.