A Malleable Audience

To see what an impactful orator was Winston Churchill, one need only look at the fact there is an award-winning film, The Darkest Hour, that centers around his ability as a speaker. Phrases from his iconic speeches remain in the minds of even the least historically attuned. One speech that stands out is the "Sinews of Peace" speech he gave at the start of the Cold War. For better or worse, it was powerful, and its message spread worldwide.

Winston Churchill delivering his "Sinews of Peace,"
aka "Iron Curtain," speech at Westminster College
in front of an attentive audience.

An essential part of Churchill's speech is kairos. The former prime minister delivered it at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, to as large an audience as would fit in the gymnasium, with President Harry Truman beside him. He knew he had an intelligent, attentive audience that included US officials with power to influence change.

Almost the first half of the speech is written to connect the orator to his audience. He starts off with some rather effective humor, and by linking himself to the president, he cements his authority as a speaker to an American congregation. In the first half of the speech, Churchill makes increasingly bold claims followed by statements recognizing that he and the audience are in agreement (also made apparent by the audience's applause). By the halfway point, there is an evident connection between Churchill and his listeners.

Once Churchill builds a rapport with his audience, he gradually uses that trust to ask them to consider an idea of his: unifying the United States and the British Commonwealth. He leans heavily on both logos and pathos for this. He calls the people to action against fears that most were all too familiar with ("the two great dangers which menace the home of the people, War and Tyranny"), and lists specific ways in which unifying would be logical and beneficial ("This would perhaps double the mobility of the American Navy and Air Force."). I can imagine those calls would be particularly powerful to citizens of a country that had just been through a heart-wrenching war and continued to live in fear of looming catastrophic bombs.

Churchill frequently uses repetition, congeries, and alliteration to drive home his points, and his delivery makes them even more stirring ("For them is all distorted, all is broken, all is even ground to pulp."). It's difficult not to connect with language that is crafted in such a way as Churchill sculpted his.

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Churchill: Shooing Away Doubts

I have never listened or read the “Sinews of Peace” speech from Winston Churchill and I was rather ignorant about the origins of the “Iron Curtain” metaphor. I love listening to audio tracks from before the boom of technology. 

The Importance of Taped Media

I work in broadcasting and over this past summer, I worked on a special project where I converted old tapes (legit film reels and such) into digital media. It was crazy hard and I was terrified I was going to destroy the sensitive material. But I gained a perspective on how broadcasting and media worked before the digital age where most systems are now automated. I have a greater appreciation for historical media such as the Churchill.

Painting of Winston Churchill via Wikimedia Commons

Rhetoric of Peace

As far as rhetoric for the speech, I want to lead this analysis with an important part of the audio that is not written. From what I assume are journalists or radio commenters documenting the event, saying things along the lines of “Churchill is wearing a red robe to signify academia, etc., etc.,” one of the most interesting comments occurred while the speakers transitioned, and it was noted that Churchill “shooed” away photographers. This comment encapsulates the importance of the “Sinews of Peace” speech as well as the tone that Churchill wanted to leave with the audience members. Simplistically, Churchill intended with the contents of his speech as well as this action that this was not about him or his role in public media but about the changes that the Allies can create together.

During the written components of the speech, whenever Churchill refers to himself this concept of focusing on others is still apparent, because Churchill literally says it himself: “There is nothing here but what you see,” and “This is no time for generality and I will venture to be precise.” By clarifying that there is no “fluff” in this talk, Churchill attempts to appeal to ethos by establishing authority that is simple and difficult for the audience to misunderstand.

Selflessness over Selfishness  

This was effective for the audience because it did draw attention to the overarching topic that Churchill called “the unestimated sum of human pain” in a “sad and breathless moment.”  Considering that this speech was delivered during the tail-end of war started for what could be argued as selfish reasons, the tone of the speech derailed that selfishness and united those who may be weary of world leaders or doubting the future unity and effectiveness of the Allies.

Audiences Shift

Happiness vs. Utilitarianism

Praxiteles's Aphrodite of Knidos, a
Classical celebration of human form.

“Of all things the measure is Man, of the things that are, that they are, and of the things that are not, that they are not." Here, Protagoras is is basically saying "Man is the measure of all things." A Classical philosopher, he taught that every individual had their own version of the truth—that truth was relative to the person perceiving it. Protagoras taught people to appreciate the individual and the wide array of perspectives people have. To him, humans are not only greater than the beasts of the earth and the angels in the heavens, but higher than truth itself.

This heavily contradicts the beliefs of pre-Renaissance Christianity. The general belief during that period was that people were fallen souls and had to live by the Church’s rules to have a chance at having any worth and getting to heaven. People in anything lower than the upper class were thought of and treated like tools, made to work constantly in a feudalistic society. In any class, though, the Catholic church was law, and any education or art centered around it.

Plato, on the other hand, believed that eudamonia, happiness, was the highest goal of thinking. A fellow philosopher, Cicero also considered the individual variations within his audiences and shaped his persuasive techniques accordingly. He recognized that some people were not educated or willing enough to be persuaded by logic alone and decided it was okay to use emotion as a persuader with those audiences. As Somer discusses in her post, speakers and artists must always take the audience into consideration.

The Rhetoric of the Divine

In class today, Professor Burton touched on the perspective of rhetoric among some of the first philosophers as being “amoral” and therefore “immoral.” As a Latter-day Saint I have seen the contrary to this statement because as a literary student, I have seen God use rhetoric and rhetorical devices such as kairos (“the contingencies of a give place and time”) and audience (“how an audience shapes the composition of a text or responds to it) to restore the Church of Jesus Christ as it exists today. Therefore, as silly as I feel writing it, rhetoric is divine and used even in the Lord’s communication with us.

With the invention of the printing press, communication, literature, etc. were mass produced and given to the public. This of itself is Kairos because it changed the way people thought and how were educated, especially with the mass production or the Bible. Their religious ideals were changed to accommodate the inevitable restoration of the Church that was going to occur a few centuries later.

Audience was important for the Lord as well leading up to the Restoration. The way He addressed Joseph Smith in the First Vision was most likely accomplished and successfully understood by the fourteen year old boy because the Lord new His audience and knew the audience that Joseph would first preach to after he was given instructions to restore the Church. This was all carefully planned, just as the rhetoric in a piece of literature is carefully planned according to the Kairos and audience of the situation.

Image: Joseph Smith's First Vision 

Kairos in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the saints use a very different language in their congregations in comparison to how they speak ordinarily. Most speak in accordance with their culture in their regular activities and even inside the meeting houses, but when they pray, give a talk, or teach a lesson their language suddenly becomes more formal. Words like “admonished,” “epistles,” and “cease” are used rather than “got mad at,” “letters,” and “stop.”

Growing Up in the Church of Jesus Christ

The Bible, Book of Mormon and other religious books were written in ancient times and, as would be expected, they were written in ways that reflect those times. Members of the Church have grown up hearing people read these works and teach from them, and teachers habitually use the same phrases and words that are used in the scriptures when they elaborate on what was said. Because of this, it is natural for a member of the Church to automatically revert to speaking with these same terms and expressions when religious topics arise because that is how they have heard people speak about those subjects.

“Kairos” is an ancient term that encompasses the fact that people will alter what they have to say and how they say it based on the time, place and audience. Members of the Church undoubtedly implement the particular words and sentence structures they use because of these same reasons. When they do this, they are able to convey the messages they want to their fellow members, and all understand them.

Image credit: lds.org