The Decline

I found it interesting how the Lincoln-Douglas debates have greatly changed from the “debates” of today. The Lincoln-Douglas debates lasted several hours, Douglas would deliver a three hour address and Lincoln would receive the same amount of time to respond and then Douglas would get a rebuttal. The debates of today, however; are considerably shorter; one candidate gets five minutes to deliver their address and then the other, one minute to respond. This demonstrates just how short the attention span of society has become, no one in our current age could possible sit and listen to a single person speak for three hours. This is shown in the Presidential elections where they only speak for five minutes. This also shows the lack of literacy in our culture compared to the 1800s, as the speakers rarely, if at all, use complex rhetorical resources such as paradox fine distinctions and the exposure of contradictions. I noticed that both Postman and Orwell expose the decline of language. Postman says that in chapter 4 The Typographic Mind, with the development of the television, the audience of today is less capable of comprehending long complex sentences. Orwell believes that it is due to our foolish thoughts and bad habits, he states, “It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.” I can see why television and foolish thoughts can both affect language. When television is the medium it is very easy to communicate and diffuse foolish thoughts and ideas and thus it tends to spread quickly. Perhaps it is a combination of what Postman and Orwell believe. I’m not sure maybe I am just interpreting this wrong and if so then please correct me.