Listen to Mark Forsyth discuss what makes a political sound bite:
[audioboo url=”http://audioboo.fm/boos/1746136-mark-forsyth-inkyfool-on-the-importance-of-political-sound-bites”/]
In December 2011, there was a major reversal of American policy and ideology. Barack Obama told a crowd of veterans: ‘You stood up for America. Now America must stand up for you.’ A U-turn! A flop-flip! Because, if you think about it, Obama was saying the exact opposite of JFK: ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.’
And nobody noticed. Obama was still the heir to Kennedy, because he used the same rhetoric. Technically, it’s called chiasmus.
The press and the public hate rhetoric. The convention is to describe it as ‘empty’ (just as all indictments are cutting) or ‘at odds with reality’. But few people, when pressed, can tell you anything about it. We suspect it’s there, but we don’t what it is.
Rhetoric, classically speaking, is the whole art of persuasion. Everything from your argument to your hand gestures, right up to the argumentum ad baculum or argument by stick, which involves hitting somebody until they agree with you. But in the age of the soundbite, it’s a much simpler business. Gone are the logical proofs, and the structure of an argument. What’s left are the rhetorical tricks that can be applied to one sentence, the pull-quote. Kennedy knew this. All you have to do is take the first half of the sentence and say it backwards and you’re the hero of the Free World. That’s chiasmus.
Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.
Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.
Now that may seem a cheap trick. It’s easy to do and to do it is easy.
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