Malloy said the speech could not have been in a moving ‘call-response’ format, because of race. But the problem with ‘call-response’ would be more fundamental than that, because you want people to feel as if you have done nothing to them at all; they should feel, as I have said before, not as if they are warmed by the glow a great leader, but as if they are warmed by the glow of a light bulb popping up over their heads. They should have their brains slowed down just a little, to take advantage of the advanced complexity of human brain architecture.
It is like learning arithmetic; no one does arithmetic because they were ‘inspired’, but because they were physically changed, microscopically, into people who do arithmetic, an advanced use of human brain architecture.
The only previously well known political speech I can think of that truly quiets and soothes this way, when I read it, is the Gettysburg Address. But I don’t read speeches a lot. :)
