Sunday, October 19, 2008
The Straight Talk Express
I've recently been pretty fascinated by the construction of meaning under the pretense of "realness". The realness lexicon is everywhere, but it is most important in politics. John McCain's campaign bus is imfamously called the "Straight Talk Express". It might seem obvious that this is supposed to make John McCain seem like a genuine person in opposition to the majority of politicians who do not "talk straight", but there is more at work here than meet's the eye.
McCain is tapping in to two older traditions by using this phrase, "Straight Talk" (not to mention the '92 comedy starring Dolly Parton). The younger of these traditions is what is known as the "Plain Speech" tradition, a phrase I picked up in my History of Advertising course (HIS316) and it's textbook "Fables of Abundance" by Jackson Lears (which, by the way, is a great read whether you're in the course or not). This tradition was a reactionary effort to supplant the use of lying, embellishing, and sensationalizing in advertising in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Preachers, most notably Quakers, would make use of the phrase "Plain Speech" in opposition to what they deemed the "Yankee Speech" of the travelling salesmen that would come through small towns with goods from major cities. "Yankee Speech" was typified by its use of flowery and ambiguous language; the idea was that it sounded pretty, but was meant to seduce the listener in to buying something unnecessary. It's important to note that by the 1920's, the "tradition" of plain speech was taken up by advertisers to implement what is called the "hard sell", where the advertisement plainly addresses its audience, extolling the usefullness of the product.
The other tradition in play here is that of orthodoxy, or more specifically christian orthodoxy. I do not mean to evoke the Eastern Orthodox Church (with a capital "O"), but rather the tradition of orthodoxy that goes back to the days of the early Christians in the Roman Empire. Our English word, "orthodox", comes from a Greek phrase that literally meant "straight speech" (or "straight discourse", but the meaning remains the same). The value of straight talk was very high in the early Christian churches, influencing the creation of a religion that would control the mental climate of the western world for centuries to come. The idea for them was the ideal of the revealed truth of Christ against the non-truth of the oppressive Romans, pagans, and Jews. In this sense, "straight" loses its secular meaning in ancient Greek and gains a meaning that allows for the straightness to bend wherever possible for the revealed truth of the Lord. What comes with it is the idea that there is a hidden truth, one that is ambiguous yet still unwavering, still orthodox. The early Christian's equivalent to "Yankee Speech" would possibly be the rhetorical style of the Stoic orators, who were somewhat contemporary with them, and denounced their practice of voluntary martyrdom as irrational and ridiculous.
I would have hesitated to call John McCain's bus the "orthodox express" during his 2000 bid for the American presidency, but since his more recent campaign has been trying to solidify the Christian base of the Republican party, it seems appropriate to make the connection. Straight talk seems to mean an unwavering commitment to truth, no matter how ugly it is. This has been John McCain's style throughout the campaign, most notable in his campaign's "suspension" before the first debate so he could deal with the financial crisis in Washington, D.C. The suspension was unsuccessful and many viewed it as a stunt, but the rational was that of straight talk. He meant to seem like the kind of man who would adhere to the truth of the nation's problems rather than the Yankee lies inherent in a political campaign. With all of our talk about mass culture, it's interesting to consider that both the Christian orthodoxy and the Plain Speech tradition were born out of attempts to alter mass culture (whether these attempts were successful or not remains a question of the true value of straight speech). McCain's use of these traditions simply uses them to alter the mass appeal of himself as a candidate for president. All three have underlying religious meanings.
This is all confusing, and I don't think I have an answer as to what the role of straight speech in today's mass culture is (possibly my paper topic...), so to conclude I leave you with this video for R. Kelly's "Real Talk", off his most recent album.
# posted by Dan Epstein @ 11:33 PM 
