From
Forbes.com - by Conor Friedersdorf - Few humans accomplish as much as Lech Walesa, former president of Poland. Actions he took during the Cold War to oppose his nation's Communist regime earned him the Nobel Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Time Magazine's Man of the Year, even knighthood in multiple countries. The wisest words he ever uttered? "Words are plentiful; deeds are precious." Put less elegantly, talk is cheap. And its supply is only increasing. President Washington's initial State of the Union address was just 833 words. President Jefferson submitted his annual update in writing. In contrast, modern presidents are prone to interminable orations. One evening every January, 45 minutes deep in bromides, the state of the Union is "bored." How could it be otherwise? We are awash in talk as never before. This moment the tabs open on my laptop include a YouTube address by President Obama, more than 700 lectures given at TED conferences on "ideas worth spreading" and the 411 archived episodes of This American Life. Writing about politics is my livelihood, and even I find it hard to listen to POTUS given the quality of spoken alternatives available.Its other symptoms are annoyance at talking heads on TV, talk radio hosts who rant about investment opportunities in marked up gold coins, and especially political candidates whose automated campaign calls plague every last American who hasn't switched from landlines to a cellphone. As a nation, we're online chatting with our spouses, text messaging friends to make dinner plans and e-mailing colleagues. What makes aspiring pols think we want to listen to them on our voicemail? Unfortunately, neither the cheapness of political talk nor impatience with it has stopped us from inverting President Walesa's formulation: On matters of the utmost importance, we too often ignore deeds and focus on a pol's words, despite the experience of "Read my lips..." and "I did not have sex with that woman" and "Iraq's weapons of mass destruction" and "We're going to close Guantanamo."
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Commentary - The Case Against Talk
From Forbes.com - by Conor Friedersdorf - Few humans accomplish as much as Lech Walesa, former president of Poland. Actions he took during the Cold War to oppose his nation's Communist regime earned him the Nobel Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Time Magazine's Man of the Year, even knighthood in multiple countries. The wisest words he ever uttered? "Words are plentiful; deeds are precious." Put less elegantly, talk is cheap. And its supply is only increasing. President Washington's initial State of the Union address was just 833 words. President Jefferson submitted his annual update in writing. In contrast, modern presidents are prone to interminable orations. One evening every January, 45 minutes deep in bromides, the state of the Union is "bored." How could it be otherwise? We are awash in talk as never before. This moment the tabs open on my laptop include a YouTube address by President Obama, more than 700 lectures given at TED conferences on "ideas worth spreading" and the 411 archived episodes of This American Life. Writing about politics is my livelihood, and even I find it hard to listen to POTUS given the quality of spoken alternatives available.Its other symptoms are annoyance at talking heads on TV, talk radio hosts who rant about investment opportunities in marked up gold coins, and especially political candidates whose automated campaign calls plague every last American who hasn't switched from landlines to a cellphone. As a nation, we're online chatting with our spouses, text messaging friends to make dinner plans and e-mailing colleagues. What makes aspiring pols think we want to listen to them on our voicemail? Unfortunately, neither the cheapness of political talk nor impatience with it has stopped us from inverting President Walesa's formulation: On matters of the utmost importance, we too often ignore deeds and focus on a pol's words, despite the experience of "Read my lips..." and "I did not have sex with that woman" and "Iraq's weapons of mass destruction" and "We're going to close Guantanamo." Read more
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