Kurt Milberger: Welcome to the MSU. Press podcast, where we talk about University Press Publishing with some of the authors, Editors, and publishers who make it happen from the campus of Michigan State University. On today's episode, we're joined by Craig R. Smith and Michael Hyde to discuss their book, The Call Eloquence in Service of Truth. Thanks for tuning in!
In the Call Eloquence in Service of Truth, my guests, Craig R. Smith and Michael J. Hyde, offer a rare examination of a rhetorical phenomenon referred to as the call, which is closely linked to eloquence. They explore this linkage by examining various components of eloquence, including examples of its misuse by George W. Bush and Donald J. Trump. The case studies here include examples drawn from addresses by Barack Obama, Daniel Webster, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Chase Smith, Susan Collins, and Mitt Romney. Smith and Hyde examine religious rhetoric, too, including the epistles of St. Paul, the writings of St. Augustine, and the preaching of Jonathan Edwards. Finally, the book explores eloquence in films and in communication between artists and writers, concluding with a study of how Annie Dillard evokes the sublime with eloquence and awe.
Craig R. Smith is the Director Emeritus of the center for First Amendment Studies at California State University, Long Beach, where he taught for 27 years. He received the Douglas Ehniger Distinguished Rhetorical Scholar Award from the National Communication Association for his contributions to rhetorical theory.
Michael J. Hyde is professor and University Distinguished Chair in Communication Ethics at Wake Forest University. He's a Distinguished Scholar of the National Communication Association, a Fellow of the Wk. Kellogg foundation, and a recipient of national, state, and University research grants for his work in the rhetoric of medicine. Craig and Michael, thank you both so much for taking the time to join me today.
Craig: You're welcome.
Michael: Thank you.
K: I wonder if we could start where the book begins with some of the technical terms that you use in the title. Can you tell me what does it mean to talk about the call in rhetorical studies?
C: Michael, why don't you take that? Because it was originally your concept.
M: Yeah. The call is a form of communication. It functions as a way of seeking attention from others and seeking a response from others. There's various ways of understanding its scope and function. Example, social media. No time in the history of humankind has there been a technology that gives us more of a call than social media looking for attention, getting a response. We've never had that much. And what we've learned scientifically is that the consequences are not always good, but that's another book. The call is not something that has to be verbal or written. It can be silent. You're walking through a Museum. You happen to notice on the wall Van Gogh, Starry Night. Given what you bring to that picture, you look at it and you say, as many people do, you know, that speaks to me. Well, that's a call. It's gotten your attention and it has encouraged a response. Some people might not feel that way. Not everybody hears the call, but in that case, the call is very powerful and silent. That is absolutely crucial. As we were kidding about earlier, Kurt, the call can come and can be silent from nonverbal cues, from a person's face. You're talking with them, you see a disgruntled look. That disgruntlement is a call that tells you
how you might want to respond. So calls are there everywhere. There's more fundamental ways of looking at it, which I'm sure we'll get to, but that basically is what we're trying to get at. And that is the scope and function of the call and how it affects human beings.
C: I would just add that it can be very sublime. The romantics heard the call of nature because they felt the presence of God in nature. And so when nature was calling to them, God was calling to them. The call hits St. Paul when he's riding on his horse to Damascus to get more training as a Pharisee, and it converts him. So there's a wide range of calls. Why do we call what we do our calling, our work is our calling. You have a calling. I have a calling. Michael has a call. So it's a pervasive term that we think has been somewhat neglected. And that's what we try to scope out in the book.
M: And let me add one other thing, because this is something that when Craig and I got together, he said, why don't we emphasize this phenomenon? And the phenomenon was eloquence. Eloquence, think of it. Oh, my God, that sounds so academic. Eloquent is a rhetorical phenomenon, and it's not difficult to understand that is a person who's eloquent has discovered what he or she believes is the right words or words, has decided to use them in a certain way so that they are effective and get the audience at that moment in time to respond. The key of using that symbols, nonverbal verbal communication, the ability, the genius of finding the right way of doing that to be effective, eloquence. And it is an art and oftentimes requiring genius.
K: I'm really interested in this idea that there is a kind of art to constructing a call like that. You could employ language or some other form of communication, eloquently, to make something that calls to auditors, listeners, people who experience it, to have some kind of response. But I'm also balancing that against something that Craig was talking about, this idea that there's something instinctual or sublime or transcendent about things that call to us. So on the one hand, we have this rhetorical system, this idea that you could use language to do something, but on the other hand, we have whatever's happening in the person reacting to that where they're responding to some kind of call that might be intentional or unintentional. Could you say a little bit about how you guys see the rhetorical function of the call in that kind of context of natural human responses to stimuli?
C: Well, I think you make an important point. In order for the call to succeed, someone has to hear it. So one of the things we write about is how do you get yourself into a place where you can hear the call, whether it's the call of God for a convert or whether it's the call of a vocation. And so hearing is part of it. Not to get too philosophical, but the philosopher Martin Heidegger talks about getting yourself into a state of hearkening attunement. In the book, we look at St. Augustine, who says you have to meditate, you have to pray, you have to work at this so that you're ready to open yourself to the call. So that's as important as the call itself, I think.
M: Yeah, without a doubt. Here's an example of not hearing the call and not hearing it and responding, quote appropriately, what we have as a potential disaster. And I use this example with my students, and here we are. Here are these kids. They're paying $79,000 to go to Wake Forest. There are certain class. They're very smart. They haven't had a lot of disappointments in their life. I also lecture to families and married couples that when I'm done on this example, they're not really happy. I say to them, look, let's say that you find somebody that you really love. I mean, you love so much that it almost brings you to tears. And you go up to them and you put your arms around them and you hug them and you kiss them and you say in their ear, I love you so much, I die for you. Now I say to the audience, wow, can you come up with a bigger notion of love than that? I mean, just look at religion, all right? But taking religion aside,
my God, what you would actually die for them? What a compliment. What a compliment. And there you are, the significant other. And maybe a tear comes to your eye. And after you hear that, you look at them, but you don't say it to them, what's the relationship going to be like? And this is where students will say to me, you son of a gun, how am I going to have a relationship? What am I going to worry about? And married couples are not happy if they've never done that. What happens is I love you so much, I would die for you is a call looking for a response. And if they don't get it, it can be tragic. Didn't you hear me? They might say, oh, I heard you. Are you kidding me? All right, so little things like that are just crucial. And we look at that in the book, and that is how calls are not heard and the potential consequences. And they could be disastrous, as indicated in the example I just gave you. And the response that my students gave me, married couples.
K: That's such an interesting example, because what you want isn't even necessarily that someone would die on your behalf, but that they'll reaffirm the same level of commitment that you have this sort of like hear my call to state your own undying love, whatever the sort of limits of that might be. I wonder if maybe that's a good way to transition into some examples of how like if we think about the call as a natural phenomenon of communication that we're constantly using on each other, what are some ways that folks use it intentionally, particularly in political speech, which you're looking at a lot in the book? How do folks employ the call as their crafting rhetoric?
C: Well, I think one of the ways is the call of conscience. There are many examples in the book of this, but my favorite is Margaret Chase Smith, the Senator from Maine who in heard the call of conscience. Actually, her speech is entitled The Conscience of a Republican, and she attacks Joe McCarthy, the Senator who is on a rampage across the country, a Demagogue who's cheating eloquence. Now, Margaret Chase Smith gave that speech on the floor of the Senate in 1950. Joe McCarthy went on for four more years. So one could argue that the speech was something of a failure. But historically, we now remember Margaret J. Smith is something of a Saint and Joe McCarthy is something of a devil. So very often the call of conscience makes you do something that at that moment is not very popular. But in the long run, you get vindicated.
M: I would add one thing. This is something that Craig and I have worked at for a long time. Call it conscience. Well, let's get academic for a second. Conscience Latin Con scantia. All right. Scantia. Knowing Con with conscience is a knowing with. All right. In Scripture, God gave them a heart so that one would know God as God. All right. Well, in the Old Testament, they didn't have a word for conscience. When Paul comes along in the New Testament, they finally invent the term and move from heart to conscience. That goes very well with the idea of the call. Knowing together, knowing together, the importance of being able to call, get attention, get a response. It doesn't always work, as Craig points out, but if it's powerful enough later on at the right time, it might be heard.
K: Are there any characteristics that are shared among those calls that do seem to be successful? What are some things that folks do that bring us together so that we can know together that create those kinds of communities that feel a shared call, that then are able to act according to conscience or whatever other value is underlying that endeavor?
C: In many cases, it's a two step process. Mitt Romney hears the call of conscience and justifies voting to impeach Trump. First of all, he has to hear the truth, then he has to use eloquence to transmit the truth. Augustine, in his book De Doctrine of Christiana on Christian doctrine, spends a great deal of time talking about receiving divine illumination and then translating that into the signs and symbols that are
going to make that divine illumination understandable. Present that knowledge, as Michael puts it, to the followers, to the people who are in the Church listening to the preacher. So one thing that I think they have in common is this two step. I get the truth, and now I have to translate it using eloquence into a way where people will understand it. And that includes establishing your credibility, picking up the right emotional tone for the moment, using the right form of public address. And we look at all of the different forms that are available to the speaker. And so eloquence becomes a very complicated way of constructing an art form that transmits the truth that comes to you.
M: Here's an example. That's a powerful example. Let me give up what might be a mundane example, but it illustrates. So I'm a kid, I get out of graduate school. I'm in my 20s. I haven't really published anything yet, but I'm chomping at the bit. I am known for having expertise in an area. All of a sudden I get a contact from Professor Craig Smith, who's interested in this expertise and wonders if we can get together, given the way he invited me, given what I knew about him, given how the language was used. And I heard it in an eloquent way, I said, sure, I'll get together with you. Which led to the first article that we ever did together that many people didn't understand because it was new. Eventually it was accepted by a reader and is now the cornerstone in that area of research. If Craig Smith, Dr. Smith does not communicate all right, get my attention, seek a certain response, and I just blow them off. Or at the young age in my 20s, I don't want to deal with this. We don't get it. Good consequence came, and thus Craig Smith and Michael Hyde began to work together. And thus one of the things was his book, but it was based on a way of talking to a young kid who had no experience whatsoever. Craig was young too at the time, but he had no experience whatsoever, and now was open to the possibility of something. And Bam, started my career. That's a very personal example and one that I think a lot of us can relate to, meeting someone who has a way of entailing you into work that you can do together or seeing the potential in you.
K: I wonder about if this is a good moment to start thinking more explicitly about eloquence, because that sort of first contact is a great moment for there to be a kind of eloquent meeting or eloquent expression of need or shared interest I find eloquent such an interesting thing to think about because when we see it done well, it looks effortless, right? Like the whole idea of eloquence is one of unstudied, surety and cool, calm ability to speak clearly from the heart and connect to people who are listening. But it takes a lot of labor to actually be able to do that and to employ those techniques. As you looked at eloquence for the book, what were some of the things that you saw people doing to try to achieve that style of communication?
C: Well, I think the first thing to make clear, when Aristotle writes his book on eloquence, he calls it the art of rhetoric. He doesn't call it the science of rhetoric. Art forms are based on generative principles. They're not based on hard fact science types of rules. And so what you're getting when you study eloquence are generative questions. How do I establish my credibility with the audience? Why is credibility the most potent force of persuasion, according to Aristotle? How do I, as I said earlier, establish an emotional tone. Aristotle takes us through three steps you have to go through to do that properly. When you look at building arguments, you have to have evidence, and the evidence has to come from good sources. That's particularly important these days when you have fake news all over the place. And then how do you build an argument out of that? And then you have the different styles that you can impose on the structure of the speech to move the audience or to instruct the audience. You have the different forms that we look at in the book forensic or court like speech, legislative speech, celebratory speech, ceremonial speech, all of those things require different complexities that you put
together. And then, of course, the center going on for me, for Demosthenes and a few other people was delivery. If you can't deliver the speech, then there's no good there. I mean, I was a presidential speechwriter at one point in my life, and you could write the best speech in the world. And if the President didn't give it, well, it didn't do any good. So all of those things go into the mix of this art. And that's why it's difficult. People think, well, you're just born with a natural talent. Well, you can refine that talent even if you're born with it. But it's more than a natural talent. It is an art form, and it takes awful lot of study to get it right.
M: Here's the thing that I think, well, it definitely compliments everything that Craig is saying, and it gives its specifics. I'm a graduate student. I cut a lecture so that I can get my paper in before everybody else. It was stupid. What did I know? I get the paper. I run into the office, I look at the Professor, I said, Doctor so and so here's my paper. And he just stared at me. He said, where were you today at the lecture? I said, well, it was going to be recorded, which was a stupid thing to say. And I said, but here's my paper. And he wouldn't take it. And he looked at me and he said the following. I've used this with all my research assistance, with myself, with my colleagues. He said, Mr. Hyde, before you write the Symphony, you have to learn the notes. And you, Mr. Hyde, do not know the notes. Knowing the notes, how to put them together. Think of great symphonies. They're symphonies. But there's also, if you will, symphonic rhetoric, what are the notes? How do I put them together? What's going to make sense, Where's the harmony and all that Craig just said is part of those notes. All right. And knowing how to put it together, what, so you can write the Symphony? I think I can speak for both Craig and myself. We should live till we're 120. We're going to go to the grave trying to write the Symphony. But that's okay. The key is you never stop trying to learn the notes. And I've never forgotten that.
C: And with respect to our book, that's Ellen's, there's a chapter in the book on Barack Obama, and we look at a speech Barack Obama gave when he was running for President. It's called The Speech on Racism, which is very eloquent. And then we look at a eulogy he gave in Arizona after the shooting in Tucson, in Gabby Giffords district, where some people were killed, including a little girl. And if you really want to look at a symphonic moment in eloquence, that speech is it. And that's why we cover it, where he uses each of the people who was killed to illustrate a different virtue in life. It's just a magnificent speech. It's terribly moving, and it really issues the call.
K: You're listening to the MSU. Press podcast. I'm here with Craig R. Smith and Michael J. Hide, authors of the Call Eloquence and Service of Truth. That example that you give of Obama giving a speech after the shooting in Tucson, it really, I think, highlights the real challenge of being in that position as an orator like such a tragic thing has happened and all these people have died. And you want to, as the person who's called to speak on the subject, call others to do something in response to that. But how do you do it with respect to the people who have died without turning it into some sort of very low and crass like political opportunity to attack your opponents or there's so many things to consider that the artfulness is a real miracle, I think, in that constellation of things to think about.
C: Yeah, absolutely. As you point out, it's a very complicated art form. That's why in one of the chapters we get away from what you normally think of as eloquence, that is words. And we look at paintings and we also look at the letters between Van Gogh and Gogon and how they called one another in the way Michael talked about me calling out to him, van Gogh calls out to go down. And when they live together and they're more productive as painters than at any other time in their life. And there's lots of examples of where people call to one another and then they collaborate. And it's really wonderful. I mean, you
have Chopin and George Sam. She writes more when they're together. He composes more when they're together than at any other time of their life. We explore some of those relationships Wordsworth with his sister Dorothy is another example. I mean, there's tons of these wonderful interpersonal relationships that result in art, but then calls to us generations later, centuries later. It's a magnificent thing to look at and to explore.
M: And again, what Craig is pointing out here actually directly talks about a term he didn't use it specifically. But in this togetherness, people feel at home. And this idea of home is crucial for us, because what you're trying to do with hearing the call, responding to it being eloquent at the right time, in the right way, having the notes right to Symphony, what you're trying to do is you're trying to make people not always comfortable, but more often than not comfortable. They might not buy what you're saying, but after a while, here it is. They feel at home with them, with the speaker and yourself, and we tend to use that word to throw it away. Let's look at the importance of home. You want to know the importance being at home but not feeling at home? And that tells you something just crucial. All right. We are creatures who need a home because it's associated with comfort, and that makes us more open. All right. It can make us much more productive. Sometimes it can make it lazy. But again, being in that right mindset, think about it. When you really felt at home, aren't you a better person? It seems to me that that could be the case. And better people when they're really on know the notes. Yeah.
C: One of the examples from the book is take the United States Senate as your home, and when it's full of discord, you don't feel comfortable. There. Susan Collins in the speech that we examine that she gave on the floor of the Senate explaining her vote on the Cavanaugh nomination to the Supreme Court, spends a lot of time telling the senators how to make this House into a home, how to treat one another with civility. She says that they've hit a low point and they can only go up. And then she advises them how to do that. During the 1850 compromise, Daniel Webster does the same thing. He gets them out of a jam. The Senate is just deadlocked slave States against free States. And once the President dies and a new President comes in Millard Fillmore, he appoints Webster Secretary of state. Webster gets to give a farewell address, and he uses that moment of eloquence to put the House in order and says, look, here's the way out. Let's love one another. Let's treat one another with civility, and then with shifting majorities, we can craft a compromise that can save the nation from civil war. And it works because he created a better home for the Senate than it had. And the Civil War is put off for ten years, which changes history dramatically.
M: And here comes my depression, because I don't think we can solve the problem. If you want to get things back in order in this country, you've got to figure out a way how to have the American public feel at home. And that ain't going to happen given what's going on in Washington, in Congress, with Democrats, Republicans, I mean, they're talking about war. They're talking about take guns to voter registration. And if you find somebody who you don't like, shoot them. Jeez, that's not a home. But that is crucial. And this was the genius of Craig finding those kind of speeches where we could look at that as a way of coming up with examples. What examples do we have today to solve the problem of democracy being flushed down the toilet? I don't know. I'm just sick at heart.
K: I wonder not to indulge too much of the depression that I think we all feel and are encountering in this moment, but I do wonder one of the charges that's often leveled against rhetoricians and Aristotle specifically, is this fact that rhetoric is sort of amoral activity. Right. Like that. It doesn't have any particular value allegiance. It's a set of tools that you can use for any particular end. And I know that you
deal with some of this in the book. So I'd be interested to hear what you make of these characters who aren't using eloquence to try to create a home space or to try to create fellow feeling among us, to move us into better Union with each other and advance whatever cause we might want to advance, but are instead trying to create barriers and trying to create dissension among different groups of people. What happens when eloquence is turned to those kinds of calls?
C: Yeah. We have a chapter in the book called Cheating Eloquence. We derive that either from Cicero or Oliver Wendell Holmes uses the phrase. And yes, rhetoric is a two-edged sword. It can be used for good or evil, but to combat evil rhetoric, which is very powerful, particularly when you don't know the absolute truth, you know what's probably true? You need to use the same tools to combat rhetoric. I mean, it took a long time for somebody to break through, as we point out in the book, to Joe McCarthy. I mean, Joe McCarthy used cheating eloquence for four years, and people's lives were ruined. Tenured professors were fired libraries, had to take books off the shelf. I mean, it was ridiculous. It was a very uncomfortable home that he created in his country. And finally, there was a breakthrough. He went too far. He ordered the army McCarthy hearings to investigate the army to see if it was full of communists. And the attorney for the Army, Joseph Welsh. At one point, when McCarthy attacked one of Wales'aides, Welsh responded emotionally and condemned McCarthy and said that his forgiveness would have to come from someone else, not from Welch. And then McCarthy interrupted, and Welch said, at long last, Senator, have you no mercy? Will you please leave this land alone? And it popped the bubble. It wasn't logic, it wasn't credibility. It was an emotional appeal that popped the bubble and saved us from McCarthyism going on. A month later, McCarthy was condemned in the United Sensor in the United States Senate and eventually died of alcoholism. So sometimes we have to use fire to fight fire. Using eloquence in the service of truth is what we hope people do. And that's why we entitled the book The Way We Did.
M: I'm a hardcore empirically oriented. When time comes rhetorician, which is, take me to the text. Let me see the data. The data is the language. Let me evaluate the data. Now, in medicine, that's exactly what you're doing. And you're hoping for an MO, a measurable outcome, right? Well, in rhetoric, we can't always get a measurable outcome, but we are definitely trying to go to the text and see what it discloses. That's the key. That's what truth is. All right, we think about truth is this crazy thing. No. Truth is a consequence of one's ability to use symbolic activity communication to uncover or disclose what something is. And to the extent that you can make a statement about that, or I can draw blood and figure out what's going on here, I now can make a report that is Truthful. It's not some metaphysical notion. It is something that says, look at the world, attend to it, see what it must be doing in terms of calling for your attention, and then be a good analyst, rhetoric and science, and tell me what is being disclosed. Thus, you offer a truth clear.
K: So then the kind of eloquence that you're thinking of, it excludes eloquence in service of things that are not, in fact, the state of reality or that are not representative of the truth?
C: Well, you can use eloquence to fight cheating eloquence. You can reveal that the person who's cheating eloquence is lying, that they're creating a home that would be disastrous for the country. There are all kinds of things you can do with eloquence. But remember, you're going to have to break through to the audience and get maybe that's one of the things eloquence also does. It's not only that the audience should be in a state of harkening and tune in to hear the call maybe you have to put them into that state to hear the call. That's what Joseph Welch did when he broke through to McCarthy. He got
people to hear his call by putting them in a proper state of mind, which he had to do emotionally, not logically breaking through some of the things that Trump has done and said, I can't tell you how many friends I've lost because I simply won't agree with them in what they're saying, that Antifa invaded the capital. And it's an illusion that those people were Conservatives. I mean, I'm a responsible conservative. Those people were not Conservatives. They weren't Antifa. They were right wing conspirators. And they're going to jail and they're pleading guilty. And that should break through the truth. But there are some people that still don't believe it. And that's a real problem. And it's harder to break through now than it's ever been because of social media. You can hear any opinion reinforced on social media if you want to look around. And so as Affirmation theory tells us, we look for things that agree with us and reinforce us. And right now, we're not hearing the other side, we're not hearing the other evidence and the other information. And that's where Eloquence needs to come in more than ever because of social media to break through Affirmation theory and get people to see what the truth is.
M: This, by the way, goes back what was earlier on social media. There are so many calls going on there. We are overwhelmed by them. With the student population. We've seen a degrading of their patients, a degrading of their commitment to looking well, we have to do with patience, their tolerance and contradiction. I mean, various things that are key to the glorious and authentic study of rhetoric. Where are we going with all these kids? We don't know. I mean, in medicine, I love I deal with an area of regenerative medicine that is building body parts. And so that for me, is where I think we should be going in terms of being Truthful to who we are and progressing. A lot of people don't agree with me, but my research is very much involved in that. I mean, that is absolutely crucial. But where all the technology is taking us. So with Kobe and Zoom, everybody does Zoom. We can hear more calls than ever before. Has it benefited education? That's a judgment call. We don't know yet. All right. Has it disrupted home life? Oh, yeah. Parents want their kids out of the house. Kids want to get out of the house. They talk to me all the time. I stay home. I have to do all these short. I mean, something has gone on, a kind of call that has called into question things that we thought were okay, what are we going to do about them? We better have people to know how to talk it out. And that's Eloquence. And that's the call and that's truth.
K: I’m sort of just sitting with this state of affairs, thinking about the demands of social media and sort of insistence of the call. And on the other hand, I'm thinking of Craig's discussion of the way that Trump is in the world and the sort of ways that it's almost an anti-eloquence or whatever the opposite of eloquence is. That sort of cutting right to providing a concrete answer, no matter how facetious it might be, as a way of declaring over any kind of confusion or continued discussion of any particular thing that we're talking about. I keep coming back to these moments during the Trump years where it seemed like everyone should have recognized what you can only describe as the bullshit of his truth claims. Like, oh, no, it was Antifa who stormed the capital. Quite clearly it was not. We all saw what we were seeing, but we were told to see something other than what was there. I don't know that I can formulate this into a question, but I do feel like this lens of thinking about the relationship between the call and the eloquence, of who's delivering it is so key to trying to get a grapple on these issues that we're facing.
C: Yeah, I think and Michael helped me on this. One of the key themes in the book is awe. How are we overawed? What awaits us when you are in a state of awe? The thing that brings you to that state chases every other thought out of your head. Trump with his cheating eloquence, overall, a lot of his audience. I mean, we've never had presidential rhetoric like that. The bragging, the branding. I mean, it was appalling to me that that kind of person could be elected President of the United States. The things
he said that were ignored or just trivialized talking about women and things that went on. It was awesome in an awful way. All can also be a good thing. And the end of the book is about that. Looking at Andy Dillard's, fiction and nonfiction. But I think that's an important concept that we get into in terms of transcendence and awe and how that's used.
M: It's a good lead in for me. When Trump is running for the presidency, what rhetoric emerges on the radical right? There's two examples. Trump, he's the Messiah. Trump quote. He's a gift from God, quote, unquote, really. But if you start thinking in that way, then he can get away with a lot example. And again, this hits home in my work coated. What does he call it? No, it's no worse than the flu. It's no big thing. The way they're talking about it is a hoax, blah, blah, blah. And Moreover, there's science, and they keep on, quote, making mistakes. That's what science does. It does his research makes mistakes and then moves on. He didn't define any of that. He has no idea what he's taught. If he does, he's lying. Right. But it was seen as eloquent. Oh, yeah, here is the truth. It didn't matter whether over three months, 10,000 Americans died from the problem with cubic. No, there was nothing like that. So they kept on making excuses and it was purchased by the by people. Why? Because he was telling the truth in a way that no rhetorician or any person who had any kind of moral integrity would accept. But they did. That's what scares me, because that group of people, God bless them, aren't going back. All right. Trump brought that out. That voice isn't going to go away. How are we going to deal with that? Now when I talk about science and I have to deal with communities, I have to walk off the stage. One, because they're going to shoot me. Or two, well, I don't have a gun, so I guess I have to run. But it is unbelievable. Unbelievable. And why? Because I'm talking live. So in this case, we have a real problem. Going back to what Craig was saying, we desperately need people that in the book, he specifically points out people who have the ability to discover and use the right words at the right time in the right way to allow us to better understand, my God, this is the truth. Let's act. We've lost that ability. And I think it emphasizes something that we brought up early in the conversation to the degree to which the audience that hears those people needs to be ready to hear that message, or they need to be patient or tolerant or willing to hear something other than an affirmation of what they already believe or a challenge.
K: I mean, the COVID discussion is such a good example because I just remember those feelings in 2020 of being cast into this world of epidemiology as here. I've got a PhD in English. I don't know from epidemiology anything, but all of a sudden we're having this huge cultural conversation about quarantining and masking and all of these things that I don't understand at all. And I need someone who knows what they're talking about to explain it to me in a way that makes it make sense. And as soon as that person opens their mouth, if it's confusing or if it's hedging or if it's not eloquent, like, you could see how the appeal of someone who's willing to come up and say, even if it's falsely like, no, this is what you need to know and this is what you need to do. You could see how that would be appealing to someone who's now in this maelstrom of uncertainty and the world is changing and it is hostile to them. It's so interesting how your book and the conversation we've had here is looking at much more than just what the reader does, the rhetor, the person speaking the order, but also thinking about how that calls to the audience and how they have to be receptive to that and what their role is in those conversations and experiences as well.
C: Look at the difference between the attempted impeachment of Richard Nixon and the impeachment of Donald Trump. Nixon resigns. Why? Because there's a consensus in the country that he has violated the law and he needs to step down. There's no consensus. Now. One of the reasons there was a
consensus in Nixon's day back in the 60s and 70s is there were three networks, ABC, NBC, CBS. At the end of the day at 630, they reported the news. They reported it as objectively as they could. Opinion was marginalized off of all of that. So there was a national consensus. I mean, even over Vietnam, after a time once Walter Broncos went to Vietnam and reported on what was going on there today, that is not happening because there's no three credible networks where you can go. Walter Cronkite and I was privileged to write for him at one point when I was a consultant at CBS News, became the most trusted man in America. There is no most trusted man in America. I mean, there's just nobody out there that is doing the kinds of things that were done back in the 60s and the 70s. And so that's the challenge we face. It was much easier to have consensus when everybody was listening to the same news. Now it's all over the place. There's 500 news channels out there. You can't overemphasize that point in a book on the call, but just what's happening to the fabric society? Correct me if I'm wrong, Craig, but another aspect with the Nixon thing, isn't it the case that eventually he just gives up because Goldwater goes to him and say, this is it? Yes, it was his own party, right? There's no Goldwater. There's no Goldwater for Trump. Right? It's certainly not Mitch McConnell.
K: Heaven help us. Is there any things about the book specifically that you had really hoped we would emphasize?
C: I think that we touched on it lightly, but the chapter on Eloquence really does set out all the tools of the art form, and it tells people where they can go if they want to read more about Eloquence and how to be Eloquent. I think that's an important function of the book. The conclusion, mainly written by Michael on Annie Dillard and where we can find it and how it can do good is a marvelous thing to read, and I hope people will get the book for those reasons.
M: And this is important for me. So I have this idea based on a series of books that I've written, and I think this could be the next idea, the notion of the call. And I call Craig and I meet with him and say this might be another thing we could do. And we sit down and we talk. And I had the idea and it transformed. And eventually it got to the point where we wanted to emphasize the idea of eloquence. There is no book without the notion of the call. There is no book without the notion of eloquence. That was a way of showing and demonstrating the call. And so basically, I said to Craig, given the spiritual person that he is me too, Craig, where art thou? And he said, Here I am. And that's the book. That's lovely. I love it. I wonder if we could maybe end on a slightly more optimistic note. We've spent a lot of time sort of worried about the decay of American democracy and the threat of President Trump.
K: I wonder about those last sections, if you could say a little bit about where you find the Call, especially in relation to Annie Dillard and this question of awe. How does the Call function in art forms, and what do you see it doing there?
M: I like the chapter on Van Gogh and Gogan because it talks about how you can reach a spiritual state. And I think that's one of the things we need to do with Eloquence, if we could just spread spiritualism, whatever you define that as. But I mean, in the transcendent, it's a call of conscience. If we could get people to hear the call of conscience, I think there'd be such an improvement in the home we have here in this country and in the world in terms of Annie Dillard, it's a big call and it changed my life. Given what she talks about. Excuse me. And given her ability to write, the Eloquent is just this mind blowing. And in one of her books and we use it, she asks, she says to her students, you go into a hospital, what would you say to a person who is so sick and they're about to die? What can you say to them? It wasn't just seen as banal. Now, if you've ever been in that situation, that really hits home, and I've been there with
parents and Francis. But what she's forcing you to do is do you have the words? Do you have the ability to not only be awed by the horror of the situation, but come up with words, even all that person, such that they might smile and go in peace? I think that's what a writer searches for. That's what we're willing to do for.
K: Thanks for that, Michael. That's a really profound statement of the real ideas and themes and the real challenge. I think that's at play in The Call. I think on that note, we should probably wrap it up in deference to time. Thank you both so much for taking the time to join me today. I have so enjoyed this conversation and spending some time with your book, thinking systematically about what calls to us and how it's expressed and how we can use it to improve this home that we share. So thank you all so much.
M: Honor to be in your presence. Kurt.
C: Thank you Kurt.
K: Craig R. Smith and Michael J. Hyde's book The Call is available@msupress.org and other fine booksellers. You can find Craig on the History rated our podcast and you can connect with the Press on Facebook and at MSU. Press on Twitter or you can also find me at Kirkmilb the MSU. Press podcast is a joint production of MSU. Press in the College of Arts and Letters of Michigan State University. Thanks to the team at MSU. Press for helping to produce this podcast. Our theme music is coffee by Cambo Michigan State University occupies the ancestral traditional and contemporary lands of the initiate a three Fires Confederacy of Ojibwe, Odawa and Potawatomi people University resides on land seated in the 1819 Treaty of Saginaw. Thank you all so much for listening and never give up on book.