Danny ChaiA while ago, we watched this Korean movie Chunhyang. It’s apparently some traditional Korean story, using a pansori performance as the narrative framework. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen/heard pansori, this Korean music style, but I hate it. They sing in about the most annoying voice possible. I don’t know the exact meaning of “pansori”, but “sori” means sound, so my guess is that “pan” means “worst in the universe”. In my mind, it’s the musical equivalent of kimchee. With kimchee, it’s like Koreans decided, hey, let’s let this food rot and see what it tastes like. With pansori, it’s like they said, let’s try and make the harshest sound we can with the human voice and work with that. In each cases I wonder, why would anyone think it’s a good idea? Answer: it’s not.
Anyway, for that and other reasons, I didn’t love the movie, but I found one plot element fascinating. The story takes place in ancient Korea, and the main guy is the son of a governor who’s studying for his civil service exam. They show the exam in the movie – it’s a bunch of guys sitting in a courtyard with a blank scroll, brush, and ink. They receive the question, and they have to write the answer, either a poem or an essay. That’s the whole exam.
I find that fascinating because it doesn’t strike me as being an accurate measure of someone’s aptitude. Writing a poem? That’s the whole test? That just doesn’t seem right at all. At the very least, it doesn’t seem comprehensive. Shouldn’t there be at least several questions? To test the breadth of their knowledge? Wouldn’t that be a better indication of their fitness to govern than a single essay topic? I thought about that for a long time.
What I came around to is that, if the question is a good one, maybe it is an appropriate test. Formulating a good answer would require insight, a certain depth of knowledge, the ability to communicate well, and (in those days) a good education. And perhaps these are the critical qualities of a civil servant. So even though the test itself is narrow, it might by proxy indicate a lot more.
I’ve been thinking about this since the inauguration. Not to pick on George, but one of his criticisms of Obama was that he was great with words, but short on good policy. To be sure, words without action are meaningless. But I think this criticism underestimates the power of words. Kind of like the civil service essay question in Chunhyang, I think eloquence as a public speaker, even though it’s a particular skill, serves as an indicator for a whole lot more. Our greatest presidents all had a common quality – they were eloquent in either speech or writing. I’m not sure you can name a great president who was not eloquent. Nor am I sure you can name a truly eloquent president who was a failure.
But besides being an indicator, I think the criticism underestimates the power of words themselves. Words change the world. Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is an amazing speech – it frames the promise of the Declaration of Independence as being equality for all people. I read an interesting article somewhere saying how Lincoln’s language is what got people to stop referring to the United States as plural (“the U.S. are…”) and as singular (“the U.S. is…”). A small change, but one that reshapes your thinking.
Many people analyzed Obama’s inauguration speech, some comparing it against FDR’s, with its famous “we have nothing to fear but fear itself” line. That brought to mind how FDR is credited with changing the mood of the country, not just by his policy, which was only somewhat successful, but by his words, especially his fireside chats. And Churchill’s oratory was a great inspiration to Allied forces during WWII. Especially in times of crisis, the need for and power of a great orator can’t be overstated.
I was also reminded of this while listening to MLK Jr.’s I Have A Dream speech on MLK day (the first time in years I got that day off from work). There were many civil rights activists that did what MLK Jr. did. What set him apart was the power of his words. As John Lewis said of the speech, “By speaking the way he did, he educated, he inspired, he informed not just the people there, but people throughout America and unborn generations.” And it’s true. The speech is amazing. You can’t listen to it and not feel inspired. And that’s what words can do.
It’s true that words without actions are empty. But let’s not give short shrift to words. They’re powerful. People who have the ability to speak eloquently and back it up in deed, those people change the world.