Yes, we are getting dumber + The rise of the Aussie public orator + Jim Chalmers’ hubris

I once interviewed the high-profile industrial designer David Caon at his studio in Surry Hills.

Caon – who has worked with the likes of LVMH, Samsonite and Nike – had just finished designing the cabin interior of the new Qantas 787 Dreamliner.

I was taking shorthand notes, a skill I’d learned as a cadet at The Sydney Morning Herald.

Caon asked about my shorthand.

I said recording the interview with a tape recorder would definitely be easier because I found shorthand tiring.

“But what you write wouldn’t be as good [if you used a recorder],” he said. “I think you’d find that shorthand improves the quality of your writing.”

It was a true craftsman’s insight.

I had never linked the physical taking of notes, using a quirky method, with good writing.

But Caon has proven to be spot on.

The decline of shorthand and the rise of recording devices have damaged the quality of writing in journalism.

Shorthand forced reporters to listen closely for the essence of a story and for punchy, pithy quotes.

All this appeared in the final product: journalists wrote clearly and sharply.

Now, huge swathes of quotes strangle newspaper copy like weeds.

(Writing teacher Don Fry – who hated tape recorders and even thought shorthand was too intrusive – says quotes slow the reader down.)

I was reminded of this when I read Cal Newport’s essay on declining IQs, or the ‘Reverse Flynn Effect’.

The Flynn Effect says that since World War II, each generation become smarter – their IQ was rising.

But that’s now reversing – our IQs are falling.

That’s right – as you’d probably suspected! – people are getting dumber.

There isn’t one simple, consensus explanation for this, but Newport airs one hypothesis – that we have become less intelligent after the shift from print to digital.

That shift has caused our thinking to “deeply degrade”.

IQs have been falling since around 2010 … which happens to be when the iPhone was introduced.

(I can still remember my first business meeting with someone wielding an iPhone. They were so distracted it was like being on a date with someone constantly ogling another person across the room.)

I think the print-to-digital hypothesis has validity.

As Caon noted with the link between my shorthand and good writing, the tools we use deeply affect the quality of our thinking.

Newport quotes critic James Marriott who argues that print forces you to make a logical case, rather than simply assert, a technique prevalent on social media.

By losing that logic, society has become dumber.

I’m not suggesting you completely ditch your iPhone and ChatGPT.

But as knowledge workers and thought leaders, our jobs are still essentially to outthink the opposition.

As a hedge at the very least, I think that means we should produce and consume more information in print.

Perhaps trying to

· Read a book, rather than e-book

· Read a newspaper, rather than a website

· Pen articles on paper, rather than type them, and

· Take hand-written notes rather than record

Below, we look at the power of speech to move and persuade crowds.

But a society based only on speech tends towards emotional arguments.

As individuals and society, we also need to balance emotion with reason and logic, and the best medium to do that is print.

***

The rise of the public orator

They are marching in London.

They are marching in Paris.

They are marching in Sydney.

Suddenly, it seems everywhere people are pounding the pavements in support of their most passionate cause – Palestine, immigration, freedom.

I don’t see this changing.

In an increasingly polarised society, people want an outlet to express their passion in an offline, physical way.

So they’re hitting the streets.

One interesting development is that the mass mobilisation of people has the potential to return a lot of power to one particular group – speakers.

Changing the world

Successfully speaking to large groups on the streets is a rare, and I would say degraded, skill. It is not public speaking, which many can do. It is something different: oratory, which few can do.

It is the ability to stir the head, heart and soul of people simply through one’s presence and words.

Of course, there is nothing new about oratory; it was the basis of Athenian democracy. For years, politicians canvassed votes “on the hustings”.

Great orators have changed the world – most recently Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King, Barack Obama … and, yes, even Donald Trump through his MAGA rallies.

At the heart of great oratory is the ability to win the trust of a crowd, to provide a logical argument for your cause, but above all to move them emotionally.

The power of repetition

There are many ways to tap into the emotion of the crowd. But based on history, the most powerful speakers relentlessly harness the power of repetition.

Repetition is the drumbeat – as speechwriter Simon Lancaster says – of an “emotionally fixated mind”. Repetition transfers that obsession to the audience, sparking an emotional reaction and bonding the crowd to the speaker.

Repetition can simply be repeating the same words or slogans to emphasise a theme, as I have in this piece … with my repetition of repetition.

Repetition can be repeating sounds, as in alliteration.

There are other more sophisticated techniques of repetition: diacope, epistrophe, epizeuxis, epanalepsis, etc. (And my personal favourite, anadiplosis!)

I have a dream …

But the “king of rhetorical figures” (as British writer Mark Forsyth says) is anaphora.

Anaphora is when you start a string of sentences with the same word or phrase.

It’s the technique Winston Churchill used in his ‘We shall fight on the beaches’ speech (admittedly broadcast on radio):

We shall fight on the beaches

We shall fight on the landing grounds

We shall fight in the fields …

We shall never surrender.

And it’s the technique Martin Luther King used in his ‘I have a dream’ speech, when he began sentences ‘I have a dream’ over and over again.

If you listen to a speech live, when the speaker uses repetition and anaphora, you can feel energy surge through the crowd.

Essence of democracy

Many people seem to think the social convulsions and divisions that are pouring people into the streets are a sign of chaos and danger.

Of course, history shows us that demagogues like Mussolini, Hitler and Lenin can use superior rhetorical skills for evil.

But, done peacefully, it is also extremely healthy.

Public speaking and oratory is the essence of democracy; and public gatherings are a great outlet for energy that is too often being bottled up and spat out online.

It also brings the people to the attention of the increasingly cloistered elites and media.

I think we’ll find many future leaders will be the ones who, as in the past, have honed their skills, their ability to sway people, by addressing large crowds on the street.

***

Jim Chalmers’ hubris

I recently said that my one-time colleague Jim Chalmers was an excellent and underestimated economics communicator.

That was proven again, of course, in Chalmers’ successful framing of the Economic Reform Roundtable, where he managed to shift the focus from productivity to intergenerational inequality.

(Remember productivity? So four weeks ago!)

But then I read Chalmers’ framing of Susan Ley’s speech, where she highlighted the importance of sustainable budget management.

Chalmers, also referencing the Coalition debate around net zero, said Ley’s speech was appealing to “cookers and crackpots”. (A cooker is slang for a conspiracy theorist.)

Really Jim?

Since when has fiscal responsibility been the realm of conspiracy?

And even if you agree with the need for net zero, doesn’t such a radical shift in the economy warrant some form of debate about how it’s achieved?

Of course, to some extent, this framing works, at least in the short term: it successfully shuts down debate.

No one wants to be a “cooker” or “crackpot”. Just as no one wants to be “far right” or “racist”, a slur that has successfully shut down any sensible debate on immigration and culture.

But in the long run, it backfires. When you frame opponents who put forward sensible ideas as extremists, it prevents debate in the middle, alienates people, and only fuels the backlash we are seeing around the world.

In recent years, when it comes to communication, Labor has been playing a sophisticated game of high-stakes poker; the Coalition has been playing a guileless game of snap.

But Chalmers’s cookers framing, I think, shows signs of hubris.

Jim should maybe look at the latest edition of the AFR Power List, in which he sits at number two on the overt power list behind Anthony Albanese.

He should turn to page 19, where a grid diagram illustrates past members since 2015.

Jim will find that many who graced the list are now long-forgotten has-beens and feather dusters.