ST: THE POST-65ERS - When a little style can add substance

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July 11, 2008
THE POST-65ERS When a little style can add substance
By Hong Xinyi
IN A recent dialogue with students, Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports Vivian Balakrishnan commented on the demands on a modern-day politician to communicate with not just policy substance, but also presentational style. 'It's no longer enough to talk. You must have moving images, you must have sound, you must have music... If it's something true but boring... no one's going to watch it,' he told a group of Raffles Institution students last week. According to a Straits Times report of the event, Dr Balakrishnan 'identified the burden of their generation as separating 'virtual shouting' where 'style takes precedence over substance' from truth'. It is nothing new, especially in the context of local politics, to treat style with some measure of suspicion. After all, it is not unreasonable to ask those voting for you to judge your performance by deeds rather than words, content rather than form. But what about those who advocate a case for style as substance, like New York magazine journalist Sam Anderson? To display a carefully honed style in a political speech is to recognise that one's audience cannot be taken for granted. Rather, they must be wooed before they can be won over. In a recent piece dissecting the oratorical effectiveness of American presidential candidate Barack Obama, he wrote: 'Brilliant policy requires brilliant public discourse. 'If you can think your way through a sentence, through the algorithms involved in condensing information verbally and pitching it to an audience, through the complexities of animating historical details into narrative, then you can think your way through a policy paper, or a diplomatic discussion... Style tells us, in a second, what substance couldn't tell us in a year.' This is an argument that is particularly attractive, I admit, for someone who writes for a living. After all, style is not just a matter of stringing pretty-sounding words or striking imagery together. It signifies a desire to communicate one's message effectively and memorably; a wish to craft a distinctive point of view from which to put forth a cogent, persuasive argument. To display a carefully honed style in a political speech, one could argue, is to recognise that one's audience cannot be taken for granted. Rather, they must be wooed before they can be won over. But beyond a long-standing tradition here of regarding governing as a matter-of-fact, business-like enterprise rather than a glitzy marketing campaign, there are other challenges concerning the deployment of rhetorical style in local politics. Singapore, after all, is a nation where political speeches were first made to a disparate group of immigrants speaking different languages at vastly differing levels of proficiency. It remains a young nation whose citizens do not share a deep, broad base of common cultural and literary references. So perhaps one cannot fault politicians for sticking to the 'true but boring' approach. Platitudes are, after all, easily digested talking points; statistics may seem dry, but they clearly reflect quantifiable results. So why even bother making a case for style? What does it matter, if the policies are sound, if the message is clear, what manner we receive them in? For one thing, as Dr Balakrishnan pointed out, the politics of style are already in play, and to ignore this reality altogether would be impractical. And, for another: Sometimes - not all the time, perhaps not even in some lifetimes - governing demands poetry as well as prose. One year after this country had its independence thrust upon itself, then-prime minister Lee Kuan Yew gave a National Day Rally speech that touched on imports and exports, taxes and revenue, population growth and housing booms. But above all, this 1966 speech was suffused with an extraordinarily stirring style. Like Mr Obama's best speeches to date, this one makes the circumstances of a nation's birth its central idea, framing a potent origin myth in the process. Speaking of Singapore's commitment to a multiracial society, Mr Lee said then: 'More than just making material progress... we seek permanent salvation, security to time immemorial, to eternity. We believed - and we still believe - that that salvation lies in an integrated society... Whilst thereafter, the multiracial society that we had set out to create could be implemented only within the confines of Singapore, we knew deep down that ultimately, its impact must spread far beyond its shores. 'No geographic or political boundary can contain the implications of what we set out to do when we succeed.' It shows a remarkable idealism and ambition, this oratorical invocation of posterity to a nation then - and now - still so painfully young. It conjures an identity out of practically nothing but words, placed, stylishly, one after another: This idea of an exceptional nation that would be larger than the mere sum of its parts, that could forge a meaningful peace and prosperity from its diversity; not a constantly imperilled one, always clinging onto its good fortune by the skin of its teeth. In the years to come, of course, this idea would take flesh, not through style, but through the hard work of many. But perhaps in an age where one is advised to be vigilant about separating style from substance, it is worth remembering that once in a while, adding a little style can go a long way. [email protected]