The 1858 senatorial debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas lasted three hours each. There were seven of them, and I get the impression that the tens of thousands who attended would have gladly heard more. Of last night’s confrontation between Donald Trump and Joe Biden we may say, as Samuel Johnson said of Paradise Lost, that “none ever wished it longer.”
This is a little odd, when you think about it. Intellectually, the content of the Lincoln-Douglas debates was much more taxing. Politically the stakes were just as high, or higher. But go back to the transcripts now and read even the first paragraph of one opening statement: you’ll come away invigorated. Whereas I ended last night’s 90 minutes so drained that, I will admit, all I could watch afterward was a YouTube ranking of the Sigma boss battles in Mega Man X from easiest to hardest.
Why should the ornate syntax and harrowing subject matter of a 19th-century dispute over slavery be more energizing than a real-life re-enactment of the monster truck scene from Idiocracy? Listening to Joe Biden feels like chewing coagulated porridge. And though the top-line story was obviously the sitting president’s live-action liquefaction, Donald Trump’s unique brand of beat poetry also left me a little cotton-headed. Aren’t modern sound bites supposed to be easier to process? Isn’t that their whole appeal?
But here is a great secret: poorly constructed language is like a box of movie theater candy. It’s easy to reach for, compulsively snackable, but painful to digest. It takes more activation energy to start reading Henry James than E.L. James, but only one will leave you feeling hungover. And as the great historian David McCullough pointed out, “to write well is to think clearly. That’s why it’s so hard.” Speaking is the same way. Really excellent sentences can sometimes be elaborate, but they’re always lucid.
Here’s Lincoln on the disastrous end result of allowing slavery to continue in the States: “Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage, and you are preparing your own limbs to wear them.” If there’s a word in there you don’t recognize as an adult, our education system has failed you grievously. But what really makes the text sing is its composition, which is the art the Greeks would have called synthesis: putting things together.
And sure enough, the word everyone keeps using for what Biden was not is “coherent,” which literally means “clinging together.” Incoherence is not actually about the presence or absence of long words: it’s about failing, whether in your dotage or simply in your confusion, to link thoughts in a rational sequence. That’s why poorly constructed prose leaves you feeling disoriented and a little bug-eyed.
Well constructed prose, on the other hand, is marked not by the complexity or simplicity of its vocabulary but by its pleasing tendency to make things click. Good language, however plainspoken, leaves the mind feeling trimmer and more sleek. That’s why the real assault last night was on us, the American people, who deserve better than to have our cognitive moorings so violently and relentlessly loosened.
So my advice to you, if you watched the debate last night: practice self-care. Detox with an extract from Cicero or an infusion of C.S. Lewis. Personally I will be spending the rest of the day with the letters of St. Jerome, as if with some kind of post-bender miracle cure. Acts of cognitive therapy like this are a must in our dizzyingly stupid times. You’ll feel better afterward, I promise.
Rejoice evermore,
Spencer
Listen to the latest from Young Heretics:
When it momentarily devolved into, "Well, you're a poopyhead!" - "No, YOU'RE a poopyhead!" my daughter rolled her eyes, said goodnight and went to bed. I had no internal reaction to that, except, yeah I get it. Soft frustration and apathy - escaping the debate by literally going unconscious seemed like a generous and rational response.
It was a couple of years ago, but we toured colonial Williamsburg and at the end of it, a writer / performance artist had cobbled together Madison's letters and public remarks and bits from the Federalist Papers into a speech.
Which he delivered, like Pericles on his best day. Probably a hundred people watching, but I'm telling you, he had us. The energy was electric from the charge of good ideas and well spoken truth.
It was beautiful, it was inspiring, and a reminder of what this kind of expression can be. I know Madison died at some point, but what the hell happened? Aren't there any Madisons creeping around that we can trick into running for office?
Your reaction to the debate was shared by literally everyone who watched it. We have to find a way to do better.
Your point about Lincoln's synthesis is enlightening. But I'm just glad you posted the video for the MegaMan rankings.