Sound bites don’t give voters much to sink teeth into

My shampoo, Suave for Men, promises its customers a “fresh, masculine scent.” I’m not sure what that sort of scent actually smells like, but I do admit that I’d rather my hair smell fresh and masculine than stale and feminine.

More than that, though, Suave for Men guarantees a quality shampoo for “less than the more expensive brands.” Again, I must admit that I’m glad it doesn’t cost more than the more expensive brands, because, well, that wouldn’t make any sense.

I’m not really trying to pick on Suave. Advertisers are supposed to come up with slogans that sound good, but don’t actually say anything. And they’re almost as good at it as politicians. Not quite, though. In many ways politicians are advertisers. They’re selling themselves to us, and we buy them with our vote. And everybody knows the best way to appeal to potential customers is with a catchy little slogan, or, in a politician’s case, a sound bite that MSNBC will play over and over again until it worms its way into our political consciousness.

Our current president, though not a particularly good orator, is a master of the sound bite. We’re fighting a “war on terror” against an “axis of evil” that “hates us for our freedom” and threatens us with their “weapons of mass destruction.” Sadly, it’s not just neo-conservatives with limited vocabulary using this sort of rhetoric.

Barack Obama may have a lot of good ideas, but he doesn’t really talk about them. He, like all the candidates, is more interested in bandying about buzzwords like “change” and “hope.” It’s not that change and hope are bad things, of course. I’ll certainly take positive terms like that over fear-inducing nonsense like “axis of evil.” But preferably uplifting though they may be, they’re still just sound bites meant to inspire rather than inform.

Our current state of vapid political discourse is not all the fault of politicians. Much of the blame lies with the way in which they are presented by our era’s dominant medium, which, as Neil Postman so successfully argued, is television.

I’m not nearly so down on television as Postman was. In fact, I’ve written in this very space about its merits as a medium for storytelling and I believe that scripted television shows in general are getting better and more ambitious by the year. As a medium for presenting the news, however, I must agree with Postman that television leaves a lot to be desired. It’s not improving with age, either.

The fairly recent innovation of the 24-hour news cycle probably has had the most to do with our sound-bite-obsessed culture. One might think that with all that time to fill, networks would want long, rational debates. Instead, they just want snappy phrases to play on a loop and obnoxious talking heads to shout about them. Coincidentally I’m sure, the debate system is designed so candidates have approximately two minutes apiece to answer complex policy questions. Given the time constraints, a good sound bite is really all they’re allowed to muster anyway.

Political debates weren’t always like this. Back in what Postman called the Age of Exposition, when print was the dominant medium, the candidates would craft well-organized, thoughtful speeches and rebut each other’s arguments using writerly rhetoric.

In his book, “Amusing Ourselves to Death,” Postman describes the Lincoln-Douglas debates, which would last for hours at a time. During one such debate, Lincoln had the crowd go home, eat dinner, and then return to listen to his lengthy rebuttal feeling refreshed and better able to process his argument. It’s not that Lincoln and Douglas didn’t want to inspire the electorate; rather, it’s that they believed the way to inspire was to inform.

Our current era probably has more in common with the era before print became the dominant medium, the era during which the primary medium was oral tradition. Most of the great religious figures were of this age: Jesus, Muhammad, the Buddha, and Confucius, among others, all spread their teachings orally through parables and aphorisms.

On the surface, aphorisms and sound bites might seem quite similar. They are both short phrases designed to get a quote across quickly and memorably. Additionally, they both can be used in debate. Jesus, for example, was arguing with the Pharisees about taxes when he said, “Give to Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and give to God that which is God’s.” Their similarities end there.

The main difference between an aphorism and a sound bite is the complexity of the message it conveys. At first glance, Jesus’ aforementioned quote about taxation might sound simple enough, but consider the demands it makes of his audience. It forces us to re-examine the value we assign to the different areas of our lives. This aphorism calls for something different than Obama’s “change,” in which we elect a candidate to change the world around us; it asks instead that we change, regardless of the world around us.

Shall we now compare George Bush’s “war on terror” and “axis of evil” with Confucius’ “Do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you”? Is there even a comparison to make? Where Confucius seeks to engage us intellectually in moral philosophy, Bush merely seeks to push us into battle. Where the aphorism overflows with ideas, the sound bite’s just there to make us cheer or jeer.

And lest you think I’m being unfair because, after all, different qualities are required of religious leaders than politicians, I direct you to Solomon, a king, which is to say a politician, who, according to First Kings, was considered great and wise because he knew 3,000 proverbs. When he addressed his subjects, he used those proverbs, not vapid sound bites.

I’m not exactly saying I’d rather be under Solomon’s often oppressive rule, but I do wonder why we expect less from the current politicians that we elect than the Israelites did of the kings that were thrust upon them.

I also wonder how far we’ve really advanced since that ancient era of parables and proverbs, when, two media revolutions later, we seem content with a mode of discourse that consists of platitudes that could fit onto the back of a shampoo bottle.

Justin Fowler is a student at University College of Bangor. He may be reached at justin.fowler@verizon.net. Voices is a weekly commentary by Maine people who explore issues affecting spirituality and religious life.