WHAT WOULD CICERO SAY? Interview with Professor Rob Goodman of Ryerson University on Speech Issues, Modern and Ancient

My History Can Beat Up Your Politics

Bruce Carlson

News, Politics, History

4.5 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 30 August 2024

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Through most of American history, calling someone a Cicero was the highest democratic honor. John Adams wrote of the Roman orator, that “as all the ages of the world have not produced a greater statesman and philosopher united in the same character, his authority should have great weight.” Thomas Jefferson said Cicero was “the father of eloquence and philosophy” John Quincy Adams dramatically said that if he did not have book of Cicero at hand it was having to live without "of one of my limbs.” And a young Abraham Lincoln reading from a borrowed library benefited greatly from his works, as well as others. We talk to Ryerson University professor of politics and author of Words on Fire Rob Goodman about these topics. Through close readings of Cicero – and his predecessors, rivals, and successors – political theorist and former speechwriter Rob Goodman tracks the development of this ideal, in which speech is both spontaneous and stylized, and in which the pursuit of eloquence mitigates political inequalities. For Cicero, speech was essential. More than just talking or Cicero referred to speech as “what has united us in the bonds of justice, law, and civil order, this that has separated us from savagery and barbarism”. Speech was to Cicero a sign of humanity’s inherently communal and cooperative nature and one of our greatest tools in creating a prosperous life for ourselves. "Be no Atticus," John Quincy Adams told his good friend Charles Sumner when he thought he got to reclusive and too bookish and didn't get out there in the debate. He almost could of said, "be more like Atticus's friend Cicero!" Cicero took part in debate, spoke to defend the republic and celebrated those who did. Rob Goodman's book Words on Fire is available here - https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/words-on-fire/FEB517ABF09F8A067773B2F563F45150 We are part of Airwave Media Network. Check out the other shows there - airwave media.com Advertise on our podcast - [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast.
0:04.6	You know, this is what Cicero is afraid of quite often.
0:07.8	There's this great line, I use it as a chapter, title of my chapters, from one of his mentors
0:12.0	talking about how he feels when he's about to get up and address the row in public.
0:16.1	And this is, you have to picture this guy as the most experienced, most successful orator
0:20.3	of his time.
0:21.0	He's really, he's seen everything and done everything.
0:23.3	He says, when I get up to speak, I still tremble with my whole heart and in every limb.
0:27.6	He describes himself kind of shaking.
0:29.0	And it's not just stage fright.
0:30.4	It's the idea that you are exposing yourself to shame every time you get up.
1:04.9	No. yourself to shame every time you get up. Hi, and we're talking with Rob Goodman, the author of Words on Fire eloquence and its conditions.
1:13.3	Rob Goodman is an assistant professor of politics and public administration at Ryerson University and a former U.S. House and Senate speechwriter. We talk so much on this program about speech, especially lately.
1:22.2	Didn't talk about it much when I started the podcast. Just talked about it a little. Now it's become
1:26.7	problematic. So it's become problematic.
1:28.4	So it may be interesting to know that it was also problematic for the ancients and the
1:34.7	American framers of the Constitution and people alive around that time as well, that it's,
1:40.1	that our problems are similar. And they had some struggles as well figuring out what to do with people speaking
1:47.0	and maybe as a result of that acquiring political power, and should there be rules around that.
1:53.5	And that's why I found this book, Words on Fire, we're happy to have him on the program.
1:58.7	Rob, thanks for joining us.
2:00.1	Well, thanks so much for having me on.
	...

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