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We're not hinting about Chester A. Arthur, a.k.a. the president everyone always forgets about. (Source)
So far, we've spent a lot of time looking at what Heinrichs calls seduction. In this lesson, we're shifting focus to a rhetorical technique that's decidedly less sexy…but still super-effective.
This lesson is all about the tense you choose to speak in during an argument. And by tense we don't mean tense as in "You just watched American Psycho with your grandparents and are now trying to make polite chit-chat," or "Someone at the Thanksgiving dinner table just brought up politics, religion, and the role of women in the workplace at the same time."
We're talking about tense as in past, present and future. As in:
Past: The discussion last Thanksgiving became super-heated, too.
Present: Aunt Brenda and Grandpa Phil are starting to scream at one another.
Future: Next Thanksgiving, we're going to go to the Bahamas instead of doing the family dinner-thing.
Besides reading more Heinrichs, we're going to read the text of another speech by a U.S. President. (Hint: beard, no mustache.)
PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE
Are you thinking that it seems weirdly nit-picky to focus on something like tense in a persuasive argument? We get that. But you're about to read Heinrichs' explanation of why it's an essential element of an argument.
Now's the time to crack open Thank You For Arguing and read Chapter 3: Control the Tense (p. 27-37).
Ch 3.pdfAll done with Chapter 3? Great. Now let's put the concepts Heinrichs covered into a handy table to help you sort out the concepts attached to the three core issues discussed:
THINKIN' LIKE LINCOLN
We're going to take a look at tense within the context of another famous presidential speech. This time it's Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. Why? Because it has three important things going for it:
It's incredibly well-known. (It's Honest Abe, guys.)
It's a rhetorical masterpiece.
It's short.
(We'll leave you to decide which of those three is the most important.)
For those of you who have gotten a bit rusty on your Civil War history, Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address in 1863, when the Civil War was still raging. The speech was meant as a dedication of the Soldier's National Cemetery (which happens to be located in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania—hence the speech's name).
A couple other tidbits about the speech:
Lincoln gave his brief address after a longer speech from Edward Everett, who was known as one of America's best speakers. (Hmm…Everett's speech doesn't seem to have lived on into history the way Lincoln's did. Wonder why?)
It's thought that Lincoln was suffering from smallpox when he gave the address. (Source)
If you want to read more about the historical context of the speech, we've got you covered. Take a look here.
You don't need all the background information to appreciate the rhetoric of the speech, though. All that takes is reading it. Do that here. (We told you it was short.)
Suggestion: read it aloud to really get a sense of the rhythm of the language. Go ahead and do your best Abraham Lincoln impression. What did Lincoln sound like? Well, no one knows, since there are no audio recordings of his voice. So, really, do your best Daniel Day-Lewis-as-Abraham-Lincoln impression.
Let's look at how Lincoln handled tense in the speech:
Begins with past tense: Fourscore and seven years ago […]
Switches to present tense in the middle: Now we're engaged in a great civil war […]
Switches to future tense near the end—It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work […]—and stays in the future tense until the end of the speech.
The speech was intended to be ceremonial—a way to honor the dead soldiers by dedicating the cemetery. Recall how Heinrichs said this kind of speech usually uses the present tense. And Lincoln does use the present tense when he speaks explicitly about dedicating the cemetery:
We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. (Source)
But Lincoln switches to future tense toward the end of the speech because he wants to accomplish more than just a dedication—he wants his audience to make a decision. Remember what Heinrichs said at the end of Chapter 3: "If you want your audience to make a choice, focus on the future."
The Civil War wasn't over yet, and Lincoln wants his audience to decide to persevere—to keep up the fight. (Source)
To finish, as Lincoln says, the "great task remaining before us."
Or, to paraphrase in a decidedly un-masterful way: let's win this war, folks.
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