XPost: rec.arts.startrek.current, rec.arts.tv   
   From: nebusj@rpi.edu   
      
   Chris Applegate  writes:   
      
   > [ Troi ] memorized [ Archer's Wordless Speech ]   
   >it in grammar school. This is remarkable to an American audience for two   
   >reasons:   
      
   >1. We don't memorize any passages of great length. Other than mental   
   >exercise, I don't see any reason to memorize speeches. The task might be   
   >more useful for Betazoids, though.   
      
   	Uh ... memorizing speeches, or at least reasonably extended bits   
   of text, comes and goes in importance in American education; at the moment   
   it's out of fashion, generally (though I recall having to memorize a   
   couple Shakespeare soliloquies; I've still got most of Hamlet's on call,   
   too) outside of Schoolhouse Rock.   
      
      
   >2. None of our great speeches commemorate the founding of our nation,   
   >any of its governments, or any supranational bodies of governance. This   
   >is somewhat subjective, and probably skewed by the somewhat recent   
   >inventions of radio and television, but the closest to a founding speech   
   >I can remember for the USA is, "A republic, if you can keep it." The   
   >whys and wherefores were all in the founding documents. I've got no idea   
   >what anyone might have said when NATO or the UN began operating.   
      
   	Speeches and lectures really came into their own as American art   
   forms in the early 1800s; but a few quick Founding of the Nation speeches   
   that come to mind (even if I never had to memorize them, certainly) Patrick   
   Henry's ``Give me liberty or give me death'' (most any line of which could   
   be a bumper sticker); Washington's various inaugural addresses, farewell   
   addresses, and speech at the Newburgh Mutiny (``Gentlemen, you will permit   
   me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown gray but almost blind   
   in the service of my country''); and certainly the Federalist papers, which   
   weren't directly speeches but were certainly read with the intent of   
   swinging people to their views.   
      
      
   	And yeah, it's asking a lot for the people who created Trip's   
   Spastic Suicide Dive to write a stirring speech about the point of the   
   Founding of the Federation.  There'd have been a lot fewer complaints   
   all around if they'd at least given the first few words and faded out   
   on that, and give us some reason to think there really *was* a speech.   
      
   --   
   								Joseph Nebus   
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