What I believe -- in 272 words
Today's the deadline for our Spirit of Lincoln competition.
(BTW: Just a thought on the passing of Gerald Ford, the only unelected president of the US. He was an extremely understated, socially reserved man with a sense of his own ordinariness. He once told an audience, "I'm a Ford, not a Lincoln." However ordinary, it is to his great credit that brought the American troops home from Vietnam.)
I never cease to be amazed at Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. It may be the greatest speech ever written -- it's certainly the most succinct great speech ever delivered. Could you pack as much into 272 words? I've been re-reading Garry Wills's wonderful book , which comes close to doing justice to the speech and its role in the "re-birth" of America after the civil war.
And then an idea was born. Why not invite visitors here to write their own credo in 272 words or less? A sustained answer to the question, What do I believe? Those who manage it, will be published as featured posts in the blog, then others can comment on your text. You can express your religious, political, cultural, or personal views, hopes, dreams, fears, ambitions -- whatever -- just stay within Lincoln's wordcount. E-mail your offerings to: william.crawley@bbc.co.uk (and please add your name, or pseudonym). The "address" that produces the most comments will win a book prize. Meanwhile, I'll get to find out more about some of you for a change. All submissions meeting the wordcount will be published unedited (except to remove defamatory remarks or any swearwords).
To rehearse the rules: The deadline is 1 January 2007 (a fitting date: the date, in 1863, when the Emancipation Proclamation took effect.) All submissions will be published as separate posts (inviting comments) on the same day in January 2007. One week after publication, the post which attracts the most number of comments will be declared the winner. A book-prize will be awarded to the reader. And this is the fun bit for me: I get to pick a book for the winner -- I'll select a text which compliments (in my terribly subjective judgment) the themes and values of the winning credo.
Comments
Sounds intriguing.....
Reminds me of a story about Churchill which I will have to 'mythologize' for some (Alan, are you there?) and since I am now writing down what has been in my memory from an 'oral tradition' passed along by my dad (PB: he was not an eyewitness to the event but swears that this is the 'gospel truth'. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, get what I mean, get what I mean?)
The story is that Churchill asked one of his navy guys to describe on one side of one sheet of paper the condition of the British Navy.
Navy guy said: "Impossible".
Churchill replied: Really? I could do it with just one word. It's 'good' or 'bad'. Anything you add beyond that is just a lot of useless detail!
So taking Churchill's lead I will meet the challenge with two words - I believe - which leaves me 270 words to add a lot of useless details.
Regards,
Michael
nice idea William - I will if you will!
Any deadline?
PB
Michael
Your entry is "I believe" but as you are an agnostic I am complelled to ask you how sure you are about that.
wink wink nudge nudge ;-)
PB
Come on Michael - "I believe" isn't an answer. It doesn't tell us WHAT you believe. Churchill's succinct answer was given in reply to a question permitting that kind of succint answer. You're asked to express your worldview. Stop being evasive!
I assume that William is not literally asking for statements starting ' I believe ...'?
Many sceptics and atheists would be reluctant to use the B word because of its obvious religious connotations.
In my opinion 270 words should have been quite enough for Lincoln - leaving out'under God'! But I suppose it was 150 years ago and the existence of such unbelievers would not have been acknowledged. Oh - how times have changed! - Not!
Some of you will probably ask that I try for 272 words without mentioning God.
At 01:24 PM on 10 Dec 2006, pb wrote:
"Michael
Your entry is "I believe" but as you are an agnostic I am complelled to ask you how sure you are about that. wink wink nudge nudge ;-)"
As 'belief' not very! See post 54 in the 'Dawkins in Lynchburg' blog.
Michael
At 01:38 PM on 10 Dec 2006, helen maddan wrote:
"Come on Michael - "I believe" isn't an answer. It doesn't tell us WHAT you believe. Churchill's succinct answer was given in reply to a question permitting that kind of succint answer. You're asked to express your worldview. Stop being evasive!"
Helen: I was being a little playful and humorous with the group. But given that you are interested I will refer you to the 'Dawkins in Lynchburg' blog posts 42, 49, 54. I also have to get in my thoughts condensed as expressed in the 'Creation Wars' blog post 14 and later and all my posts in the 'Creationism 101' blog.
I have the material that I will use already thought through and I expect that I will eventually be able to distill it down into the 270 words that I indicated are left to me to add these details.
The challenge is very interesting to me but it will take some time to do it.
BTW, I was over in England recently and met a couple of young people who were giving me a hard time about religion in the USA, American foreign policy etc.
I asked them a simple question "What do you believe".
The first reaction was "That's a personal matter". But then when I persisted and said that I was not asking a religious question, I was simply asking them to give me any statement that began "I believe that .....".
This was then met with responses such as "I believe that America is full of idiots, you are one of them" etc. Could I get a rational philosophical statement from any of those I questioned? Sorry to say the answer is no.
So I think that the Crawley challenge is actually a very healty exercise for all of us and I am quite prepared to participate in the challenge if all of you will do the same. Let's post the statements here on the blog as stand-alone statements that are not to be critiqued.
Now which of you will agree to write such a statement and have it ready by say January 1, 2007? It could help us all greatly in future discussions to have these statements in front of us.
Regards,
Michael
Michael wrote
So I think that the Crawley challenge is actually a very healty exercise for all of us and I am quite prepared to participate in the challenge if all of you will do the same. Let's post the statements here on the blog as stand-alone statements that are not to be critiqued.
But Michael - the one with the most critiques wins the prize! and we don't all need to participate.
William needs to clarify the rules.
At 07:49 PM on 10 Dec 2006, alan watson wrote:
"But Michael - the one with the most critiques wins the prize! and we don't all need to participate. William needs to clarify the rules."
I agree we need clarification. For example, I would ask:
Is there a deadline for the submissions?
Will all submissions be published consecutively or concurrently.
Michael
"..."re-birth" of America after the civil war." Civil war? What civil war? In the colonies? What on earth is he talking about? Must have been on the back pages, I didn't read about it.
You want rules clarified now? And a deadline? And want clarity about the order of publication? The St Andrews Agreement was easier to negotiate.
Ok. To answer your questions:
THE RULES
1. E-mail submissions to william.crawley@bbc.co.uk
2. All submissions meeting the wordcount will be published unedited (except to remove defamatory remarks or any swearwords).
3. The deadline is 1 January 2007 (a fitting date: the date, in 1863, when the Emancipation Proclamation took effect.)
4. All submissions will be published as separate posts (inviting comments) on the same day in January 2007.
5. One week after publication, the post which attracts the most number of comments will be declared the winner.
6. A book-prize will be awarded to the reader. And this is the fun bit for me: I get to pick a book for the winner -- I'll select a text which compliments (in my terribly subjective judgment) the themes and values of the winning credo.
Is that clear enough?
Come on William, are you going to participate or not ;-)?
Part of me feels I owe it to everyone else here and part of me feels it is a bit self-congratulatory.
I mean, I dont think I could say anything that would surprise a single person so it almost seems to be an excercise in self promotion for its own sake...
I guess my conclusion is that part of me owes it to William as I hassle him so much. But will William take part too?
PB
I'm in!
Who is joining me?
Michael
William - An abolutely devious/inspired way to increase the readership here by getting us all to bribe our friends to comment on our statements! I'm sure you have the statistics - We'd all love to see a graph occasionally.
On the essay thing: I'm in. Although William (and a couple of others here) already knows enough about what I believe that boredom could be in the pipeline for him if not the rest of you!
But it sounds like a nice challenge, and a great idea. :-) My submission will arrive promptly to meet the deadline.
The first credo has already arrived in my in-box -- from Billy. Get moving, guys.
At 01:21 AM on 11 Dec 2006, pb wrote:
鈥淐ome on William, are you going to participate or not ... will William take part too?鈥
PB:
Don鈥檛 you realize that 大象传媒 broadcasters all try to be like God?
They must appear to be all-knowing yet unknowable.
Otherwise they couldn鈥檛 do their jobs.
God spoke to you from the mountain with a tablet.
Crawley speaks to you from the cavern of Broadcasting House with a blog.
Both reveal themselves to you if you listen carefully.
May they both remain unknowable!
Cordially,
Michael
William Crawley, it occurred to me that if you are interested in the life of Abraham Lincoln and have never heard it, you might enjoy a recording of Aaron Copland's composition "Lincoln Portrait." In the narrative section, the Gettysburg Address is quoted. There are many fine recordings, I usually listen to the Los Angeles Philharmonic's with Gregory Peck narrating on London Records but the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra's with Adlai Stevenson narrating on Columbia Records is very fine too. It seemed to me particularly appropriate that a Senator from Illinois would narrate this piece.
I'll give it a bash. Count me in.
Hi Will - here's a youtube of the Aaron Copeland peice Lincoln Portrait. Enjoy.
YO Lincoln! You'll have to cut it shorter than that, we've only bought two minutes on the air during the half time break in the Superbowl. Try to keep it under three hundred words. And try to work that "of the people" line in there too, it went over big with our test audience.
Gary Wills is a learned contextual commentator. What he has now done for the Gettysburg Address, he did some years ago for Thomas Jefferson's 1776 Declaration of Independence, which Lincoln referred at the beginning of his hallowed speech.
Hi! I haven't bothered to count the number of words in the Apostles' Creed, but I'm pretty sure it comes in under 282. How's that for summing up something really complex in a succinct fashion?
David Feguson you are quite right. It's a wnderful document. While we're talking about Garry Wills, it's right to point out that he is also a marvellous historian of Christianity. His book on Augustine is delightful.