tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9101859138648955033.post2932647738417433855..comments2024-03-16T14:29:04.010-04:00Comments on Lance Strate's Blog Time Passing: Kennedy Shoots the MoonLance Stratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13033954765699126246noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9101859138648955033.post-21511529149985959222009-07-22T14:58:36.665-04:002009-07-22T14:58:36.665-04:00Hi Lance, thanks for posting Kennedy’s oral kickof...Hi Lance, thanks for posting Kennedy’s oral kickoff of the commitment to land on the moon. There are some interesting things to note about his speech. Not only does it exhibit the additive characteristics of orality, as opposed to the subordinative characteristics of literacy (Ong), but the speech writers (??) mimic the acceleration of technological development, both in time and in magnitude. Beyond the additive we’re looking at a geometrical progression in which the units practically explode. At the very least you get a sense of the increasing ease (1,2,3) and the impending launch (3,2,1, liftoff).<br /><br />“Kennedy” says/writes: “We meet at a college noted for knowledge, in a city noted for progress, in a State noted for strength…. we meet in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and fear, in an age of both knowledge and ignorance.” Etc.<br /><br />By giving the audience a sense of how much farther we need to go he motivates us to go along with him in this adventure. To those who are pretty much starved for adventure Kennedy hardly needs to strain at all, however, a sprawling speech, a poor oration could have hurt his cause. At the risk of sounding trite I would say he (or the speech writers) encapsulated the moment with rhetoric which proceeded by stages culminating in American supremacy. That’s a pretty big carrot. It’s a little difficult to reconcile the stated intention to prevent space from being militarized with our own nationalist desires to master the new frontier. But all in all, a great speech, a great goal. Both Ray Bradbury’s positive and negative predictions have come true: the rocket has made children of us all renewing our sense of wonder, and we’ve proceeded to erect our hot dog stands and frontier forts off world. <br /><br /> I recently watched The Andromeda Strain (1971). What an interesting film in that it documents several large fears we must have entertained during the course of the Apollo missions: that we might bring something deadly back from outer space, that the missions are really part of our own weapons program and that these two possibilities might combine into something horrendous. <br /><br />Thanks for the blog.<br />LesLesBruderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08962627419267904257noreply@blogger.com