{"id":45474,"date":"2025-06-07T00:01:36","date_gmt":"2025-06-07T07:01:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=45474"},"modified":"2026-06-05T07:16:49","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T07:16:49","slug":"too-many-angry-diatribes-not-enough-tact-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/too-many-angry-diatribes-not-enough-tact-why\/","title":{"rendered":"Too Many Angry Diatribes. Not Enough Tact. Why?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"Too<\/a>
Too any angry diatribes. Not enough tact. Why? Maybe it would help if we all slowed down a bit before we let loose with the vituperative. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The talking heads on cable TV do it. The spit wads shooting through cyberspace are doing it — too many angry diatribes and not enough tact.<\/p>\n

What the world needs now is less mean-spiritedness. Less throwing of spit wads at the folks at the other end of the so-called political spectrum.<\/p>\n

It used to be that it was mostly middle-schoolers who threw spit wads. By the time they got to high school, they had grown out of it.<\/p>\n

Grown Men and Women Still Throwing Spit Wads<\/strong><\/h5>\n

But now we have grown men and women — on the political left, right and middle — throwing vituperative at each other on radio, TV and in cyberspace.<\/p>\n

What the world — especially the world of social media — needs now is fewer sharp-edged declarative sentences, less judgement — and a lot more tact.<\/p>\n

As president, Barack Obama was a master of the tactful sentence. And tact often involves a measure\u00a0 of toning things down, of obscuring things, of cutting people some slack.<\/p>\n

I know, I know. Your English teacher deployed a big fat red pencil whenever they came across some vagueness in one of your essays. But obfuscation has its uses. And Obama knew exactly what those uses were.<\/p>\n

(I could rummage through old presidential speeches and find great examples of tactful, diplomatic rhetoric from Republicans like Ronald Reagan and the Bush presidents, but this speech from Obama serves the purpose.)<\/p>\n

Here’s One Way to Be Tactful<\/strong><\/h5>\n<\/header>\n
\n

A tactful sentence is often a sentence in which the subject \u2014 the doer or agent \u2014 is concealed in order to avoid humiliating or judging that person.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Notice how Obama — very politely, and to good effect — used this strategy as he obscured the subject of his sentences during a speech he made to the Arab world in Cairo back in 2009.<\/p>\n

Of the war in Iraq, he said:\u00a0\u00a0\u201cUnlike Afghanistan, Iraq was a war of choice<\/em> that provoked strong differences<\/em> in my country and around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Chosen War — Chosen by Whom?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Here, the President \u2013 tactfully \u2013 avoids placing blame for the Iraq war on George W. Bush and his followers. He declares the Iraq war \u201ca war of choice\u201d \u2014 but he does not name the \u201cchoosers.\u201d Thus, Obama avoids offending Republicans as well as any American voters out there who might have supported Bush and the war.<\/p>\n

With the phrase, \u201cstrong differences,\u201d Obama\u00a0puts his Arab listeners on notice that not all Americans supported the war \u2014 again, without painting its supporters as egregiously wrong-headed.<\/p>\n

In short, Obama avoids polarizing an already polarized political landscape. Politicians used to do that! What happened? Why don’t they — you and I — do that any more?<\/p>\n

Later in Obama\u2019s Cairo speech, he directs his comments to the Muslim world:<\/p>\n

\u201cAmong some Muslims, there\u2019s a disturbing tendency<\/em> to measure one\u2019s own faith by the rejection of somebody else\u2019s<\/em> faith.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here again, Obama avoids an accusatory tone:<\/p>\n

He does not use \u201cMuslims\u201d as the subject of the sentence. He lets the noun \u201ctendency\u201d take the rap.<\/p>\n

Softening a Verb<\/strong><\/h5>\n

He softens the verb \u201creject\u201d by turning it into a noun \u2013 \u201crejection.\u201d<\/p>\n

He does not stir up old resentments by naming Jews and Christians as the object of Muslim censure. He simply says \u201csomebody else.\u201d<\/p>\n

The trouble with a obfuscated sentence, of course, is it lacks punch. It can put a reader right to sleep. Obama knew this. He kept his listeners awake by plugging in strong, precise verbs: Provoke. Remind. Resolve. Measure. Reject.<\/p>\n

Too Many Angry Diatribes. Not Enough Tact. Why?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Sometimes blunt honesty is what’s called for. At other times, if we really care about each other (do we?) and honestly wish to get along (do we?), a little tact is in order.<\/p>\n

But maybe we’d rather not get along. (And by “we” I mean progressives, liberals and moderates, along with the so-called conservatives who so love to own the libs.) Maybe it feels juicier to let the meanspirited rhetoric roll and the spit wads fly.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Ready for some levity? Read all about the mid-century girdle at “Mad Men Exposes the ’60s Girdle — But Will She Get It Off in Time?”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"Too<\/a><\/p>\n

On the air and in cyberspace: too many angry diatribes, not enough tact. Do we — you and I — really want to tone things down?\u00a0 Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48522,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,50],"tags":[1583,34,238,271,2997,2385,227,2998,2999,3000,3001],"class_list":["post-45474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-case-of-the-human-condition","category-on-writing-reading","tag-cyberspace","tag-dont-miss","tag-grammar","tag-obama","tag-passive-sentences","tag-polarization-in-america","tag-rhetoric","tag-spit-wads","tag-syntax","tag-trump-and-musk","tag-verbal-abuse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45474"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48523,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45474\/revisions\/48523"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}