Speeches we liked this decade

Posted in CULTURE by Smile Politely Editors on Friday, November 20, 2009 at 6:59 am

Despite the rise of the hastily-typed chat room missive and the acceptance of blogs as a relevant part of the cultural canon, there’s still no substitute for the spoken word, delivered in person to an expectant audience.

As we document every week, there are tons of speakers that roll into town, spout their canned knowledge on a particular topic, and continue down the road. But on occasion, there’s something that we’re able to connect with on a deeper level, and it sticks with us long after the specifics of the talk fade away.

This week, as part of our ongoing Friday series on the best things that C-U has seen this decade, we honor those speakers who’ve made an impact on us. By definition, this list isn’t comprehensive, because we are few, and the speakers are many. We look forward to hearing your stories in the comments.

Cornel West

I recently read an article wherein Dr. Cornel West is quoted as saying that, since he began teaching at Princeton University 2002, he has not spent a single weekend on campus. He instead spends his free time in trains, planes and automobiles roving the nation and the world with his half preached, half sung arguments for social justice. Earlier this year, Dr. West found his way to a standing room only Follinger Hall to deliver a highly literary, hip-hop infused treatise on the age of Reagan (he didn’t like it), the age of Obama (he wasn’t yet sold on it) and the prospect of a post-racial America (he pretty much called bullshit on it). A mellifluous and at times frenetic speaker, Dr. West rocked the house.  — Caleb Curtiss

W. S. Merwin, Robert Pinsky and Richard Powers

Last year the famously reclusive Richard Powers began dipping his proverbial big toe into the tepid waters of public speaking. Often alongside another brilliant person or two, Powers’ name was all over the 2008 Krannert Art Museum’s season program for events ranging from a music talk with Richard Goode to a culture talk with two of America’s most well respected poets. I went to several of these events and I enjoyed them all, but I found Powers to be the most impressive as the moderator of W. S. Merwin and Robert Pinsky’s conversation about their translations of Dante’s Divine Comedy. If left to their own devices, it is my guess that these two would have discussed Dante for a total of five minutes before allowing the conversation to turn to themselves. As it stood, Powers’ questions and comments guided the conversation into a rigorous but accessible space wherein topics of translation, tradition, literary form and cognitive function where all open game. — Caleb Curtiss

Michael Moore

When Michael Moore came to the University to speak in 2003 on his Stupid White Men book tour, the world had yet to come to know the man who would emerge as one of the most powerful voices in American politics. He was famous, that’s for sure, as Foellinger was completely packed to the gills, but he had yet to release Fahrenheit 9/11, the  movie that would place him on the short list for “most relevant liberal” in the nation. But love him or hate him, no one can deny the power of his presence, and folks in C-U would stop at nothing to hear him speak. After being delayed by over an hour and a half (we were treated to episodes of The Awful Truth in the meantime), the crowd — which should have been restless and annoyed — was completely enamored and willing to stick it out just to hear what the man from Michigan had to say. His speech was filled with references to, you guessed it, Stupid White People, including working in the topic du jour at the University at the time — The Chief. Needless to say, it was refreshing to have a national figure not only mention it, but also denounce it. — Seth Fein

Chuck D

By the time that Chuck D came to the University to speak on how race relations and politics could no longer be controlled without action — serious action — his group Public Enemy had lost its status as the world’s most relevant hip hop act. At one time, PE controlled the airwaves; their 1988 album, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold us Back, is considered to be one of the most important records ever committed to tape, and others over the next five years would see the band grow from underground legends to MTV hitmakers. But after west coast and east coast decided to declare war, and the likes of P Diddy (then known as Puff Daddy) hijacked the genre, artists like Public Enemy were relegated to the stuff of legend. But that didn’t stop Chuck D from pressing on, both musically and politically. His speech at the University was a powerful one, and it came as no surprise to the audience — we’d been listening for years. — Seth Fein

Naomi Klein

Klein spoke at Smith Memorial Hall in late 2008, in a late installment of the book tour for Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism in Latin America. It was the thick of campaign season, and our coverage of her speech was all through the lens of what it meant for Obama. Which isn’t fair to Klein, who’s one of the most prominent left intellectuals in her own right. — Joel Gillespie

Derrick Jensen

Less of an ecoterrorist than an inciter, Derrick Jensen rolled into Champaign a few years back with some harsh words for humanity. Jensen, in his many books of cultural criticism, calls for the termination of civilization, the destruction of dams, and a general overhaul of the way we do things on planet earth. He also rhapsodizes about salmon, trees, and what remains of the natural wild. In a few hours spent in one of the upper rooms of the Illini Union, Jensen rewrote Star Wars as an excoriating critique of mainstream environmentalists and so-called cultural dissidents, and ran through several of his core principles, including such heart-warming gems as:

Civilization is not redeemable.

The culture as a whole and most of its members are insane. The culture is driven by a death urge, an urge to destroy life.

Love does not imply pacifism.

Any economic or social system that does not benefit the natural communities on which it is based is unsustainable, immoral, and stupid.

He also wore the above sweatshirt.  Badass.

And he did this all while driving around on the interstate system, promoting massive volumes of trees made pulp. But he wouldn’t flinch from that criticism.  I think he’d admit that he, like many of us, is a great big hypocrite. Nevertheless he’s entertaining as hell, and right on the money about at least a few things.  Maybe all of it.  Who knows?  He’s certainly an extremist, far enough out that it makes laughable the daily grenades thrown between the likes of talk radio and Daily Kos.  His position is likely to drive as many people to the sweet embrace of techno-capitalist culture as it is to convert those who are already listening.  But maybe that’s the strategy anyway.  It will only take one person to blow up the Chief Joseph Dam and set the salmon free, and the more people running with the herd, the faster collapse will come. Just so long as we remember that collapse will not be some kind of bucolic, return-to-Walden golden age and more like the terror of roving bands of rapists and murderers inhabiting The Road, or, closer to reality, Liberia.

You can find a million ways and reasons to disagree, and most of them would have substantial basis, but there remains the nagging thought that maybe, just maybe, he really is a prophet of our hopeless doom. — Robert Hirschfeld