2013 is indeed here… After narrowly escaping the Mayan-style end of the world, there is a unanimous opinion that this year will be difficult, perhaps even worse, to the point where one might wonder if we could just skip directly to 2014!
Between depression and overwhelm (technology allows us to go faster and faster but does not yet have the possibility to influence time), we will have to live out the next twelve months knowing that the keywords will be uncertainty, worries, and dissatisfaction.
It is for this reason, with the sole purpose of making suffering more bearable, that we allow ourselves to express some wishes.
We know that public life is punctuated by events (Meetings, conferences, presentations, inaugurations, parties, etc.). There are those said to be protocolary, but more recently the progressive implementation of communication strategies in public affairs has meant that officials (elected and people holding various roles) have multiplied these occasions that represent steps to success in a society that resembles a permanent spectacle.
As a result, budgets for representation and public relations expenses swell, often to the detriment of other spending that is socially far more useful.
For example, tradition dictates that every ceremony ends with a cocktail, also called a “friendship drink.” Over time, this good habit has outpaced simple politeness, and buffets have taken on the appearance of genuine feasts.
It leads one to wonder, considering the reduced interest from attendees in the official part of the event, if the participants and guests are partly there to give their best precisely at the moment of moving on to… less serious matters.
And what if we returned to basics? What is the risk? That the audience, deprived of its more attractive side, becomes so sparse that only those who Woody Allen called “present on obligation” remain?
Moreover. Studies by the ILO (International Labour Organization, a UN agency) scientifically demonstrate that a speech given in public should last between 7 and 20 minutes maximum.
No less than seven minutes to express, in a structured manner, one’s thoughts on a topic without falling into slogans that sometimes replace content.
No more than twenty minutes because beyond this timeframe, the attention curve begins to decline, resulting in an inability to follow and, especially, to understand the meaning of what has just been said.
Prima est eloquentiae virtus perspicuitas (the primary virtue of eloquence is to speak clearly), Quintilian reminds us in “De Virtu Oratoria.”
Is there therefore a faint hope that our elected representatives and other officials could spare us the whirlwind of fabrications, the lyricism of flights, the logorrheic “I/me” in a small telegraph style that is often fragmented and quarrelsome?
And if there were to be a moral: Sobriety and efficiency are not the enemy of either, just as opinion and opposition are.
Finally, may the year 2013, despite forecasts, do its best to bring us the best!
