A line in the obituary of Lewis Lapham, a remarkable magazine editor, stayed with me for days. I finally looked it up and copied it into my notebook. This is Lapham:
The hope of social or political change stems from language that induces a change of heart. That’s the power of words, and that’s a different power than the power of the internet.
I thought that Lapham, best known as editor of Harper’s, was talking about the way mass media work. The version I learned was a metaphor: a pebble tossed into a pond makes concentric rings. As a young reporter, working at a newspaper in a small town, I wrote an article that influenced people who didn’t read the paper — the mayor, for example.
The words didn’t get his attention as much as the facts, which showed astonishing adjustments on the tax rolls for some of his friends and insiders. People who supported him but were appalled by the facts told him about the articles in the paper — those concentric rings at work.
But the Lapham quotation stayed in mind because it fits a different dynamic. During the Depression and again in World War II, people were paralyzed by fear. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was not a great administrator, but he was a good communicator. He didn’t have to pretend to like people. He really did, and he talked to them confidently, intimately, honestly.
He told them that they could overcome the greatest challenges that the country had faced if they would make some sacrifices and work together.
It was not the facts, but his tone, one that communicated reasonable hope instead of fear. Those were the concentric rings that rippled across the pond.
If you ask me what happened to the presidential campaign since Kamala Harris jumped in, I’d say it’s thoseconcentric rings.
• Source: John Otis, “Lewis Lapham, editor who revived Harper’s magazine, dies at 89”; The Washington Post, July 24, 2024. It’s here:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2024/07/24/lewis-lapham-harpers-dead/
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