Posted by
King David Caul on Sunday, April 06, 2008 10:30:41 PM
It would be very useful to all of us, on all sides of the political divides, to heal broken terminology. We all benefit from accurate and useful terminology.
So what are "talking points"? A summation from the site accessiblesociety.org defines it thus:
"They're brief, one- or two-sentence answers to basic questions that would be asked by anyone who wants to understand your work. They are easily memorized points about your project that you can use over and over to respond to media inquiries. They're useful because they let you quickly provide "the perfect response" to reporters - responses you have thought out and convey exactly what you want to say. "
Wikipedia has a helpful definition which also touches on the potential intentional abuses, which may be used as strategy. We all know the smell of these abuses; they're not that foreign to any of us.
By my definition (in our present day political realm) the term "talking points" is used to mean the reducing of issues to sound bites, for the primary purpose of achieving triggered emotional responses (usually negative) over intellectual responses.
OK. I must now point out that the very term "talking points" has become, ironically, the same device it describes! To call an abbreviated discussion of political issues "talking points", is presently almost always an attempt to reduce the presented position to an instantaneous, emotional response of rejection. "Talking points" usually means "bad". Doesn't it? It doesn't investigate, and it doesn't invite investigation. It means "bad" - worthy of dismissal.
If someone hears someone else speak, and feels the speaker has not truly addressed or investigated a list of issues, but rather has used popular buzzwords to trigger specific negative emotional responses, the last thing the audience member should do is call the speech they've heard "talking points". Because by doing so, they have used a popular buzzword to trigger a specific negative emotional response.
Perhaps "talking points" deserves its negative implications in situations where it leaves no room for response, or dialog. It is a useful term, but in that it has become attached to a negative judgmental perception, it no longer can effectively describe well-intentioned situations. Either "talking points" needs to be used strictly for description of endlessly repeated half truths and/or lies, or the negative tone and sneer on the face when reciting the (endlessly repeated) term should be avoided, and consequently we can then freely use the term to describe a positioned summation of political conditions and circumstances. The latter being something which is almost utterly constant in almost any political environment or discussion, and therefore not particularly evil by default!
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©2008 KING DAVID CAUL