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Ty Burson
Dr. Rita Kumar
English Composition 2089
4 February 2015
Becker’s Democracy
In 1941 Carl Becker delivered a speech to the University of Virginia concerning
Democracy. This topic was appropriate because Thomas Jefferson, the founder of The University
of Virginia, held Democracy dear to his heart. The document of Becker’s speech provides
historical information and a historian’s point of view about what he thought of democracy and its
current state in 1941. By looking at this document you can see where the author uses a variety of
rhetorical methods such as comparison, questions, and syntax. In this paper I will cover many of
the rhetorical strategies used.
Carl Lotus Becker according to the Encyclopedia Britannica was born in 1873 and died
on April 10, 1945, just four years after his speech on “Ideal Democracy”. Becker studied history
at the University of Wisconsin then went on to get his doctorate at Columbia University
(Britannica 1). After teaching for a long time, he wrote a variety of books, which usually dealt
with politics and democracy in particular. He quickly became a renowned historian. Prior to
“Ideal Democracy” Becker had delivered multiple speeches and worked with many influential
political people at the time. Because of his background experience at the university and in
speaking, it helped him write “Ideal Democracy”. Addressing the University as a whole, Becker
knew how to formulate his speech to appeal to the whole university as well as any readers
curious about democracy. Becker is able to talk about democracy to the readers in a way they
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had never heard it before. Since Becker is addressing the discourse community involving
scholarly readers, he created the text to function specifically for that type of community. He
wrote in a scholarly and detailed manner to appeal to the special types of readers. As Becker
exclaims in the text, “Democracy is a word with which we are all so familiar that we rarely take
the trouble to ask what we mean by it” (para 3). Becker is able to use such a simple topic as
democracy and give an outlook on it that many didn’t have. Much of reader’s already have a
basic definition of what democracy means to them. Becker says “It is a word that denotes
different things to different people”. All of Becker’s past work had been about getting to the
roots and looking back and comparing. Therefore, Becker uses this here and looks deeper into
more than just the superficial meaning by looking into the history of democracy not only in
America but into past times comparing what it what was like then, and what democracy is like
now.
“Ideal Democracy” was written in 1941, a time where a major European war was on the
brink. Just a few short years after the great depression. Democracy’s popularity had reached an
all-time low point. Becker says “The most obvious political fact of our time is that democracy as
thus defined has suffered an astounding decline in prestige” (para 6). This made forced Becker to
change his writing style to cope with what was going on at the time. Democracy was a sensitive
subject because people were blaming it for many things. By looking back into what has
happened to Democracy in other places, Becker appeals to the readers by reminding them of the
roots that made this country and started the democracy. Reminding them that this country was
made to be a Democracy and even if others think that Democracy is becoming a thing of the
past, it’s not. To do this, Becker must remind the readers that just as with anything, there is good
and bad side to everything and the fault may lie in places that you don’t realize.
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The author’s purpose is to give examples as to why democracy isn’t a whole lot different
from how it used to be. Becker describes what he believes are conditions necessary for a
democracy to survive and flourish. For example, Becker tells us that everyone is caught up with
democracy in the here and now. He says: “We are so immersed in its present fortunes that we
commonly see it only as a “close up” (para 8). Becker here is referring to “it” as democracy. He
tells us that you cannot form an objective judgment of its nature and significance without taking
a step back. This is why he takes readers back to past democracy’s and what happened to them.
The first example Becker gives is when democracy first came about in ancient Greece. Where it
was only there for a short century or two then vanished. He then goes on to explain how
democracy had never lasted very long anywhere. Becker quotes: “From this brief survey it is
obvious that, taking the experience of mankind as a test, democracy has as yet had but a limited
and temporary success”. This is important because this is the first time readers are receiving a
historian’s point of view. Most of the discourse community had a solid basis of what Democracy
is but the history about when democracy came about was new information.
Becker also uses other examples about democracy that readers would never think about
before. For example he tells readers “It is a striking fact that until recently democracy never
flourished except in very small states” This is a bit of information is something that not many
readers would know. This shows that intensive research would have had to been done to notice
something like that about democracy. According to a book titled Democracy at Large by Michael
Bratton he states that “democracy has been known to only succeed in small states”. This further
solidifies Becker’s point. This fact leads into explaining some of the conditions that are essential
to the success of the democratic government.
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Becker uses rhetorical strategies to invoke thought into the readers. He makes them take a
step back and look at democracy from a different angle. Becker does this by asking some
questions. At the end of both the first and section sections he leaves the audience with questions.
At the end of the second section leading into section three, Becker leaves the audience with a
series of questions. Becker asks: “What are the essential tenets of the modern Democratic faith?”
(para. 12) By asking this question Becker invokes some thought into the audience. Letting the
readers think about it before he leads into his next portion of his speech. He answers the
question, but before he does that he wants everyone to think about it because more than likely his
reasoning is different from theirs. Everyone probably has a different answer for the question and
this was a rhetorical strategy used by Becker when formatting. By separating the text into three
separate sections he organizes his information in a way that the audience can better understand.
If Becker were to keep the speech all in one there would be no room to comprehend one section
at a time. It would be one big run on of constant information that could become too much for
readers.
Another rhetorical strategy Becker uses is comparison. The entire text is filled with
comparisons one example is in the third paragraph he compares democracy to words that
seemingly have nothing in common with democracy. Becker says: “Democracy, like liberty, or
science or progress, is a word with which we are all so familiar that we rarely take the trouble to
ask what we mean by it” (para 3). He compares these terms saying that they are all “referent”
words, all words that we have no exact meaning behind when we think of them. Another
example of comparison used when he compares the people of democracy now to how the people
of past democracies were. Becker tells us that “The citizens of Democracy should be, as Pericles
said the citizens of Athens were, if not all originators at least all sound judges of good policy”
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(para 14). He uses this example to help readers to understand that a democratic government is
formed under the assumption that the citizens will do their best to make good judgment calls. He
compares this to Athens telling readers that democracy has been this way since way back when,
this isn’t new news.
Another rhetorical strategy Becker uses periodically is giving short narratives. This goes
hand in hand with comparison but Becker uses different stories from histories to help readers get
a better understanding of how democracy has evolved. Yes, there are similarities from past
democracies but there are also differences. In the introduction paragraph leading into the third
and last section of the text Becker says this: “The liberal democratic faith, as expressed in the
works of 20 eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century writers, is one of the formulations of the
modern doctrine of progress. It will be well, therefore, to note briefly the historical antecedents
of that doctrine” (para 20). Becker then goes on to tell a narrative about man and their time on
earth involving religion and different events that led up to the modern doctrine.
Becker’s language throughout the text exemplified makes it scholarly. This speech was
not something to be taken lightly, it was to be informative and intellectual. For example, early in
the text Becker says “In order to discuss democracy intelligently it will be necessary, therefore,
to define it, to attach to the word a sufficiently precise meaning to avoid the confusion which is
not infrequently the chief result of such discussions” (para 3). Becker wanted to make sure that
his language is precise and readers are completely understanding what he means.
Throughout the text there is no one word that is common throughout. However, the
author constantly uses “if-then” type statements. Becker will give an example that if something
were to be a certain way then this would be the outcome. A couple examples are: “From this
brief survey it is obvious that” (para 10), “There must then, as Aristotle said, be a limit” (para
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16). Syntax like this leads one to believe that Becker uses a lot of evidence to support his points.
Becker is constantly bringing up examples that are almost irrefutable. Becker always uses long
sentences that are complex that are factual. Logos is definitely appealed to the most throughout
the text. In his long almost run-on sentences there are historical facts and examples that fit
together better by leaving them in one sentence. If the sentences were short and direct the topics
would seem all over the place and not connected as well.
From my analysis I learned that if you let yourself be less narrow minded and listen to
something from a different perspective you can understand it much better. Becker writes about
democracy from a historian’s perspective but he goes at it from a couple different angles. When I
first read the text I thought he was just trying to tell what democracy needs to flourish. However,
after analyzing it I realize he was trying to get back to the roots to explain not only what makes a
good democracy but also the roots of our democracy. Looking at the context you can see that
these were hostile times and democracy was on the brim of ending. Becker forces readers to take
a step back and look at the roots of American Democracy and how we got to our democracy. The
fathers of America out in place this democracy on a strong foundation and even where other
democracies have failed, we will not. By reading this analysis you can see some of the strategies
used by Becker and help you get an idea of where Becker is coming from. Without
understanding the context of when this was written, or by whom it was written, a reader may find
it to be just another opinion on their idea of democracy.
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Works Cited
Michael, Bratton. IFES Democracy at Large. Washington, D.C.: International
Foundation for Electoral Systems, 2004. Print
"Carl Becker | Biography - American Historian." Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
Encyclopedia Britannica. Web. 8 Feb. 2015
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The text influence’s peoples beliefs by giving them information and facts to think about.
The author uses rhetorical strategies like questions and comparisons to influence readers to not
change their beliefs but to rethink them. This text gives a new perspective on democracy that can
cause readers to attempt to change their lifestyle to help better democracy and themselves. The
text fit the discourse community by appealing to the founder of the University and by addressing
an issue that was becoming increasingly popular during the time period this was written. The text
was produced not to upset or to convince the discourse community because that is not what they
needed. The text was written to inform and to encourage the community. After just coming out
of the depression the community needed this speech to help them to be reminded about the great
dream of democracy. Becker had a perfect opportunity to uplift the targeted audience. This text
belonged to the University. This text was written to become a speech for the University of
Virginia, one of the top universities and a pro-democracy community. The genre of this text is a
speech written to inform the audience. Becker wrote this speech to address a popular topic.
Becker developed this text with details finding lots of sources to create a scholarly text. When
writing this document, Becker had to make difficult rhetorical choices when constructing this
document. Since the discourse community was scholarly, Becker had to make sure that his text
was well developed and intellectual. He was careful with his language and used comparison for
the readers.