Page 186 - Between One and Many The Art and Science of Public Speaking

Chapter 6 Adapting to Your Audience 153

about the predominant or prevailing attitudes
of the group, the better are your chances of a
majority of the audience responding positively
to what you say in your speech. When an au-
dience is fairly evenly divided, you need to
attempt to fi nd some middle ground. Finding
areas of common agreement while recogniz-
ing and respecting differences of opinion is es-
sential to dealing with an audience of mixed
attitudes.

Values
One scholar describes values as “more gen-
eral than attitudes, . . . enduring beliefs that
hold that some ways of behaving and some
25
goals are preferable to others.” Underlying Although California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (pic-
someone’s opposition to animal testing in re- tured here with Stan and Roleeda Statham) is a nationally
search, for example, is both a belief about how prominent Republican, his views on issues such as abor-
animals are treated in doing research and a tion and gay rights don’t fi t the Republican stereotype.
value system that believes all life is important,
not just human life.
Rokeach classifi es values as either terminal (ends in themselves) or instru- values
26
mental (those that help achieve the ends we seek as humans). Examples of ter- Our most enduring
minal values include a comfortable life, an exciting life, a sense of accomplish- beliefs about right and
ment, a world at peace, a world of beauty, equality, family security, freedom, and wrong.
happiness. Instrumental values are guides to behavior, the means to achieve the
ends specifi ed in the terminal values. Examples of instrumental values include
ambitiousness, broad-mindedness, capableness, cheerfulness, cleanliness, cour-
age, forgiveness, helpfulness, and honesty.
Although one might not always agree with Rokeach’s classifi cation—for ex-
ample, honesty can certainly be viewed as an end in itself—the basic notion is
useful. Some values are desirable in and of themselves, whereas others are in-
struments for achieving higher, terminal values. For example, forgiveness and
courage may be seen as means to achieving a world at peace.
Values, particularly terminal values, are diffi cult to change because they are
learned at an early age and widely shared among people. Values such as fair-
ness, justice, life, patriotism, and so on are not only fundamental but also are
taught to us in our most formative years. In fact, our basic value system prob-
ably is pretty well determined at a very young age, as Robert Fulghum points
out in his best-selling book, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. 27
Speakers are best advised to appeal to known values shared by their audience
rather than try to convince their audience to adopt new values. Some speeches
don’t just appeal to existing values, they seek to reinforce those values. A Fourth
of July speech, a eulogy honoring a great hero, or an inspirational speech can be
thought of as fulfi lling a value-strengthening function. For the most part, speak-
ers need to treat values as a given and build on them. For example, Martin Lu-
ther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech was not so much a call for new values as
for Americans to live up to the values stated in the Declaration of Independence
and the Bill of Rights.