A Neo Aristotelian Analysis of Ronald Reagan S Evil Empire Speech

¶ … Neo-Aristotelian Analysis of Ronald Reagan's "Evil Empire" Speech

When President Ronald Reagan delivered his historic "evil empire" speech in 1982, America's enemies were well-known as consisted most especially of the former Soviet Union. Children born since the turn of the 21st century have never known as world that had a Berlin Wall or an East and West Germany, and even observers at the time of the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991 could not believe what they were seeing. Despite their incredulity at the time, many analysts in the aftermath credited President Reagan with ending the Cold War due in large part to his "evil empire" speech. To determine the facts, this paper provides a Neo-Aristotelian analysis of Reagan's "Evil Empire" speech followed by a summary of the research and important findings concerning this analysis in the conclusion.

Review and Analysis

Generally, a Neo-Aristotelian analysis of a historic speech such as Reagan's "evil empire" speech focuses on three basic principles: (a) the situation, (b) the speaker, and the (c) speech using the steps outlined in Table 1 below.

Table 1

Steps to conducting a Neo-Aristotelian analysis

Step

Description

Reconstruction of the artifact's original situation by examining the exigency (the event or issue that provoked the speaker to speak -- a problem that can be addressed through rhetorical communication), the context in which the exigency occurred, and the audience the speaker chooses to address in order to respond to this exigency.

The context includes historical and cultural events that gave rise to this speech (the broader conversation it joins) and the socio-cultural attitudes toward the topic of the speech. The speaker assumes the audience addressed is in a position to resolve the exigency, so the critic needs to understand who they are or were, what they knew and felt about the speaker and the exigency, and what their role in resolving the exigency might be.

Investigation of the speaker's background, motivations, and intentions. There is some reason that this particular speaker stepped up to respond to this rhetorical exigency.

Who is this person? What is his or her reputation prior to the speech? What does the audience think of her? What are his qualifications, training, and experience relevant to this exigency? The critic wants to know why this particular speaker is in the position of responding to this exigency. The critic wants to determine this speaker's intentions: what does she hope her speech will accomplish?

Application of rhetoric's five canons to the artifact:

Invention, organization, style, memory, and delivery

Evaluation

Evaluation of the artifact's effects and effectiveness

Source: Adapted from Neo-Aristotelian Criticism-Steps in the Process 3

The steps outlined in Table 1 below are applied to Reagan's 1983 "evil empire" speech below.

Reconstruction of the artifact's original situation

In 1983, the outcome of the Cold War was still uncertain and the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies still appeared as a monolithic threat arrayed against the United States and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies. Moreover, Soviet efforts to expand their hegemony beyond their existing sphere of influence were apparent to American policymakers. It was against this backdrop that Reagan presented his "evil empire" speech in 1983.

Investigation of the speaker's background, motivations, and intentions

With a background in show business and politics, Reagan was well prepared to deliver a speech that would make history. Moreover, he was highly motivated to restore America to what he perceived as its rightful place as the world's only superpower by winning the Cold War. For instance, according to Ritter and Henry, "Reagan always retained hope that Americans would wake up and rescue freedom from the evil empire of communism. The conflict still might be won instead of lost. If Americans rallied immediately, the conflict might even be avoided altogether through a show of determined strength" (26). It was the intention of this speech to communicate that message to the American people and ultimately the Soviet leadership. In this regard, the 50th Speaker of the U.S. House of Representative emphasizes that, "By calling the Soviet Union an 'evil empire,' Reagan sent a clear signal that America was going to challenge the Soviet Union morally, win the psychological information war, and de-legitimize it. If the government was evil, he argued, how could it have authority?" (Gingrich 19).

Application of rhetoric's five canons to the artifact: Invention, organization, style, memory, and delivery

Invention. President Reagan was acutely aware of the popularity of George Lucas's 1977 "Star Wars" motion picture and used this reference in another of his famous speeches that was intended to counter the perceived growing threat of the Soviet Union. Although his use of the "evil empire" analogy to describe the Soviet monolith was not his invention, it struck a responsive chord among the American public (Kramer 41).

Organization. The "evil empire" speech was organized into three main sections. The first section consisted of introductory remarks that reinforced the president and first lady's strong belief in the power of prayer together with a humorous anecdote concerning "an evangelical minister and a politician arriving at Heaven's gate" and an explanation to the audience concerning why he was especially pleased to present this speech. The second section of the speech outlined his views concerning the fundamental differences between the political ideologies of the United States and Soviet Union and the need for vigilance in response to the latter's declared intentions of fomenting a world revolution. The final section of the speech consisted of a brief summary and inspirational remarks intended to reassure the audience that not only did America have the "right stuff" to prevail over the Soviet Union, this outcome was inevitable.

Style. Reagan was not called "the Great Communicator" for nothing, and the style of this speech resembled his other formal addresses wherein he applied his long experience in public speaking using his well-modulated voice and pacing to make each of his points, peppered generously with religious references that undoubtedly delighted this audience.

Memory. The ravages of World War II and the Korean Conflict were still fresh in the minds of the American public as well as the intended audience for Reagan's 1983 speech, and America's former ally had transformed itself into its archenemy whose stated intention was to "bury" the United States. Against this backdrop, it is little wonder that Reagan's speech was so well received.

Delivery. The "evil empire" speech was delivered to the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando, Florida. The final section of Reagan's speech containing the infamous allusion to the Soviet Union as an "evil empire" is as follows:

[I[n your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to beware the temptation of pride -- the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.