10.4: Annotated Sample Reading- "Remarks at the University of Michigan" by Lyndon B. Johnson

Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Demonstrate critical thinking about a reading passage related to position and argument writing.
• Explain and evaluate how conventions are shaped by purpose, language, culture, and expectation.
• Assess material for inquiry, learning, critical thinking, and communicating in various rhetorical and cultural contexts

Introduction

Figure \(10.3\) President Lyndon B. Johnson (credit: “Lyndon Johnson” by Arnold Newman, White House Press Office (WHPO)/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)

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In a commencement speech at the University of Michigan (https://openstax.org/r/universityofmichigan) on May 22, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson (https://openstax.org/r/lyndonbjohnson) proposed a set of domestic programs that would become one of the foundations of his administration. He called these programs the Great Society. Today, many of the same problems that Johnson addressed continue, and programs that seek to remedy them are referred to as initiatives of social justice, such as those directed toward human rights, health care, alleviating poverty, and guaranteeing democratic practices. To persuade his audience to agree that the programs needed to be adopted, Johnson presented his argument about why they were needed and what they would achieve.

Figure \(10.4\) On July 2, barely two months after the University of Michigan graduation speech, President Johnson signed the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is among the onlookers. The Act forbids discrimination on the basis race, religion, gender, or national origin. Prohibiting the practice of “Jim Crow” laws, the Act also strengthened the enforcement of school desegregation and voting rights. (credit: “Lyndon Johnson signing Civil Rights Act, July 2, 1964” by Cecil Stoughton, White House Press Office/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)

Living By Their Own Words

Testing Our Success as a Nation

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President Hatcher, Governor Romney, Senators McNamara and Hart, Congressmen Meader and Staebler and other members of the fine Michigan delegation, members of the graduating class, my fellow Americans:

Note

Audience. This speech, although given at the University of Michigan commencement, is addressed to the nation. Johnson first mentions the people in attendance but ends his introduction by including in his wider audience: “my fellow Americans."

It is a great pleasure to be here today. This university has been coeducational since 1870, but I do not believe it was on the basis of your accomplishments that a Detroit high school girl said, “In choosing a college, you first have to decide whether you want a coeducational school or an educational school.” Well, we can find both here at Michigan, although perhaps at different hours. I came out here today very anxious to meet the Michigan student whose father told a friend of mine that his son’s education had been a real value. It stopped his mother from bragging about him.

I have come today from the turmoil of your Capital to the tranquility of your campus to speak about the future of your country. The purpose of protecting the life of our Nation and preserving the liberty of our citizens is to pursue the happiness of our people. Our success in that pursuit is the test of our success as a Nation. For a century we labored to settle and to subdue a continent. For half a century we called upon unbounded invention and untiring industry to create an order of plenty for all of our people. The challenge of the next half century is whether we have the wisdom to use that wealth to enrich and elevate our national life and to advance the quality of our American civilization.

Note

Kairos. Johnson notes the mood of the nation and of the campus, a timely reference for those attending the graduation ceremony.

Context. Johnson contextualizes the current challenges of the country within the history of the nation. This strategy calls on the patriotism of his audience to take their rightful place in history

Your imagination, your initiative, and your indignation will determine whether we build a society where progress is the servant of our needs or a society where old values and new visions are buried under unbridled growth. For in your time we have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society.

Note

Purpose. Johnson’s purpose is to introduce the concept of the Great Society to the American public.

The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in our time. But that is just the beginning. The Great Society is a place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind and to enlarge his talents.

It is a place where leisure is a welcome chance to build and reflect, not a feared cause of boredom and restlessness. It is a place where the city of man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of commerce but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community. It is a place where man can renew contact with nature. It is a place which honors creation for its own sake and for what it adds to the understanding of the race. It is a place where men are more concerned with the quality of their goals than the quantity of their goods.

Note

Repetition. Johnson repeats the clause “It is a place” to add emphasis to the various facets of the Great Society.

Definition. Johnson also defines for the audience what he means by the term Great Society.

Allusion. Johnson mentions “the city of man,” a reference—or allusion—to St. Augustine’s book The City of God, which gives ethical and religious significance to his Great Society.

But most of all, the Great Society is not a safe harbor, a resting place, a final objective, a finished work. It is a challenge constantly renewed, beckoning us toward a destiny where the meaning of our lives matches the marvelous products of our labor.

So I want to talk to you today about three places where we begin to build the Great Society—in our cities, in our countryside, and in our classrooms.

Note

Clear Viewpoint. Johnson states that America needs reform and points out the three areas where the Great Society will focus: “in our cities, in our countryside, and in our classrooms.” His choice of these places emphasizes where people live and where they learn

Many of you will live to see the day, perhaps 50 years from now, when there will be 400 million Americans, four-fifths of them in urban areas. In the remainder of this century urban population will double, city land will double, and we will have to build homes, highways, and facilities equal to all those built since this country was first settled. So in the next 40 years we must rebuild the entire urban United States.

Note

Kairos. Johnson addresses the timeliness of the concerns these college graduates have about their lives after graduation.

Logos. Johnson will go on to provide a logical solution to the problems that Americans will face over the next 40 years.

Aristotle said: “Men come together in cities in order to live, but they remain together in order to live the good life.” It is harder and harder to live the good life in American cities today.

Note

Quotation form an Expert. This quotation from a revered classical philosopher [Aristotle] echoes Johnson's idea, giving it more strength and credibility.

The catalog of ills is long: there is the decay of the centers and the despoiling of the suburbs. There is not enough housing for our people or transportation for our traffic. Open land is vanishing, and old landmarks are violated. Worst of all, expansion is eroding the precious and time-honored values of community with neighbors and communion with nature. The loss of these values breeds loneliness and boredom and indifference.

Note

Kairos. Johnson addresses the many concerns on Americans’ minds.

Pathos. Using strong words like decay, despoiling, vanishing, and violated, Johnson connects his argument to emotions—mostly fear—the audience would feel about such destruction of nature and values.

Culture. Johnson addresses the need for a change in culture to improve the future of the country.

Our society will never be great until our cities are great. Today the frontier of imagination and innovation is inside those cities and not beyond their borders.

Note

Supporting Evidence. Johnson states that he will begin to build the Great Society in three places—cities, countryside, classrooms. Then he gives supporting evidence for each place.

To support the need for change the Great Society will bring to cities, Johnson offers that

• many people in the audience will see a time when four-fifths of the American population will live in cities;
• since urban population and city land will double in the coming years, America needs homes, highways, and facilities;
• cities suffer from decay, and suburbs are being despoiled;
• the country must fulfill housing and transportation needs;
• open land is vanishing;
• old landmarks are violated; and
• values of community and communion with nature are eroding

New experiments are already going on. It will be the task of your generation to make the American city a place where future generations will come, not only to live but to live the good life. I understand that if I stayed here tonight, I would see that Michigan students are really doing their best to live the good life. This is the place where the Peace Corps was started. It is inspiring to see how all of you, while you are in this country, are trying so hard to live at the level of the people.

A second place where we begin to build the Great Society is in our countryside. We have always prided ourselves on being not only America the strong and America the free, but America the beautiful. Today that beauty is in danger. The water we drink, the food we eat, the very air that we breathe, are threatened with pollution. Our parks are overcrowded, our seashores overburdened. Green fields and dense forests are disappearing.

Note

Transition between Paragraphs. By using the phrase “second place,” Johnson alerts his audience that he is shifting to another facet of the Great Society.

Pathos. Johnson appeals to the fears of his audience with examples of the tragedies that could result if the Great Society were not adopted.

Supporting Evidence. To support the need for change the Great SOciety will bring to the countryside, Johnson offers that

• the beauty of America is in danger,
• pollution threatens water, food, and air,
• parks are overcrowded and seashores are overburdened,
• green fields and dense forests are disappearing and,
• it destroyed natural splendor cannot be be recaptured.

A few years ago, we were greatly concerned about the “Ugly American.” Today we must act to prevent an ugly America. For once the battle is lost, once our natural splendor is destroyed, it can never be recaptured. And once man can no longer walk with beauty or wonder at nature his spirit will wither and his sustenance be wasted.

Note

Allusion and Play on Words. Johnson alludes to a phrase in popular use that describes U.S. citizens as “ugly Americans”: brash, conceited, and ignorant about cultures of other societies and matters of the world. He connects the phrase Ugly American with the phrase “ugly America,” a play on how Americans are perceived with his desire that America not be perceived as “ugly America."

A third place to build the Great Society is in the classrooms of America. There your children’s lives will be shaped. Our society will not be great until every young mind is set free to scan the farthest reaches of thought and imagination. We are still far from that goal.

Note

Transition between Paragraphs. With the phrase “third place,” Johnson alerts his audience that he is shifting to the third facet of the Great Society.

Today, eight million adult Americans, more than the entire population of Michigan, have not finished five years of school. Nearly 20 million have not finished eight years of school. Nearly 54 million—more than one-quarter of all America—have not even finished high school.

Each year more than 100,000 high school graduates, with proved ability, do not enter college because they cannot afford it. And if we cannot educate today’s youth, what will we do in 1970 when elementary school enrollment will be five million greater than 1960? And high school enrollment will rise by five million. College enrollment will increase by more than three million.

In many places, classrooms are overcrowded and curricula are outdated.

Note

Statistics as Supporting Evidence. To support the need for change the Great Society will bring to classrooms, Johnson uses statistics as evidence. He offers that

• eight million adult Americans have not finished five years of school;
• almost 20 million Americans have not finished eight years of school;
• more than one-quarter of Americans have not finished high school;
• yearly, more than 100,000 high school graduates do not enter college because they cannot afford it; and
• many classrooms are overcrowded.

Most of our qualified teachers are underpaid, and many of our paid teachers are unqualified. So we must give every child a place to sit and a teacher to learn from. Poverty must not be a bar to learning, and learning must offer an escape from poverty.

Most of our qualified teachers are underpaid, and many of our paid teachers are unqualified. So we must give every child a place to sit and a teacher to learn from. Poverty must not be a bar to learning, and learning must offer an escape from poverty.

These are three of the central issues of the Great Society. While our Government has many programs directed ment has many programs directed

Note

Thesis Restated. Johnson briefly summarizes his thesis: three issues of the Great Society.

But I do promise this: We are going to assemble the best thought and the broadest knowledge from all over the world to find those answers for America. I intend to establish working groups to prepare a series of White House conferences and meetings—on the cities, on natural beauty, on the quality of education, and on other emerging challenges. And from these meetings and from this inspiration and from these studies we will begin to set our course toward the Great Society. The solution to these problems does not rest on a massive program in Washington, nor can it rely solely on the strained resources of local authority. They require us to create new concepts of cooperation, a creative federalism, between the National Capital and the leaders of local communities.

Note

Problem/Solution. Johnson has pointed out the problems that America faces and now presents solutions to them.

Woodrow Wilson once wrote: “Every man sent out from his university should be a man of his Nation as well as a man of his time.” Within your lifetime powerful forces, already loosed, will take us toward a way of life beyond the realm of our experience, almost beyond the bounds of our imagination.

Note

Quotation from an Authority. This quotation from a political expert leads into Johnson’s idea and acts as a transition, linking Wilson’s and Johnson’s audiences across time.

For better or for worse, your generation has been appointed by history to deal with those problems and to lead America toward a new age. You have the chance never before afforded to any people in any age. You can help build a society where the demands of morality, and the needs of the spirit, can be realized in the life of the Nation.

Note

Ethos. Johnson uses ethos to appeal to the patriotic ideals his audience possesses for dealing with and finding a solution to America’s problems.

So, will you join in the battle to give every citizen the full equality which God enjoins and the law requires, whatever his belief, or race, or the color of his skin?

Will you join in the battle to give every citizen an escape from the crushing weight of poverty?

Will you join in the battle to make it possible for all nations to live in enduring peace—as neighbors and not as mortal enemies?

Will you join in the battle to build the Great Society, to prove that our material progress is only the foundation on which we will build a richer life of mind and spirit?

Note

Rhetorical Questions. Johnson uses rhetorical questions (questions intended to make a point rather than to get an answer) to encourage the audience to get involved in the Great Society.

There are those timid souls who say this battle cannot be won, that we are condemned to a soulless wealth. I do not agree. We have the power to shape the civilization that we want. But we need your will, your labor, your hearts, if we are to build that kind of society.

Note

Addressing a Counterclaim. Johnson identifies a counterclaim to the Great Society and then refutes it.

Those who came to this land sought to build more than just a new country. They sought a new world. So I have come here today to your campus to say that you can make their vision our reality. So let us from this moment begin our work so that in the future men will look back and say: It was then, after a long and weary way, that man turned the exploits of his genius to the full enrichment of his life.

Thank you. Goodbye.

Discussion Questions

1. For what purpose might Johnson have chosen to address the American people under the guise of a graduation address?
2. What parts of Johnson’s speech show that he is trying to connect with the students in the audience?
3. For what reasons has Johnson singled out the cities, countrysides, and schools as the locations of his Great Society?
4. Johnson acknowledges one main counterclaim to the ideas proposed in the Great Society. How does Johnson address that counterclaim?
5. In today’s political climate, Johnson’s Great Society might be labeled by some as socialism, an economic system in which production, distribution, and exchange of goods are owned or governed by the community as a whole rather than by individuals. In what way might Johnson have responded to this counterclaim?
6. Johnson ends with a reference to the founders of the country and says, “You can make their vision our reality.” In your opinion, does he adequately explain what he means by “our reality”? Why or why not?