"But if a man cannot obtain to that judgment, then it is left to him generally to be close, and a dissembler. For where a man cannot choose, or vary in particulars, there it is good to take the safest, and wariest way, in general; like the going softly, by one that cannot well see."
Francis Bacon [1561-1626]; Of Simulation and Dissimulation
Like a blind man feeling his way in the dark, says Bacon, is the man who cannot distinguish those moments which necessitate the facts be laid out to bear, from those which require they be held close, unarticulated, even unidentified. For if one lacks the skill to distinguish between those two moments, one's language too is inevitably indistinguishable, vague and general; because purpose relies on particulars just as intent relies on action, without them, each is reduced merely to rhetoric, nothing more than the tentative outstretched hand of a man who cannot see one step in front of him.
Every year the President is required to put before the country the details, the particulars, the evidence that best describes the state of the nation and his argument for its future. It is an occasion which necessitates the facts be laid out to bear, not by choice but as a duty to those to whom such an account is addressed. And yet, in recent times, it is a rare thing for this foundational speech to be defined by any real attempt to place before the people, with accuracy and veracity, the true nature of things. For to articulate the extent of the decay, even once due regard has been paid to progress, would be to map a frightful picture; and so, faced with Bacon's choice, the safest and the wariest way is almost always chosen, and the vague and the general becomes the status quo.
There is, at the heart of this attitude, a speech; a simple text written for this purpose. And so it is worth dedicating, I believe, some small attention to writing and to try, at least in general terms, to understand what differentiates the dull and lifeless nature of formless generality, from the magnetic pull of a powerfully structured argument. Because the rules that should define a good argument are foreign to much of our public debate, a symptom of the choice described above; it is driven primarily by emotion and raw desire, rather than by any considered application of the facts, and this is to our detriment, for the effect is insidious and the consequences profound. If we are to counter it, then, it is important that we recognise this habit for what it is.
Emotion has a part to play in any piece of writing, it is rhetoric's lifeblood, giving it colour and imagination; but unchecked it becomes superficial, unreasonable, incoherent. And here evidence and logic have a role to play, they are the parameters that should guide one's emotional drive through an argument, correcting its course when it strays and bolstering its strength when it is legitimate.