When Rev. King said in his speech on the eve of his assassination in Memphis, "I've been to the mountaintop", his audience knew he was referring to Moses's view of the Promised Land. Rev. King's imagery was drawn from a common culture, in which a critical mass of citizens knows a little bit about the same literature -- maybe different bits, but enough to find a context for public statements that draw on that common culture.

In Rev. King's case, the symbolism in his speeches derived from the Bible, icons of American civil society (he drew on the Declaration of Independence too), and folk music of his people ("in the words of the old Negro spiritual, 'Free at last. . .'") which had long since entered the music texts of our elementary schools, mainstream Protestant hymnals and the repertoire of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

To pack a big punch into a small space, eloquence demands the use of extended metaphors that pull in our greater common traditions and experiences. Without the metaphors, the speech lacks the hook into heritage that makes hair stand up on the back of one's neck. Without the common culture, those metaphors have nothing in which to take root in the civic imagination.

So we're left with slogans and soundbites, much of it self-referential. Where's the beef? This is our new common culture.
-sigh...-

Well, we can still pull it back together... Everyone still gets the source of irony in the phrase, "No s#!t, Sherlock!", don't they? ;)

Regards--
Mary Anne