Loud Fools and the Need For Eloquence

Men are stirred by great words. Eloquence is the alchemy that bends a room to a man's will. Some may envy him for it; others may resent him. But none can deny the sheer force of a word fitly spoken.

Spoken into existence, man lives by utterance and writ. He rises or falls by the words he believes, the truths he absorbs, the lies he entertains. Speech molds him, shaping the architecture of his thought and the tenor of his affections. Bearing the breath of life, he is no mere animal, no mute beast. His tongue wields dominion—capable of building or razing, civilizing or corrupting.

In a marketplace where words are a cheap commodity, flung about with the reckless confidence of a gambler’s last coin, men have come to take them lightly. Thoughtful speech has given way to casual utterance, precision sacrificed on the altar of convenience. Semantics and definition are dismissed as pedantry. Any word spoken—no matter how thoughtless—outweighs one spoken with wisdom. Any utterance that flatters the self is upheld, even at the cost of another’s edification.

The ‘rant’ has become a cultural staple—a celebration of unfiltered impulse paraded as forthright authenticity. Free speech, often branded as reasoned discourse, now serves as a license for undisciplined and irresponsible noise. To many, speaking freely means speaking disruptively. At best, it amplifies an opinion; more often, it is a torrent of words untethered from persuasion, coherence, or wit. A loosened tongue is essential for proclaiming truth, but when severed from virtue, it becomes the mouthpiece of folly.

The world has never been louder. Everyone can broadcast their thoughts to the globe, yet wisdom and eloquence remain in short supply. Men revel in verbal skirmishes but lack the wit or depth to engage in genuine debate. Without humility, discourse becomes a contest of humiliation—a performance staged for the approving jeers of an echo chamber.

Humiliation, in fact, has become the currency of virality. The digital age rewards not reasoned argument but spite, manipulation, and theatrical abrasiveness. To be heard, one need not be wise—only ruthless.

If words and ideas are the building blocks of culture, few assume the mantle of virtuous leadership in shaping them. True leadership demands a voice that stirs both affection and action. Cultural leadership, in particular, requires men of wisdom and eloquence—one to discern the right course, the other to rally men to it.

Many men have been conditioned to believe that the only acceptable public voice is silence—or, at best, a carefully modulated tone that soothes rather than stirs—appeasing the demands of sensitive and brash activists.

Wisdom is the art of applying truth in the finest way, at the finest moment, for the finest ends. Eloquence is the mastery of speech—conveying ideas with clarity and persuasion, wielding rhetoric to sharpen understanding rather than cloud it. These two virtues must not be severed; wisdom without eloquence is impotent, while eloquence without wisdom is deception.

It is a mistake to conflate eloquence with mere softness—an appeasing winsomeness that dulls the edge of truth to make it more palatable. True eloquence includes the rebuke (Galatians 3:1), the mockery of folly (1 Kings 18:27), and the summons to war (Deuteronomy 20). Yet those who scorn gentler words, wielding only the hammer of blunt rhetoric, would do well to expand their verbal armory. Eloquence also embraces persuasive discourse (Acts 17), esoteric dialectic (Matthew 13:3), and serene poetry (Psalm 23). Wisdom is the tempering force that discerns when to wield each.

The ability to wield words is the hallmark of leadership. History’s most iconic figures—both virtuous and villainous—understood this well. Eloquence was not merely an ornament but a weapon, shaping minds, rallying movements, and altering the course of nations. Some were not good men, nor did they champion good ideas, but they grasped the raw power of language. With a firm command of rhetoric, they bent societies to their will.

Yet, in an egalitarian age that seeks to soften and subdue the public square with an effeminized tone, masculine eloquence is more necessary than ever. Many men have been conditioned to believe that the only acceptable public voice is silence—or, at best, a carefully modulated tone that soothes rather than stirs—appeasing the demands of sensitive and brash activists. Speech must neither offend nor disrupt, lest it unsettle a culture that elevates emotion above truth and appeasement above the principle of love. But virtuous men must reject these constraints. The times call not for timidity but for speech marked by conviction, clarity, and bold assertion.

Modern culture is being reshaped not through brute force but through the quiet redefinition of words in legislation. Terms once anchored in reality—male, female, marriage, fetus, freedom, justice—have been revised to accommodate the ideological whims of those determined to live by lies. Rather than confront the truth, they soothe their assaulted consciences by rebranding language, twisting words until they bear no resemblance to their former selves.

This assault unfolded under the watchful gaze of the ‘faithful’, who failed to recognize that the battle was linguistic before it was political. They had no category for verbal warfare, content instead with religious slogans on bumper stickers while their adversaries mastered dictionaries, rhetoric, and the levers of power. Their intellectual complacency excluded them from the socio-political elite—the true architects of law and social order, who wield vocabulary more effectively than democratic mandates. By glorifying simple-mindedness, they disarmed themselves in the face of ideological conquest. They lost the war for the public mind because they first lost the war of words.

Eloquence must be thrust into the public square, where it can shape discourse and direct culture toward truth, beauty, and goodness.

Societies that neglect the rich arsenal of language find themselves incapable of effecting cultural change. Both reformation and revolution—though opposed in principle—are sustained by the same force: potent speech. History’s great upheavals and renaissances alike have been driven by words that stir human affections and incite action.

Christians intent on cultural reformation cannot afford linguistic impotence. Eloquence is not a luxury but a necessity. They must master rhetoric, cultivating a vocabulary that ignites the moral and cosmological imagination—offering categories that draw people toward the true, the good, and the beautiful.

Eloquence is a verbal aesthetic. Few things stir imagination, reverence, loyalty, or humility as effectively as beauty. Beautiful words disarm hostility, provoke thought, and summon men to action. To wield eloquence is to wield power—the power to shape minds, to resist decay, and to illuminate a darkened world. In an era threatened by barbarism, beauty is not an embellishment; it is an antidote.

Eloquence is forged in the crucible of rigorous study and mentorship. It is tempered in the flames of trial and critique, annealed under the pressure of essay, declamation, and debate, and polished through relentless recitation. But the aim is not to sequester its practitioners in the rarefied air of the ivory tower, where they become little more than an acquired taste. Eloquence must be thrust into the public square, where it can shape discourse and direct culture toward truth, beauty, and goodness.

New Saint Andrews College maintains the desire to be such a forge of cultural leadership—producing graduates who will occupy seats of influence, speaking with authority in the chambers where civilizations are steered and reformation is wrought.