Talk:List of speeches

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Why aren't there any speeches by famous women on that list? -K —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.30.224.223 (talk) 03:29, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

How do we decide which speeches are notable enough to be listed here? Kewpid 16:13, 3 June 2006 (UTC) yall dont know wat yall takin about

Lack of disagreement is the apparent standard. So far we've been very agreeable. -Will Beback

I think the Chocolate City Speech isn't deserving to be placed alongside the Periclean Funeral Oration or Nehru's Tryst with Destiny, also the list is biased towards American speeches. I mean the Culture Wars speech is hardly as important as Paul Keating's 1993 Redfern Park Speech, which was really considered one of the first time a leading figure in Australian politics reconcilied with the aboriginal population.

Contents

[edit] Would Edward Kennedy's 'Bork's America' speech Qualify?

I'd vote 'yes.' In addition to its remarkable efficacy in sabotaging Bork's bid for SCOTUS, it also presaged the modern era of hard-fought confirmation hearings and votes.

[edit] Removal

Should speeches without articles be removed? A speech without an article can't be that famous. I can understand for those that, after some time, we can look back and say "Yes, this speech definitely had an important impact", but most speeches without articles don't deserve their place. --A Sunshade Lust 02:33, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Series of Tubes?!

Why is that on this list?

[edit] Salvaddor Allende

The former chilean president Salvador Allende most famous speech was "Se abrirán de nuevo las grandes alamedas" ("The greats avenues will open again") is one of the most famous speeches in Latinamerican History. Rakela 15:39, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead and added this one, as well as Mbeki's "I am an African". Also, Hitler was clearly one of the most talented speakers of the last century and there has to be at least one speech that was particularly notable. Mahatma Gandhi is also a contender, though an Indian would probably be better positioned to say which in particular sticks out. - BanyanTree 18:15, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
Ah, I see that Gandhi already had an item up. Silly me. - BanyanTree 03:50, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cross of Gold

The Cross of Gold speech (WJ Bryan) hardly seems significant to me. The issue is meaningless to the average person. It takes more than a couple of famous lines to make a great speech. The speech must be about some universal timeless theme of humanity, and the gold standard does not qualify.

[edit] Split the page...

I feel like this page would be better served if it were split into several pages, with the speeches broken up either by language, culture, nationality, or something else (although I would lean towards culture/nationality).

Simply put, a particular speech is only famous or noteworthy because of--and for--the culture in which the speech was given. For example, speaking to the unsigned comment, Paul Keating's 1993 Redfern Park Speech does sound incredibly important to Australians, but--to be perfectly honest--it means nothing to Americans. In the same way, FDR's "date which will live in infamy" speech or Nixon's "Checkers" speech are probably of little importance to Australians, though both are listed by American historians as among the top ten speeches of the 20th century. (See American Rhetoric.)

The importance of a speech, with a few exceptions, is limited to the culture--and language--in which it was given. Any attempt to lump all of these speeches together into one page is foolhardy and results in a collection of speeches so disjointed as to render it all but useless.

Yocko 09:45, 30 December 2006 (UTC)Yocko

But that's just my opinion...


Actually Keating's Redfern Park speech wasn't that important to Australians, or at least not as important as it should be. Kransky 22:28, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Obama Address

Added the Obama 2004 Keynote Address - do people agree? I am trying not to be partisan, but I think the speech had one of the largest impacts of an individual speech in recent history.

I know it isn't a definitive source, but if you look at AmericanRhetoric.com, which is a site devoted to great speeches, it is one of the top five most requested - along with I Have A Dream, Pearl Harbor, Ballot or the Bullet, and JFK Inaugural. It's recognized as great oratory and came at a time when the Democrats were seen as lacking vision and Obama was virtually unknown.

Just want to make sure, since Obama's in the midst of his primary campaign, this isn't seen as a political addition. I'm for Bill Richardson, for what it's worth, but that's irrelevant to what the great speeches are. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by IceJew (talk • contribs) 22:22, 17 February 2007 (UTC). Just for the record - this HagermanBot is very useful, as I do often forget to sign my posts. IceJew 18:23, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think the Obama speech is worthy of inclusion, at least not yet. The Chavez one I feel belongs because of the amount of international press it received. The Obama speech was probably the best one of 2004 but probably won't stand the test of time as anything but that. --BHC 03:22, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
Sorry but from a worldwide view Obama's speech was insignificant - do we include every single US presidential candidate frontrunner?. Jesse Jackson's "Keep Hope Alive" speech from 1988 perhaps might be more important. Kransky 22:27, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] on chavez

-I probably shouldn't have used the words idiotic because that was inflammatory. But this link should go, for at least the two reasons:

-This is a great example of recentism of which the article is tagged.

-The MLK I have a dream speech, as mentioned, links to this page as "one of the greatest speeches." If Chavez's speech was "great" then the bar has been set too too low.

Thanks, --M a s 14:29, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Chavez's speech was perhaps the most notable speech at the UN since Khrushchev pulled of his shoe in 1960. This isn't an example of recentism, it was simply a very famous and much covered speech. There is no requirement that an entry here has to be "great", it has to be WP:NOTABLE.-- Zleitzen(talk) 15:23, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
I don't disagree that it's not notable. But there is an undue weight to recent items in this article.
I disagree that it wasn't recentism. Obama's speech might not stand the test of time.
Regardless, I propose that if you add this back then I'll edit I have a dream appropriately to "greatest and most notable" with most notable linking here.
Thanks,
--M a s 15:38, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
There shouldn't be a purely subjective statement asserting that any speech was "the greatest and most notable" in an article. Sources would have to be presented that had described it as such. As for Obama, I have no interest in who he is, what his speech concerned, or how that relates. In fact, Obama's speech wasn't even notable enough to have an article, so I removed it.-- Zleitzen(talk) 15:49, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
Zleitzen, Chavez did receive attention for his speech, but asserting that it's the most notable since the shoe speech sends soda up my nose. There's a recentism bias and probably some other bias figuring into that. If Chavez were actually leading a major "third way" movement, like the non-aligned states of Castro and Qaddafi's day (actually it was only major when India and China were involved), that would be one thing, but he's a bit isolated even within the left-wing South American states right now. Notable must either include some level of objective attribution or influence. In any case, one of the differences with MLK's speech is that it is considered a beautifully written and structured work of rhetoric, as well as issues of notability and historical influence. --Dhartung | Talk 00:15, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Dhartung, I don't understand your points and how they relate to this page, which is simply a list of notable speeches (that really should have an article although I see a few don't which should be removed). Chavez's speech was notable receiving extensive international coverage. That Martin Luther King's speech is deemed a "beautifully written and structured work of rhetoric" doesn't really have any impact on Chavez's speech at the UN. And that Chavez is or isn't leading a major "third way" movement is not really the point either, though Chavez certainly isn't an isolated figure in Latin American as evidenced by continued public opinion in elections throughout the region. Chavez is the most prominent spokesperson for the radical political shift in the Americas that has occurred over the last 7-8 years, and his role in OPEC is the focus of much theorising amongst the G8 nations. That he appears at the UN to launch a lucid attack on the United States made it important, perhaps not to you, but it was important to millions of Latin Americans.-- Zleitzen(talk) 03:27, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm starting to think that this page is probably pretty useless in general. There's only a handful of other wikipedia articles that link here.
MLK's speech has been sourced as "greatest" in its page. But I'm not even sure if that could count as recentism.
Chavez's speech was notable as mentioned above, but it was delivered in Spanish with immediate translation via UN interpreter.
So on the English-language Wikipedia do we want a larger world-view or the focus on English-language items, etc.
I think lots of questions with lots of potential for debate. Like the list of movies labelled greatest, etc.--M a s 13:28, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, but wikipedia is an global encyclopedia, edited by people from all over the world, about topics from all over the world, not an encyclopedia about English language items. There are 1000s of editors who read and edit this english speaking encyclopedia everyday from Latin America, Africa, Asia, Europe etc, adding detailed information on subjects from all over the world. The fact that Chavez's speech was in Spanish is of no-consequence here. Please see Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias for more on this topic.-- Zleitzen(talk) 13:39, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for continuing the conversation. That was exactly my point. My question was rhetorical. The beginning of the article claims that it's a majority of speeches in English when in fact that's barely true. Should that not be mentioned? I'm actually in favour of eliminating systemic bias. But when I called Chavez's speech idiotic and someone else calls it lucid then I think that's an indication that such an article as this isn't as useful as some others. My question was rhetorical - I of course think we should have a large world-view but we can't have it both ways, claiming that this is a list of speeches with a majority in English etc. Adding a lot of things for attempted balance doesn't always help.

I'd like to add some more tags to this article. The recentism and worldview are true but just creating a list like this is a POV-bait in general.

Regards, --M a s 14:14, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

This page was created largely to link articles detailing notable speeches, whoever added the "historical..." was misguided.-- Zleitzen(talk) 14:30, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Could we perhaps vote on this? I oppose inclusion of Chavez's speech. Irrespective of the politics it is not rhetorically brilliant, and is yet to prove itself to be historically significant. Kransky 22:23, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Definition

I think we should work on the article's definition (title and lead). It is not clear what's the meaning of "historical significance of various degree" so I suggest working on general inclusion/exclusion criteria instead of discussing particular cases. JRSP 14:34, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

This page was created largely to link articles detailing notable speeches, whoever added the "historical..." was misguided. I don't understand the continued problem here with Chavez's speech, which obviously meets the criteria of a "list of speeches", but the point of this page seems to have shifted over time as a result of the wikipedia process. This happens sometime to list pages when people come along and add material and no one maintains it. Most of these speeches shouldn't be here until they have articles. I believe the original creator of the page had the idea that editors would create pages detailing the speeches, most of which have yet to be created, leaving us with MLK, Chavez and so on.-- Zleitzen(talk) 14:30, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm good with the recent edits. Thanks for the attention and collaboration. I think it's a lot better now. --M a s 17:26, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Then , if notability is the criterion for inclusion, this article has to list all existing articles about speeches( existing articles about non-notable speeches should be deleted) a well as notable speeches that don't have an article yet. BTW, there is already a Category:Speeches with several subcats, perhaps we should sync the list and the category. JRSP 19:27, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Demostenes

There is a lot of speeches in Works of Demosthenes. Including them would help countering recentism. JRSP 19:43, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Iowa or new hampshire?

which of them?--213.97.224.11 (talk) 16:05, 12 February 2008 (UTC)