Every civilization and every generation has their defining voices.
The voice does two things.
It tells the story of the times;
and it injects the telltale emotions, moods, and attitudes of that story.
The public swallows the tale with all its lies and omissions,
and accepts the way in which the whole act is spooled out by the sound of the narrative voice.
The tone of the story creates a trance.
Different societies are vulnerable to different styles of story-telling.
Americans on this side of the Atlantic,
listening to the radio speeches of Hitler delivered with staccato militant force,
thought the German people were clearly crazy to go along.
It never occurred to the Americans,
glued to their radios listening to President Roosevelt,
that many Germans would think the sing-song pseudo-British style of the aristocratic FDR
was a transparent joke.
What I’m talking about here has has NOTHING to do with the American cause or the Nazi cause.
It has to do with different voices for different societies.
