A day after I finished reading a new book about American revolutionary war writer, Thomas Paine, a 16-year-old Swedish activist named Greta Thunberg gave an impassioned speech at the United Nations on the topic of climate change. Her angry, tearful speech went viral, sparking a renewed call for action and sending millions of people to the streets to support her protest.
The technology that spreads words around the globe has changed over the past two hundred and forty years, but words themselves have always mattered. They mattered then and they matter today.
In Thomas Paine and the Clarion Call for American Independence, bestselling historian Harlow Giles Unger reveals how Paine’s writing “roused” people to action, lifted morale, and “changed the social fabric of the western world.” The book is a good reminder for all leaders that written and spoken words have the power to spark massive action.
In Paine’s time, the written and the spoken word were intertwined. For example, in December of 1776, George Washington’s troops had hit bottom. Morale was low after a series of stinging defeats. Fewer and fewer people believed America could win its war for independence. Paine got to work, writing an essay that began with the words: “These are the times that try men’s souls.”
It’s a poetic line because it was meant to be read aloud. Not everyone could read, so Washington ordered the essay to be read to his troops. They gathered together and listened to the words that would build their courage. Paine wrote:
The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
“Like a master preacher, Paine sent his explosive words boring into every mind and soul, until Washington’s troops rose as one,” writes Unger. “All but frothing at their mouths with fury, they boarded rafts to cross the ice-choked Delaware River.. they stormed into Trenton, New Jersey, and overwhelmed a larger, better-armed force of German mercenaries.” The victory at Trenton lifted the morale of the troops, the colonists and turned around public opinion.
A key lesson from Paine’s writing that applies to today’s leaders is that Paine wrote for everyone. Unlike the enlightenment writers in Europe who wrote philosophical arguments that were difficult for the average person to grasp, Paine presented complex ideas in concise, plain and simple language. He aided understanding with the emotional, rhetorical devices of alliteration, analogy and metaphor.
For example, before Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, Paine had written Common Sense, a pamphlet that sold millions of copies in America, England and France. Even as a young boy in England, Paine had questioned the notion of a monarchy imposing its rules on everyone else. The idea defied common sense—to Paine. But it was accepted by almost everyone, including the people who were governed and even most of the colonists in America.
To change the way people looked at the issue, Paine employed the metaphor of a parent and child when writing about American’s relationship with England. If Britain is the parent, Paine wrote, “Then the more shame upon her conduct. Even brutes do not devour their young.” After Americans read Paine’s arguments in support of breaking free from the mother country, “commoners picked up their muskets and did the unthinkable by rebelling against royal rule,” writes Unger.
“Paine’s words resounded in palaces, homes, and hovels, along city streets and country roads; they toppled tyrants, empowered peasants, provoked revolutions; they changed the social fabric of the Western world, the course of history, the course of man. They resonated around the world then and now.”
Leaders who spark action—then and now—are those who focus on the words they use. After all, nobody will follow you or take action on your ideas unless they’re inspired to do so. Pick your words and metaphors carefully and think deeply about the arguments you make. Your words matter.