concept down from the academic shelf, tries it on and shows us how it looks on her. This not only enhances our understanding of the content, but also draws us closer to the speaker.
In a very un-technical way, Brown openly shares her need for and visits to a therapist. She talks about vulnerability while showing unmistakable vulnerability herself. In the full version of the talk, she explains how she told her therapist:
I know that vulnerability is the core of shame and fear and our struggle for worthiness. But it appears that it is also the birthplace of joy and creativity, of belonging and love.
Even the tiny, seemingly throwaway lines — such as the ‘academic, insecure part' of her asking why she wasn't being dubbed a ‘magic pixie' — are tiny, self-deprecating examples of vulnerability. In the full version, Brown peppers her talk with similar comments — ‘I have a slight office supply addiction, but that's another talk', ‘I always go into this Jackson Pollock crazy thing'. This layering of her own vulnerability makes her more endearing and her ideas more enduring.
Take the time to connect
Imagine you were presenting the findings from years of your own research. Would you be able to do it effectively in just 20 minutes? This is about the maximum length for a TED talk, and with very good reason. The time frame is roughly correlated to our attention span. Given a tight time frame and an overwhelming amount of data, what do you do?
Well, the mistake many of us make is to try to cram in the maximum amount of content. We create data-dense slides and we push the limits to ensure we don't miss any important facts. A better approach is to work out the central idea. Define what you want your audience to take away and then work within the boundaries of the time permitted, with awareness of your audience's engagement, and hit the right note. After all, rushing or over-stuffing a presentation will only confuse and overwhelm your audience. This would ultimately be a waste of time.
Pace is cleverly used here to allow the listener time to assimilate the information. Brown also uses her pauses to connect with people in the audience. She makes eye contact and uses facial expressions that imply she is having a conversation. It feels natural and complements the familiar tone used throughout.
The close to 55 million views this talk has generated can be justified by interesting content — but it is greatly enhanced by Brené Brown delivering it with such care and compassion.
There are people who take it amiss — and I can understand that in a sense — that, for instance, I can still laugh.
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
Philosopher and writer
B: 14 October 1906, Linden - Mitte, Hanover, Germany
D: 4 December 1975, Upper West Side, NY, United States
What remains? The language remains
When: 1964
Where: West Germany
Audience: Television interview
Hannah Arendt was a German-born Jewish political theorist with first-hand experience of anti-semitism and the Nazi regime, from before and during World War II. Fleeing Germany in 1933 (the year Adolf Hitler came to power), she settled first in Paris and then in New York. During her time in the United States, she continued to develop her philosophical theories, with an interest in totalitarianism, war and revolution. Her work helps sharpen the perspective of the concept of evil, bringing it down to the complicity that exists at an individual level. As an example of this, she once said in an interview with the New Yorker, ‘It is well known that the most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution.'
In 1961 Hannah Arendt was commissioned by the New Yorker magazine to report on the trial in Jerusalem of Adolf Eichmann. Eichmann was a Nazi official who, among other things, was responsible for the isolation of Jews into ghettos in the major cities of Germany and elsewhere in Europe.
Arendt's articles later culminated in the book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. This publication sparked a wave of protest, particularly with regards to her portrayal of Eichmann as a dull, unimaginative automaton — a ‘clown' — rather than the evil monster the world expected. Arendt also questioned the actions of some Jewish leaders associated with the Jewish Councils, arguing these leaders cooperated perhaps too readily with Eichmann and, without this cooperation, more Jewish lives would have been saved. These views attracted condemnation from many of her peers and even some of her friends. Arendt's views were sometimes misunderstood as providing a defence of the Nazi regime. Her theories illuminate the mechanics of evil regimes and the role of the individual in supporting the enabling infrastructure.
Amid the controversy, Arendt spoke out repeatedly in defence of her intellectual argument.
On 28 October 1964, she appeared in a televised conversation with German journalist Günter Gaus, which was broadcast in West Germany. This interview was conducted in Arendt's native tongue and broadcast very early in the days of television and before the talk show format really existed. The audience were accustomed to the portrait and Q&A style of interview used by Gaus from previous shows featuring political figures as well as artists and philosophers.
Not exactly a speech, the interview does cover a lot of ground and Arendt presents her arguments clearly. When Gaus turns to the question of the Eichmann matter, Arendt responds with force and reason. Evident in this interview is her characteristic commitment to uncovering the truth, her deference to logos over pathos — and her endless chain-smoking habit.
WHAT SHE SAID
Gaus: Miss Arendt, your book on the trial of Eichmann in Jerusalem was published this fall in the Federal Republic. Since its publication in America, your book has been very heatedly discussed. From the Jewish side, especially, objections have been raised which you say are partly based on misunderstandings and partly on an intentional political campaign. Above all, people were offended by the question you raised about the extent to which Jews are to blame for their passive acceptance of the German mass murders, or to what extent the collaboration of certain Jewish councils almost constitutes a kind of guilt of their own. In any case, for a portrait of Hannah Arendt, so to speak, a number of questions come out of this book. If I may begin with them: Is the criticism that your book is lacking in love for the Jewish people painful to you?
Arendt: First of all, I must, in all friendliness, state that you yourself have become a victim of this campaign. Nowhere in my book did I reproach the Jewish people with nonresistance. Someone else did that in the Eichmann trial, namely, Mr. Haussner of the Israeli public prosecutor’s office. I called such questions directed to the witnesses in Jerusalem both foolish and cruel.
Gaus: I have read the book. I know that. But some of the criticisms made of you are based on the tone in which many passages are written.
Arendt:
