Speaking Truth to Power

I came across an interview of Obama’s Frau Blucher the other day when she was lamenting the dissenters of the B.HO administration, “The administration has said very clearly is that we're going to speak truth to power.”

As John Steel wrote in the WSJ, “Much of the American political world collapsed in laughter, pointing out that her boss was president of the United States, the most powerful man on earth.” I personally have always pictured David waging his finger at Goliath.

From what I have since been able to ascertain the phrase originated in the Quaker community in 1955 as the title of a study “Speak Truth to Power: A Quaker Search for an Alternative to Violence” which sought a way for the US and the Soviet Union to peacefully resolve their differences. Historian Larry Ingle writes:

Its title, which came to Friend Milton Mayer toward the end of the week in summer 1954 when the composing committee finished work on the document, has become almost a cliche; it has become common far beyond Quaker circles, often used by people who have no idea of its origins. (One current example: Anita Hill entitled her memoir of her sensational charges of sexual harassment against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, Speaking Truth to Power.)

The best contemporary definition of the phrase comes, from of all places, the Urban Dictionary which reads in part.

A vacuous phrase used by some on the political Left. Ostensibly, it means to verbally confront or challenge conservative politicians and conservative ideals using the overwhelmingly logical and moral arguments of liberalism. Doing so would naturally devastate the target individual, leaving them a stuttering, stammering bowl of defeated jelly. That or cause them to experience an epiphany that would have such a profound, worldview-changing effect that they would immediately go out and buy a Che t-shirt and start reading Noam Chomsky.

I think that is the best explaination for the point that Frau Blucher was trying to make.