CONSTATIVES, CONSTANTINE AND PERFORMATIVES.

J.L.Austin

I have been reading How To Do Things With Words, The William James Lectures delivered at Harvard University by John Langshaw Austin in 1955 and published in book form in 1962. In it, I have been perusing Austin’s concepts of performatives and constatives with a view to preparing a class presentation about Austin’s work.

Whilst researching todays events I thought I came upon a usage of Constative dating back to the 4^th Century, 312 AD. I thought I was having a vision. In turned out not to be Constative but Constantine.  Apparently Constantine the Great received his Vision of the Cross. It is, I am told, commonly stated that on the evening of 27 October, 312, with the armies preparing for battle, Constantine had a vision which led him to fight under the protection of the Christian God. The details of that vision, however, differ between the sources reporting it.

Lactantius states that, in the night before the battle Battle of the Milvian Bridge, Constantine was commanded in a dream to "delineate the heavenly sign on the shields of his soldiers" (On the Deaths of the Persecutors 44.5). He followed the commands of his dream and marked the shields with a sign "denoting Christ". Lactantius describes that sign as a "staurogram", or a Latin Cross with its upper end rounded in a P-like fashion. There is no certain evidence that Constantine ever used that sign, opposed to the better known Chi Rho sign described by Eusebius.

How’s that for reacting to a performative command. “Thou shall delineate the heavenly sign…” The power of words is great.

There was however, another speech delivered on the 27^th October, not in a vision, but at a Republican Rally during the United States Presidential Election of 1964, between Lyndon B. Johnson (incumbent President, having been sworn into office on the assassination of John F. Kennedy, 22^nd November 1963) and the than Senator from Arizona, Barry M Goldwater.  The speech was entitled A Time for Choosing, it became known as The Speech. It was presented by future president Ronald Reagan on behalf of the Republican candidate Barry Goldwater..

Many versions of the speech exist, since it was altered over many weeks. Contrary to popular belief, however, the speech was not given at the 1964 Republican National Convention in San Francisco, California as a nomination speech for Goldwater. Richard Nixon gave that nomination speech. Reagan, though he campaigned for Goldwater, did not use "A Time for Choosing" until the 27^th October, 1964, when it was part of a pre-recorded television program, Rendezvous with Destiny. In his autobiography Reagan recalled going to bed that night "hoping I hadn't let Barry down." But "A Time for Choosing," replayed throughout the final week of the campaign, raised $8 million for Goldwater and launched Reagan's political career.

Here is part of that speech. I still find him a worry.

Soon afterward, Reagan was asked to run for governor of California. To this day, this speech is considered, by some Reagan fans and Republicans, to have been one of the most effective ever made on behalf of a candidate. Nevertheless, Barry Goldwater lost the election by one of the largest margins in history. Reagan was later called the "Great Communicator" in recognition of his effective speech-making skills.

But clearly, in the light of Goldwater’s very serious defeat, Reagan’s speech lacked vision and no heavenly sign was delineated.  Hardly performative then.

I actually voted in that election. The first and last time in an American election.