USA:s president John F. Kennedy hade 1961 uttryckt nationens strävan att placera en människa på månen innan årtiondets slut. I ett berömt tal vid Rice University den 12 september 1962 utvecklade han sina tankar om drivkrafterna bakom detta storslagna projekt: man skulle ta sig till månen, inte för att det var lätt – utan för att det var svårt. Därmed följer Kennedy den klassiska retorikens topiklära som tar upp just “det svåra” som ett passande argument när det gäller att berömma saker och gärningar¹:

[...]

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

[...]

Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, “Because it is there.”

Well, space is there, and we’re going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God’s blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.

Talet i sin helhet finns att tillgå på John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum.

Hör också…
ljudupptagningen av talet.

 
Noter:

1. Se till exempel Gerhardus Johannes Vossius, Elementa Rhetorica eller retorikens grunder. Översatt och utgiven av Stina Hansson, Litteraturvetenskapliga institutionen, Göteborgs universitet: Meddelanden 5 (Göteborg, 1990). ISBN: 9186270222. [↩]