Expression, though, is not yet the art. A cry expresses; it does not yet say. A style can be vivid and still fail to name, to assert, or to move a hearer toward what is so. Heat is not a claim. A manner is not a meaning. The student who has been told to “be himself” on the page may produce a recognizable tone and still not have said anything that another person could agree with, deny, or obey.
When “find your voice” is placed before the care of words, the student is asked to be interesting before he can be clear, and to be sincere before he can be responsible for a claim. Authenticity then becomes a feeling that cannot be checked. If the only test of speech is that it came from you, then no hearer can ever say you were wrong, unclear, or unjust — only that you were not you, which is a charge no one can try.
The cost is paid by the hearer as much as by the speaker. Speech is public. A promise, a prayer, an argument, a verdict, a diagnosis — these are acts in which someone else has to know what was done. A community that cannot tell what was promised, prayed, argued, or enacted is not a community of voices. It is a crowd of noises that happen to be personal.
The speaker pays too. A voice that cannot name, assert, or follow will not get stronger by being left alone. It will only get more used to being unanswerable.