John Wirenius (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} jwirenius) wrote,@ 2005-01-25 21:05:00 |
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Catastrophic Success Against the English Language
In "Politics and the English Language" George Orwell (the author of 1984 and Animal Farm) described the corrupting influence of politics on language. He wrote:
In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them.
See: http://www.world-english.org/stories_or
This is standard tactics in modern political debate. So "whistleblowers" are "disgruntled employees"; torture is "aggressive interrogation." A particularly transparent example of this is Republican usage in the Social Security debate. After spending several years advocating for "private accounts" the Administration decided that the phrase (but not the reality) smacked too much of privatization (which it is) and substituted "personal accounts."
But--and here's where it gets, shall we say, creepy--they aren't merely content to "rebrand" the flailing idea. Rather, the GOP uses the new term, and decries the continued use by the press of its original term as demonstrating "liberal bias" or as being "pejorative."
Don't take my word for it; here is Republican pollster Frank Luntz on the "Al Franken Show" describing the use of the term "private accounts" as "pejorative."
http://www.thereisnocrisis.com/files/Fr
Here's George W. Bush on the same topic:
The Post: Will you talk to Senate Democrats about your privatization plan?
THE PRESIDENT: You mean, the personal savings accounts?
The Post: Yes, exactly. Scott has been --
THE PRESIDENT: We don't want to be editorializing, at least in the questions.
The Post: You used partial privatization yourself last year, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes?
The Post: Yes, three times in one sentence. We had to figure this out, because we're in an argument with the RNC [Republican National Committee] about how we should actually word this. [Post staff writer] Mike Allen, the industrious Mike Allen, found it.
THE PRESIDENT: Allen did what now?
The Post: You used partial privatization.
THE PRESIDENT: I did, personally?
The Post: Right.
THE PRESIDENT: When?
The Post: To describe it.
THE PRESIDENT: When, when was it?
The Post: Mike said it was right around the election.
THE PRESIDENT: Seriously?
The Post: It was right around the election. We'll send it over.
THE PRESIDENT: I'm surprised. Maybe I did. It's amazing what happens when you're tired.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ar
So what happened? AARP polling revealed that privatization was frightening to seniors; the GOP decided it was the word choice, not the concept, that needed to be replaced. See http://www.newsmax.com/archives/article
Watch the shifting usage captured at http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/
(Rep. Chris Chocola (R-Indiana); Bob Novak; Sean Hannity and Sen. Tom Coburn).
Are these overt efforts to deaden criticism by deadening the English language limited to Republicans? I'm sure not. But this Administration has raised the tactic to an art form--from the "catastrophic success" of its tactics in Iraq to the underfunded mandate of the No Child Left Behind Act (which cuts funding to low-performing public schools), the pollution-friendly "Clear Skies Act" and the USA Patriot Act, stigmatizing free speech and diminishing civil liberties.
Orwell was, of course, hoping to warn the populace, not instruct the politicos.
In "Politics and the English Language" George Orwell (the author of 1984 and Animal Farm) described the corrupting influence of politics on language. He wrote:
In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them.
See: http://www.world-english.org/stories_or
This is standard tactics in modern political debate. So "whistleblowers" are "disgruntled employees"; torture is "aggressive interrogation." A particularly transparent example of this is Republican usage in the Social Security debate. After spending several years advocating for "private accounts" the Administration decided that the phrase (but not the reality) smacked too much of privatization (which it is) and substituted "personal accounts."
But--and here's where it gets, shall we say, creepy--they aren't merely content to "rebrand" the flailing idea. Rather, the GOP uses the new term, and decries the continued use by the press of its original term as demonstrating "liberal bias" or as being "pejorative."
Don't take my word for it; here is Republican pollster Frank Luntz on the "Al Franken Show" describing the use of the term "private accounts" as "pejorative."
http://www.thereisnocrisis.com/files/Fr
Here's George W. Bush on the same topic:
The Post: Will you talk to Senate Democrats about your privatization plan?
THE PRESIDENT: You mean, the personal savings accounts?
The Post: Yes, exactly. Scott has been --
THE PRESIDENT: We don't want to be editorializing, at least in the questions.
The Post: You used partial privatization yourself last year, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes?
The Post: Yes, three times in one sentence. We had to figure this out, because we're in an argument with the RNC [Republican National Committee] about how we should actually word this. [Post staff writer] Mike Allen, the industrious Mike Allen, found it.
THE PRESIDENT: Allen did what now?
The Post: You used partial privatization.
THE PRESIDENT: I did, personally?
The Post: Right.
THE PRESIDENT: When?
The Post: To describe it.
THE PRESIDENT: When, when was it?
The Post: Mike said it was right around the election.
THE PRESIDENT: Seriously?
The Post: It was right around the election. We'll send it over.
THE PRESIDENT: I'm surprised. Maybe I did. It's amazing what happens when you're tired.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ar
So what happened? AARP polling revealed that privatization was frightening to seniors; the GOP decided it was the word choice, not the concept, that needed to be replaced. See http://www.newsmax.com/archives/article
Watch the shifting usage captured at http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/
(Rep. Chris Chocola (R-Indiana); Bob Novak; Sean Hannity and Sen. Tom Coburn).
Are these overt efforts to deaden criticism by deadening the English language limited to Republicans? I'm sure not. But this Administration has raised the tactic to an art form--from the "catastrophic success" of its tactics in Iraq to the underfunded mandate of the No Child Left Behind Act (which cuts funding to low-performing public schools), the pollution-friendly "Clear Skies Act" and the USA Patriot Act, stigmatizing free speech and diminishing civil liberties.
Orwell was, of course, hoping to warn the populace, not instruct the politicos.
