Tuesday, October 21, 2008
George Orwell and political language
The assigned reading thus far has taken a very similar approach to political language - keep it simple and memorable. However, I think most of these authors have either denied or ignored a major part of political language. This is a part best described by George Orwell in his essay "Politics and the English Language", which Luntz praised in his writing. Anyway, there are two ideas covered in this essay that I would like to introduce. First, the use of words with personal definitions. "The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice, have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. in the case of words like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. it is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hear to think he means something quite different". For me, this not only seems dishonest, but it strikes at the very heart of Luntz's argument - that it's not what you say, it's what people hear. Isn't his whole approach based simply off this concept? Secondly, Orwell speaks to the nature of political language. "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. Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the country side, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification...The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms." To me, it seems what Luntz is doing is replacing the long words and exhausted idioms with short, "clear" language that gives the impression of truth. Instead, it seems to represent a new form of political language that moves beyond vagueness and into the realm of false clarity. As mentioned in the first point, his language depends on the listener creating the meaning, which can actually hind the actual truth or meaning in the statement.
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To call the use of a term with multiple/conflicting/personal meanings 'dishonest' seems a bit strong (though perhaps that's my personally attached definition of 'dishonesty' showing through...). Dishonesty to me seems to be purposefully representing something that is not true as being true. Saying there are WMDs when you have actionable intelligence that there are not WMDs...that is dishonest and also compounded because the audience does not have the capability to verify the claim. But when Lee Kuan Yew says that Singapore is a democracy, it doesn't seem dishonest because, while it doesn't accord with a Western/American definition, it certainly fits the 'Eastern Democracy' definition that Lee is operating from. Political campaign communication's use of loaded language differs from 'dishonesty' in two respects. First, there is a circumscribed limit to things like representation and framing. No amount of crafty language, loaded terms or metaphors will make a ban on gay marriage seem like a pro-gay policy. You can only describe things in terms of your audience's values and frame the issue to a certain extent before reaching that limit. Second, there is a component of audience responsibility. Voters are in a position to educate themselves and have research tools like never before. While they can't verify national intelligence secrets, they can look into the policies behind some politician's words. And they have the responsibility to do so.
I'm also troubled at the standard of 'honesty' that would impose on a campaign. How do we identify 'personal definition words'? When questions of language precision arise in competitive policy debate, an oft-quoted joke (which represents the extreme position of language clarity) is the idea that one team 'must define all the words they use.' It quickly collapses into absurdity. What is your model for responsible language usage and how does it get applied to political campaign communication?
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