What's That Lassie? Language Fell Down the Orwell?
There's this great service Poynter Online that will send you more emails with more info during the course of the day than you'll know how to handle. But the other day this quote by Howard Fineman from Newsweek in one of their feature articles about what should be happening in the presidential debates really hit me:
I wanted to ask him [it's unclear what candidate he means here even reading the whole article], and I want to ask Hillary, if they think Islamism is evil. Do they think Osama bin Laden evil? Is evil a meaningful word in modern life and in the world? I happen to think that's the one thing George Bush said that most that most Americans agree with. Do the Democrats agree with it or not? That's an example of a fundamental question. You don't want to get lost in the details.
Yeah, god forbid anyone making international policy think about details.
This passage made me think of Orwell's even-more-true than in 1946 "Politics and the English Language" (the whole thing's online--go read it right now, even if you have before, it keeps giving) and this passage:
The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies "something not desirable." 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 a word 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 that 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 hearer to think he means something quite different.
Back in my teaching days I suggested students avoid "God and Devil" terms, the ones that make readers react and not think. People write God just to hear "yeah! woo-hoo!" and Devil just to hear "hiss! boo!" That's the way of the word evil, a label meant to cause fear or anger, not consideration. Of course bin Laden is an enemy of the U.S., and as such he should be brought to justice. American justice, if possible--a trial where he must face his crimes. That's how America is supposed to work. When we work that way we might just get other peoples and nations interested in being more like us.
Calling him evil is just an excuse to torture and murder. And a prelude to creating the next "evil." Unless we have some plan of killing off everyone who grows to hate our country, or eventually kill them off before they even get that chance to grow.
And note I haven't even said how we liked the evil bin Laden when he was one of the folks fighting the Evil Empire for us in Afghanistan. That's the convenience and curse of evil, I guess.
I wanted to ask him [it's unclear what candidate he means here even reading the whole article], and I want to ask Hillary, if they think Islamism is evil. Do they think Osama bin Laden evil? Is evil a meaningful word in modern life and in the world? I happen to think that's the one thing George Bush said that most that most Americans agree with. Do the Democrats agree with it or not? That's an example of a fundamental question. You don't want to get lost in the details.
Yeah, god forbid anyone making international policy think about details.
This passage made me think of Orwell's even-more-true than in 1946 "Politics and the English Language" (the whole thing's online--go read it right now, even if you have before, it keeps giving) and this passage:
The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies "something not desirable." 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 a word 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 that 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 hearer to think he means something quite different.
Back in my teaching days I suggested students avoid "God and Devil" terms, the ones that make readers react and not think. People write God just to hear "yeah! woo-hoo!" and Devil just to hear "hiss! boo!" That's the way of the word evil, a label meant to cause fear or anger, not consideration. Of course bin Laden is an enemy of the U.S., and as such he should be brought to justice. American justice, if possible--a trial where he must face his crimes. That's how America is supposed to work. When we work that way we might just get other peoples and nations interested in being more like us.
Calling him evil is just an excuse to torture and murder. And a prelude to creating the next "evil." Unless we have some plan of killing off everyone who grows to hate our country, or eventually kill them off before they even get that chance to grow.
And note I haven't even said how we liked the evil bin Laden when he was one of the folks fighting the Evil Empire for us in Afghanistan. That's the convenience and curse of evil, I guess.
posted by George at 3:30 PM
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