I’ve always been interested in the impact of language on society/culture. For example, do cultures with a relatively large number of violent words in their language tend to be a more violent society? (Some also argue the reverse - that society itself determines the content of the vocabulary).  I have read studies that conclude a culture with relatively few variations of the word “love” and a high number of “violent” words have higher occurrences of domestic abuse. 

I bring this up because of George Orwell’s essay, “Politics and the English Language.” This essay wonderfully articulates the frustration with the increasing double-talk of politicians. I’m tired of listening to Senators give speeches on “actions to promote democracy” and not understanding what actions or goals he/she is talking about.  I tired of listening to speeches by President Obama on divisive issues and noticing that all parties think they’re supported. I’m worried about the political trend toward using empty words to describe the intentions and impact of government actions which affect all of us.

As Orwell says, “One ought to recognize that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language… Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

Many political words are abused. 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.

In our time it is broadly true that political writing is bad writing. Where it is not true, it will generally be found that the writer is some kind of rebel, expressing his private opinions and not a “party line.” Orthodoxy, of whatever color, seems to demand a lifeless, imitative style. The political dialects to be found in pamphlets, leading articles, manifestoes, White papers and the speeches of undersecretaries do, of course, vary from party to party, but they are all alike in that one almost never finds in them a fresh, vivid, homemade turn of speech. When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases – bestial atrocities, iron heel, bloodstained tyranny, free peoples of the world, stand shoulder to shoulder – one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy: a feeling which suddenly becomes stronger at moments when the light catches the speaker’s spectacles and turns them into blank discs which seem to have no eyes behind them. And this is not altogether fanciful. A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology has gone some distance toward turning himself into a machine.

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 the 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.”

…….

Why is this an important topic today?  Because of the meaning of the word “government”: to govern, to control, to exercise authority, to rule (you and me).  At a time when our representatives in the government seek to exert their power into the markets, into healthcare, into banking and businesses, we need to understand “why?” and “how?”… and the bumbling, empty phrases we are getting are not good enough.