Today I found a gem of an essay by Orwell that is more than apropos in these times of massive media misdirection; Orwell's lesson is about language and its abuse. You cannot speak clearly unless you think clearly, but Orwell's essay explains that unclear writing can conversely harms our ability to think clearly:
"modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug. " - George Orwell, 1946
His derision is particular towards hyperbolic political bloviation:
"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." - George Orwell, 1946
Orwell advises to stop using dead metaphors, passive voice, long or foreign or jargon words when plain and simple will suffice; his rules are along the lines of Strunk & White's "omit needless words" but his agenda is really up our alley as well - it's about truth. That padded, overwrought, fuzzy, gauzy bloviation masks rather than reveals truths and it destroys rather than creates precision.
This Orwell essay I found hyperlinked via
Patterico, from comment to an article dedicated to trying to decipher a Krugman quote. Quoth Paul Krugman:
“[A]ppointing Gupta now, although it’s a small thing, is just another example of the lack of accountability that always seems to be the rule when you get things wrong in a socially acceptable way.”
The back-story is that CNN reporter Sanjay Gupta criticized Michael Moore for Moore's errors in the movie "Sicko". This 'sin' of daring to critique the left is putting the extremists in a tizzy. So Krugman is, apparently, in the usual assume-the-conclusion manner of arrogant liberals like Krugman, saying that Gupta is 'wrong'. Krugman is so wrapped up in his own warped worldview, he cant see how ironic his statement is. Krugman the Unaccountable has lied in his column on many occasions, and gotten it wrong on others. His World is Upside Down.
Krugman expresses himself indiretly because any direct assertions would be seen as bald-faced lies; these are lies with hair and a disguise. A an all-purpose self-justifying elocution that assumes its conclusion, it throws in a legitimate concern - our culture's lack of responsibility - to make an illegitimate personal attack. One comment retorted in 'throw it back in his face' manner a la Don Luskin:
Krugman’s ongoing employment, although it’s a small thing, is just another example of the lack of accountability that always seems to be the rule when you get things wrong in a socially acceptable way.
The rhetorical form has many uses, and as a can be batted back as follows in times when you need the handy-dandy rhetoric (of the kind Orwell blasted as unthinking):
Voting for Obama, although it’s a small thing, is just another example of the lack of accountability that always seems to be the rule when you get things wrong in a socially acceptable way.
The issue of misdirected language also comes into focus as Obama ramps up a PR effort
to sell the big Government boondoggle program.
The word torturing that is going on recalls the word abuses of the Clinton era. To Clinton, Government spending was 'investment' and proven-to-be-economically-beneficial tax reductions were 'risky schemes'. Obama has taken up the "investment" euphemism for Government boondoggle spending, and added his own wrinkles. We are now adding another abusive concept: The "saving of jobs."
Redstate notes how Obama is all over the map on what exactly his program will do:
In the November 29th-edition of his weekly address, Obama backed away from the goal of “2.5 million more jobs” over two years and said he wants to “create or save 2.5 million new jobs”
On December 20, Obama upped the goal to “create or save 3 million jobs in the next two years.”
In the January 3rd-edition of his weekly address, Obama revealed that “more than eighty percent of the three million jobs will be in the private sector.”
Today, in the January 10th-edition of his weekly address, Obama now claims his bailout will create three to four million jobs. Ninety percent of them in the private sector”
How can the man who is about to be president of the United States throw away his credibility by proposing five different goals over eight weeks on such an enormous spending proposal?
Excellent question. The answer - when you speak of "saving jobs", you have already let on that the numbers are meaningless anyway. How do you measure a 'saved job'? If the economy loses 2 million jobs in 2009, will Obama admit defeat or declare victory, saying "We would have lost 4 million jobs without my magic-unicorns-and-pixie-dust bill, but only 2 million jobs were lost, so actually we saved 2 million jobs!" Is that what he means? In short, Obama has redefined his objective into meaninglessness.
Obama's plan really has no serious goals whatsoever regarding jobs, and that is on purpose: it will likely have no positive effect whatsoever on private sector hiring; it will instead 'create' jobs on a much smaller scale than he claims and only in the public sector through the burte force of massive increases in Government spending.The Sham-Wow President-Elect is using every infomercial trick-in-the-book, including polling on the plan's marketing verbiage, and using the pathetic trick "Buy Now Or It will be Too Late." If you were ever in a store or car sales lot that used the "Today Only Price" you might know about the trick salesmen pull to create "buyer's urgency". The Politicians are creating an urgency for $800 billion in Government spending. Hence the Pelosi gambit of "We will pass a bill or never go on break in February." Why the urgency over $800 billion? They surely cannot spend it all next month? Why not have the spending for this year only be in the immediate package, and all spending for the next fiscal year be in a package passed later, when there is a better understanding of the economy situation and needs?
The liberal MSM is joining in the high-pressure media sales tactics with the breathless world-may-collapse reporting on the package, insinuating that only more government boondoggles stand in the way of economic Dunkirk, upside-down-world claims that Government spending is the needed stimulus (not asking why what didn't work in Japan 1990s won't work today), with a subtext "If we dont pass this in 30 days, everything could collapse." In truth, the Democrats want quick action because they want to make the appearance of doing something, then take credit for the natural healing of the economy; "We will have incredibly dire consequences" if we don't pass it, say Democrats like
Gov Corzine; in truth, the 'crisis' they see is a crisis in state budgets that (gasp) might actually have to be tightened should the states not get a bailout.
If the goal is economic growth in the private sector, tax rate reduction and pro-growth incentives are the answer. But that's not Obama's priority. The purposes, goals, results and consequences of the Obama big-Government boondoggle will be far different from what we are being told. Thus it requires mis-direction and abuse of language to sell this program now, and will require more linguistic misdirection after it passes, is tried, and fails to create all those private-sector jobs that Obama claims he can "create or save".
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