In the thesis of “Politics and the English Language”, George Orwell starts off by explaining the decline 0f language and how people who focus on this, can admit that the English language is in a bad place in this generation. He states that, “It is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it.” Meaning that the English language in this generation is spiraling downward and there is no stopping the spiral. But he then says later in the text that the matter isn’t untreatable. Orwell provides a few examples of writing that illustrates the bad way in which the English language is used and how it connects to the twisted way that political messages are delivered, as well as the writers that were responsible for those messages.
“In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence 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.” The significance in this quote is how Orwell refers to these world changing events and claiming that these acts are able to defended. What Orwell is implying is that the actions that he brought up can be defended by a political speeches and writing that will be hard to hear for most people. He later brings ups the need for euphemism in these messages. The use of Euphemism in these messages would be a way to soften the delivery of the speech or writing by substituting certain words.
One example of language that disturbs Orwell is “meaningless words”. That is also something that bothers me a lot. People that I talk to here and there feel the need to throw in certain words that they think is necessary instead of saying what comes of the top of their head. I view that use of language to be forcing and unrelated to everything that is being talked about. I may have included meaningless words in my writing a few times, but I never go out out my way to make sure I write those things. If I use meaningless words, it’s more of a in the moment type of deal. I believe that his critique is completely valid because it targets a real issue of people trying to sound articulate to get their points across, which usually has the opposite effect of the reason people use it.
The use of language and politics intersects with me today when it came to the Black Lives Matter Movement. There are many people that are opposed to this concept because they believe that saying “black lives matter” is going against all other races, when that simply isn’t the case. The problem that others see with this term is only including the words ” black lives”. Those opposed to this are simply taking the term out of context and aren’t realizing what it actually stands for.
Thierno, I agree with you (and with Orwell) that euphemisms are one of the strategies used in politics to make unpleasant messages more palatable to their listeners or readers. Can you think of an example of this? “Black lives matter” is a great example of how politics and language interact. We understand it as a kind of shorthand for a much more complicated set of ideas or positions. Similarly, when people respond by saying, “All lives matter,” there too they are saying something that seems on the surface of things to be sort of neutral or self-evident, but that, in the context of BLM, means something very specific. Good example!