Author Archives: Salvatore Chiarelli

George Orwell once wrote that “if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought”[1].i Sixty years later, political prose is as insidious as ever, with 80% of Americans kept politically illiterate mostly due to the propaganda of Fox News and the disinterest stemming from our thoroughly inept leaders [2]. For a civil society to prosper, its citizenry must master political language in order to have meaningful debate with clearly understood words. Instead, the trend of our century has been the devolution of the English language. With this comes an inability to properly understand the world around us. As Kung-tzu (Confucius) once said, “If names are not correct and do not match realities, language has no object. If language has no object, action becomes impossible — and therefore all human affairs disintegrate” [3].Instead of continuing this meandering tirade, it is best to point out a few minor instances of inaccuracies in political language. The first is the lack of distinction between a government and its people. In the years following the US invasion of Iraq, anti-American sentiment rose to new heights, with its descent occurring only recently. Surprisingly, Europeans hold the same misunderstanding of Americans, as Americans have about foreigners. Chiefly, Europeans make the simple mistake of assuming the policies of a democratic government is aligned with the general opinion of its people(!) However similar to American views, Americans take it a step further into absurdity by assuming the same of countries ruled by authoritarian regime. Last year, after months of Republican demonization of Iran, they were blind-sided by the pro-democracy, modern, progressive, college student uprising following the Continue reading →