Sound Language and Sound Minds
In a column I posted last July, I explored the way political language is used for emotive and manipulative rather than cognitive and informative purposes. I can’t say that our situation is getting any better.
The easiest thing to note is of course President Trump’s frequent—constant?—use of demeaning and derogative language. Various media accounts report that Trump has called certain individuals a “fucking scumbag,” “a real sleazebag,” “low-IQ,” “dumb as a rock,” lunatic” or “deranged lunatic,” and “Communist,” among other labels.
We may need a new parental-guidance category: “Quick—send the children to bed. The President is speaking.” By comparison, the salty language on the part of President Nixon revealed in the Watergate tapes that shocked many people then—we learned the term “expletive deleted”—would barely register today.
Beyond derogatory language, though, many everyday words and phrases call for critical analysis. A good general operating maxim is that if you want to test whether someone has said something meaningful, ask yourself whether anyone of sound mind would affirm the opposite. For example, suppose someone said, “I’m for a strong defense.” What sane political person is going to proclaim and even campaign on the slogan, “I’m for a weak defense”?
Or to take a very current issue, Politico reports that Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said regarding Medicare that “anything that is waste, fraud and abuse are [sic] obviously open to discussions.” It’s very easy to proclaim, “I’m against waste, fraud, and abuse,” but who of sound mind is really in favor of “waste, fraud, and abuse”? The fundamental and difficult question is, what counts as “waste, fraud, and abuse”?
Similarly, President Trump and his supporters, along with many other Republicans, apparently get up every morning and try to decide where and how often they can use the phrase “radical left.” They know full well that Americans dislike and even fear the word “radical” in its political manifestations. (Democrats, for their part, can’t seem to get through a day without talking about “billionaires.”)
Most recently, we see this appear in the controversy surrounding Iowa Senator Joni Ernst’s remark that ricocheted beyond Iowa around the country and even the world. It made not just national news, but also, for example, the BBC. Responding at a town hall to concerns about the possible loss of medical care if Medicaid funding is cut, she said, “Well, we all are going to die.”
The first rule of politics is that when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. Senator Ernst either forgot or ignored that rule. As seemingly callous as her initial remark was (perhaps she was tired), her sarcastic, so-called apology in the second video apparently filmed in a cemetery was worse. Saying that "I'm really, really glad that I did not have to bring up the subject of the Tooth Fairy as well," Ernst added insult to injury. Yes, of course, everyone is going to die. The Ernst protesters surely were not ignorant of that fact of life; the question is whether people without adequate medical care will die sooner and/or suffer more than they might have done otherwise.
Nevertheless, Ernst now has retreated to the “radical left” charge in her most recent comments. She said in a radio interview that “she doesn't respect what she called ‘the fearmongering that's coming from the radical left.’" The rule, apparently, is, never apologize, never express regret; that would show weakness.
My concern with all of this is not merely a matter for an English teacher or grammarian (with all due respect to them). Rather, it’s that sloppy, careless, trite, and imprecise language can undermine our ability to think through important matters carefully and precisely. If you have never read George Orwell’s essay, “Politics and the English Language” (1946), please take the time to do so. He writes:
“Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers.”
The problem Orwell identified, in short, is that “the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.” The reason is that “if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”
It's not just written English, though. Spoken and often broadcast English, in its mass-media form that surrounds everything we do, is perhaps even worse. Watch a national broadcast network newscast and listen carefully to incidents of what we can call “media speak.” Note the disappearance of real verbs, or at least their turning into gerunds at best. Nothing “happened”; rather, it’s “happening”—a presentism that falsifies the facts. We also should retire these tired clichés that we hear so often: “break down” (instead of “explain”), “playbook,” “both sides of the aisle,” and “throw one’s hat into the ring,” among others.
I’m not a prig, but like Orwell I’m concerned that imprecise language and mindless clichés make it much more difficult for us to do the serious and critical thinking that our current political situation—indeed, all political life—requires. Without that ability to think well, we are all at the mercy of people that may not have our own best interests at heart.
On your last point about the dire consequences of literal "thoughtlessness" see also Hannah Arendt's essay on "Thinking and Moral Considerations."