The big problem with political writing is that it's often a commentary on the current state of play, the ideas put forward just can't stand the test of time. What's worse is a lot of them with write in a hand-wavy generic way which leaves me thinking “what the hell did they mean by that?”, I'd then have to reread again and again to try and pull a meaning from the convoluted sentence presented to me.
I thought this was a relatively modern phenomena (the speech writers of George Bush and Tony Blair excel at this) but after reading Orwell's Politics and the English Language, I realized that this practice was rife as early as 1946!
I'd love to be able to summarise that essay but I don't think I can, it's worth a read. The crux of it is that writers don't care about the point they want to get across anymore, they care more about how they say things. Pick up any piece of political writing today (a good example is a speech George Bush gave 'condemning' the Russians over the recent Georgia incident).
This and many other examples of George Orwell's writings show how (good) political writing really can stand the test of time; but this also shows how the state of world politics hasn't really evolved over the years. One of my favorite books is Nineteen Eighty Four and people use the world in which it is set as a 'worst case' regime to live by, and why not?
The land of air strip one was a nightmare, the people in power would have to 'double-think' and he invented the concept of 'newspeak'. Both these concepts were laughable when I first read about them but over the years, I see examples of them everywhere in British politics alone!
In 1975 when the Khmer Rouge took power in Cambodia, it was as if someone had handed Pol Pot a copy of Nineteen Eighty Four and told implement what he read. People were taken away for crimes that are disturbingly close to what Orwell called 'thought crimes', the perpetrators (often these people were identified by children) would then have to be 'reeducated' and was unlikely to be ever seen again. History was constantly being denied or rewritten! The big difference is that in Orwell's world, the rest of the world was just as bad but out here in real life.... the rest of the world just watched on.
In North Korea, they have a god-like leader who's ways are very similar to big brother. I'm sure the North Koreans don't spend an allocated five minutes per day in hate towards their enemies but they do have certain aspects that are a direct throwback to Nineteen Eighty Four.
A great writer and a relevant one in this day and age but it's worth noting that within this great writing are a number of warnings, some of them are incredibly thinly veiled. It was just assumed that people would learn from history which is why Orwell can satirise them in his books, what disturbs me is that by reading them, I'm reminded that time and time again, we haven't learned.
9 comments:
I thought it preceded Orwell's work?
Politicians (and leaders in particular) like to make their speeches as confusing as possible but then end on a simple soundbite - the psychology being that the general listener will dismiss the bits they don't understand and give all their attention to the simple summary.
Apparently the best thing to do if you're confronted by a mugger or something is to say something completely weird, or just ask them a totally random question. Confusing people has a disarming effect!
That's Derren Brown's approach, apparently, though whether he's ever used it to good effect with a mugger hasn't been proven. (I'd like to see them film that one down a dark alley...)
But back on point: good blog with some pertinent points. I think great rhetoric depends upon stylish prose, but also upon making your argument very clear, and unless you do both, your speeches will never stand the test of time.
Muhamad: what preceded Orwell's work?
Graham: The phrase 'bullshit baffles brains' springs to mind. Does it not bother you that the people who are elected to run the country feel they need to resort to such methods?
Ariane: Thanks, what really struck me (as I've been reading a fair bit of Orwell of late) is that his ideas as well as his words still spring off the page. More people should take a leaf out of his book I think.
newspeak, doubledutch, rhetorical flourish, soundbites? I don't know, I might be wrong. Perhaps not so numerous as the current speech writers, but I remember reading a while ago that the Nazis even had sound engineers? Also, didn't the Sophists start the business, which the Romans later learned? I don't man, I might be talking a load of BS. It's 00:14.
Funny you should mention that, I turn into a pumpkin after midnight but my doctor's prescribed me some meds that seem to control it.....
Yes all these things existed before Orwell. The Nazis had a great propaganda machine (1936 Olympics) even though the name Goebbels makes me chuckle a bit. The point was that when I read Orwell's essays I was quite surprised that it was so rife that he chose to rant about it! I'm in no way saying Orwell was the first to point it out, he just happens to be the first one to point it out to me.
Interesting blog entry :-) i finally managed to skim read orwell's note (when do you find the time?!). he sounds like my kind of man/woman: keeping it simple :p
he should add 'dictatorship, moderate/liberal, extremism etc' to the list of words where they imply (or are associated to) a different meaning than that originally intended. i also believe political reporting has *distorted* the use of language and damaged its ...credibility. especially with the rise of instant news, instant bulletins, instant updates: its quite sad that language has been rather carelessly manipulated for the ordinary person on the street who is in turn using these terms lawlessly. grr, these perpertrators are on the 'axis of evil'.
Oh. I see. Point it out to you.
Sofi, I do almost all my reading on the tube.
Muhamad, yes, indeed, I'm glad you see this now.
Post a Comment