Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2008, Page 64
In ―The Limits of Language,‖ he points out that Orwell‘s ―particular targets were intellectuals
of the left‖ (and ―not the state,‖ as we might guess) who use ―fancy, pretentious and
imprecise language.‖ However, today‘s propaganda is usually well-written and not with the
clumsy language that Orwell noted in referring to the propagandists of his day.
In a way, Orwell‘s proposition that precise language will reduce totalitarian power is wrong.
Lemann cites a Bush speech post-9/11 that was precise and used common speech, or ―the
words of everyday life,‖ that now presents as ―Orwellian‖ only in hindsight. When it was first
presented, almost no one saw the Bush speech that way. Lemann is concerned or frightened
less over the implications of corruption of language than he is about the corruption of
information and how it is gathered. Weapons of mass destruction are a serious matter if
they exist.
Mark Danner, currently a professor at Bard and U.C. Berkeley, has authored several books
on the Middle East. He argues that the Bush/Cheney team created a ―virtual war [that]
begets real war‖ with vague propaganda such as ―War on Terror.‖ Danner quotes Orwell:
―From the totalitarian point of view history is something to be created rather than learned.‖
He implies that our administration is practicing a totalitarian approach to history as
illustrated in Orwell‘s 1984. In that novel, the super states of Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia
are in a perpetual world war designed to better control their minions through fear. Danner
ends his discussion with memories of a poignant visit he made to Baghdad more than a year
ago. Real people are suffering, some collecting body parts of relatives for burial. An
American soldier he interviewed—dead the following week. These are the real actors in
history, not people ―creating their own reality,‖ as high-level politicos do.
A columnist for The Nation and Professor of Law at Columbia, Patricia Williams states,
―…Orwell would have had no trouble cutting through the cowpokey folksiness and spewed
malapropisms of President George W. Bush.‖ She proposes a list of rules Orwell might apply
today, and then uses the list to skewer Bush‘s fundamentalist backers and the ―Fox-and-
fear driven media.‖ I had fun reading this essay despite its over-the-top, near stereotypical
language. I surmise that Orwell would have cringed at this essay‘s title: ―An Egregious
Collocation of Vocables.‖
The aptly named Francine Prose, the author of eleven novels and teacher at Bard, laments
the ―sad‖ state of reading ability among students today compared to Orwell‘s day—sixty
years ago. She takes ―Bush-Cheney‖ to task for getting us into Iraq with an abuse of
language, using freedom, patriotism, and liberty with false meaning. ―Clarity of thought and
attention to linguistic nuance are essential tools in subverting propaganda.‖ Prose marvels
at how much Orwell can still teach us.
Part Two of the collection covers Symbols and Battlegrounds and begins with George
Lakoff‘s ―What Orwell Didn‘t Know About the Brain, the Mind, and Language.‖ Lakoff is a
professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at U.C. Berkeley whose new book The Political
Mind is due in 2008. Lakoff‘s is my favorite essay in the entire anthology because his view
requires a scientific orientation to the brain function that was not available to Orwell, and he
offers a foundation for critiquing all the other essays. We are all bound to biases ingrained
in our brains, whether we profess progressive or conservative views. Brain change will occur
over time as we absorb repeated slogans and images—―Uneraseable brain change,‖ says
Lakoff. We can counter this process, but only with effort—we have to stop and think, and
that can hurt. Conservatives, for example, mounted an attack on ―liberal,‖ which was a
positive idea that flourished in the 1960s. They succeeded to demonize liberal to the point
that even Democrats have been scrambling for decades to restructure their ideas without
using liberal. Lakoff mentions that a reverse strategy is occurring with a smart effort by new
Democrat candidates to reframe ―conservative‖ with notions such as ―Conservatives cannot
be trusted to guide the government they scorn … they get the world wrong.‖ Of course, this
In ―The Limits of Language,‖ he points out that Orwell‘s ―particular targets were intellectuals
of the left‖ (and ―not the state,‖ as we might guess) who use ―fancy, pretentious and
imprecise language.‖ However, today‘s propaganda is usually well-written and not with the
clumsy language that Orwell noted in referring to the propagandists of his day.
In a way, Orwell‘s proposition that precise language will reduce totalitarian power is wrong.
Lemann cites a Bush speech post-9/11 that was precise and used common speech, or ―the
words of everyday life,‖ that now presents as ―Orwellian‖ only in hindsight. When it was first
presented, almost no one saw the Bush speech that way. Lemann is concerned or frightened
less over the implications of corruption of language than he is about the corruption of
information and how it is gathered. Weapons of mass destruction are a serious matter if
they exist.
Mark Danner, currently a professor at Bard and U.C. Berkeley, has authored several books
on the Middle East. He argues that the Bush/Cheney team created a ―virtual war [that]
begets real war‖ with vague propaganda such as ―War on Terror.‖ Danner quotes Orwell:
―From the totalitarian point of view history is something to be created rather than learned.‖
He implies that our administration is practicing a totalitarian approach to history as
illustrated in Orwell‘s 1984. In that novel, the super states of Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia
are in a perpetual world war designed to better control their minions through fear. Danner
ends his discussion with memories of a poignant visit he made to Baghdad more than a year
ago. Real people are suffering, some collecting body parts of relatives for burial. An
American soldier he interviewed—dead the following week. These are the real actors in
history, not people ―creating their own reality,‖ as high-level politicos do.
A columnist for The Nation and Professor of Law at Columbia, Patricia Williams states,
―…Orwell would have had no trouble cutting through the cowpokey folksiness and spewed
malapropisms of President George W. Bush.‖ She proposes a list of rules Orwell might apply
today, and then uses the list to skewer Bush‘s fundamentalist backers and the ―Fox-and-
fear driven media.‖ I had fun reading this essay despite its over-the-top, near stereotypical
language. I surmise that Orwell would have cringed at this essay‘s title: ―An Egregious
Collocation of Vocables.‖
The aptly named Francine Prose, the author of eleven novels and teacher at Bard, laments
the ―sad‖ state of reading ability among students today compared to Orwell‘s day—sixty
years ago. She takes ―Bush-Cheney‖ to task for getting us into Iraq with an abuse of
language, using freedom, patriotism, and liberty with false meaning. ―Clarity of thought and
attention to linguistic nuance are essential tools in subverting propaganda.‖ Prose marvels
at how much Orwell can still teach us.
Part Two of the collection covers Symbols and Battlegrounds and begins with George
Lakoff‘s ―What Orwell Didn‘t Know About the Brain, the Mind, and Language.‖ Lakoff is a
professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at U.C. Berkeley whose new book The Political
Mind is due in 2008. Lakoff‘s is my favorite essay in the entire anthology because his view
requires a scientific orientation to the brain function that was not available to Orwell, and he
offers a foundation for critiquing all the other essays. We are all bound to biases ingrained
in our brains, whether we profess progressive or conservative views. Brain change will occur
over time as we absorb repeated slogans and images—―Uneraseable brain change,‖ says
Lakoff. We can counter this process, but only with effort—we have to stop and think, and
that can hurt. Conservatives, for example, mounted an attack on ―liberal,‖ which was a
positive idea that flourished in the 1960s. They succeeded to demonize liberal to the point
that even Democrats have been scrambling for decades to restructure their ideas without
using liberal. Lakoff mentions that a reverse strategy is occurring with a smart effort by new
Democrat candidates to reframe ―conservative‖ with notions such as ―Conservatives cannot
be trusted to guide the government they scorn … they get the world wrong.‖ Of course, this
