The Corruption of Language

http://theweek.com/section/cartoon/52/216211/social-issues

" If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought." - George Orwell

The basic function of any language is to provide a set of symbols to narrate objective facts and subjective opinions about human condition (which I would call "poetic facts"). In both cases, the challenge is to achieve it with fewest words without compromising the narrative.Clarity of message and simplicity of expression are essential.

The opposite of clarity is vagueness and opposite of  simplicity is "verbal posturing" -using complicated words to dazzle the audience. Vagueness has a place in language but verbal posturing is unjustifiable. Vagueness is powerful because it evokes feelings. It creates a "skeleton" of a specific feeling in the mind of the subject which he then fills with his own fears, hopes and dreams. ( Room 101 in 1984,  "Yes we can" by President Obama). It is an essential tool to  express abstract poetic facts and its a key element of any inspirational speech. But when the matter under consideration is an analysis of the facts, where clarity and simplicity are essential, vagueness and indulgence in feelings is a cardinal sin.

 Context is the key. For a vague expression there must be a context. When Bob Dylan sings " the answer is blowing in the wind" there is a back ground assumption that "it is poetry" which by its very nature has the luxury of using vague expressions. Similarly, when MLK, said " I have a dream" , the context of an inspirational speech was there. 

 In this new era, a new form of expression is emerging . People are using vague language   in situations where clarity and simplicity are crucial.Typical example is politics . Here, hyper inflated vague  language is used to massage the truth, sugar coat a lie, make people feel good ( without providing any real value to their lives), impressing people with their fake erudition ( verbal posturing) and dominating their opponent. I think its morally corrupt and intellectually dishonest and it debases the language. 

 In my experience, most public figures (Talk show hosts for example) are full of this verbiage. Empty calories of language. Many a time, after listening to somebody for more than an hour, I still can not tell what was he trying to say ( or trying not to say) because there was little (if any) exchange of information. I can't even say that it was false or wrong. All I can say is that its gibberish - words strung together in good sounding expressions devoid of any meaning.

There are several reasons why this vague complicated language ( or in Orwell's words " as a cuttle fish squirting ink.") is becoming so prevalent  

- Plain Dishonesty  - The simple fact is that sometimes people are just dishonest. This is especially true in politics. Politics is based on impressing people and making them feel good. Massaging the truth and sugar coating a lie are done in an attempt to please the voters .

- Political Correctness and Ego Stroking - In current culture everyone is "above average". Everyone is special, winner, lovable and just plain awesome. It might be a logical and mathematical  impossibility ("everyone above average") but who cares as long as everybody's ego get stroked. Its creating a generation of people with a sense of entitlement whose feelings get hurt when facing the truth. 

Here is clip of my favorite comedian George Carlin talking about this social disease ( and also about a few more)

Conflict of opposites creates the drama of life. How good success is if there is no failure? How good love is if you have to love everyone? 

- Fashion/Posturing - esp. post modern French literature. Here is an interesting story.  Alan Sakol , a physicist in New York University once wrote a parody with a title of " Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity." According to the author " It was a chock full of absurdities." and " by a series of stunning leaps of logic", he arrived at the following conclusion.

" the Pi of Euclid and the G of Newton, formerly thought to be constant and universal, are now perceived in their historicity; and the putative observer becomes fatally de-centered, disconnected from any epistemic link to a space-time point that can no longer be defined by geometry alone." 

Confused? You bet. Alan send this article to a trendy American cultural studies journal , Social Text. And guess what, it got accepted and published. Worse, it was published in a special issue of Social Text devoted to rebutting the criticisms by several distinguished scientists against post modernism and social constructivism. Later he wrote a book called " Fashionable Nonsense" in which talks about similar kind of intellectual dishonesty and abuse of science which is so prevalent in some fields of humanities .

I think there are some lessons to be learned here

- Be very skeptic of experts. A lot of times they talk about issues with self assurance that far outstrips their competence.

- Be on guard when someone is using big words or worst of all made up big words ( " refudiate" by Sarah Palin) 

- And most important of all, if you don't understand something, don't believe it and don't be intimidated by it.

- Confused Minds with Lack of Coherent Thoughts - Language is an expression of thought. Confused language is one of the signs of a confused mind.

- Demise of Guys and Rise of Feminism -  Lets face it. Marlboro man is dead and masculinity in general is dying. Rules of the game are changed and  men are totally confused about their new role in this ever changing battle of sexes. ( Its always harder for the losing party to adjust to the new environment).The reasons are many and I won't discuss them here ( they deserve a separate discussion) but the effects are devastating.

Confused roles produce confuse thoughts and thus confused language. Here is one example. Men today don't know whether they should be polite with the opposite sex ( which can be read as patronizing or a sign of weakness - By the way, this misunderstanding is a very common in people who recently acquire power. They are very touchy about it. Want to test it? Offer your help to a teenager!) or strong ( which can be read as rude and now he is a stereotypical man ). ( Hint - just be fair and respectful to yourself and to other people. )

George Orwell in his essay " Politics and the English Language" mentioned that direct single word verbs ( break, stop, kill, mend) are now being replaced by passive phrases made up of some noun or adjective tacked on to some general purpose verb ( passed away, give rise to , make contact with ). In my opinion one reason is that  pro-activeness and directness which in a way used to define masculinity are now replaced by reactiveness and indirectness which then manifests in language. 

- Confusing Poetic Truth with Literal Truth - All religions speak poetic truth. A religion is like an abstract art and poetry ( you may call it poorly written poetry but its a poetry nonetheless). And as with poetry and abstract art, everybody has different capacity to understand a religion. Worst, religion lends itself to people who abuse it by using poetic expressions as scientific facts and objective truths. In this case, the problem is more with the listener than with the speaker.

( I would like to explain the above point in little more detail. What you get from poetry and art depends on where you are. Its meaning changes with time and is also different for different people. Ask a good artist what is the meaning of his painting and he will look at you as if you are crazy. It has no meaning. You give it a meaning based on where you are. Similarly, the word God has different meaning for different people even in the same religion.)

- Lack of Empathy and Courage to Speak the Truth - George carlin in his famous stand up routine speaks about how over the course of last 80 years the word Shell Shock has deteriorated in to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder ( which is now abbreviated and spoken as PTSD !). One word evokes the feelings of shock and tragedy while the other word is cold and clinical. Speaking about post traumatic stress disorder is no different than talking about a toaster. This elimination of emotional content may make the speaker feel better, but it totally ignores the suffering of the victim. This a sign of lack of empathy and courage to speak the truth.

- Shooting the Messenger - No one wants to be the bearer of  the bad news. So what do we do? We wrap it up in vague language. Politicians do it. Even a lot of Physicians do it.

- Treating Major Social Issues as a Sport - In sports, what matters the most is winning . everything else is secondary. Letting this attitude permeate in major social debates can create groups of people who would support a party or a leader no matter what. ( " He may be a son of a bitch but he is our son of a bitch." - FDR on Nicaraguan dictator Somoza Garcia ). Rational thinking and clear language goes on vacation when an argument degrades in to "Us vs Them."

R word, L word, N word, F Word, LoL - Symbols slapped on symbols. And facts, they are crushed underneath a pile of symbols and cliches. But all of this is not without a price. One can see the effects  in "gimme generation" with a false sense of entitlement, confused directionless youth, political corruption, vague non specific fear which permeates the whole society, people lack of trust in each other, arrogance and cruelty. 

Churchill once said, " The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is.". The big question is, are we trying to change truths by changing the language? And does truth even matter to people anymore?

                                                                     

  

A Nice Cup of Tea - George Orwell

If you look up 'tea' in the first cookery book that comes to hand you will probably find that it is unmentioned; or at most you will find a few lines of sketchy instructions which give no ruling on several of the most important points.

This is curious, not only because tea is one of the main stays of civilization in this country, as well as in Eire, Australia and New Zealand, but because the best manner of making it is the subject of violent disputes.
When I look through my own recipe for the perfect cup of tea, I find no fewer than eleven outstanding points. On perhaps two of them there would be pretty general agreement, but at least four others are acutely controversial. Here are my own eleven rules, every one of which I regard as golden:

• First of all, one should use Indian or Ceylonese tea. China tea has virtues which are not to be despised nowadays — it is economical, and one can drink it without milk — but there is not much stimulation in it. One does not feel wiser, braver or more optimistic after drinking it. Anyone who has used that comforting phrase 'a nice cup of tea' invariably means Indian tea.

• Secondly, tea should be made in small quantities — that is, in a teapot. Tea out of an urn is always tasteless, while army tea, made in a cauldron, tastes of grease and whitewash. The teapot should be made of china or earthenware. Silver or Britanniaware teapots produce inferior tea and enamel pots are worse; though curiously enough a pewter teapot (a rarity nowadays) is not so bad.

• Thirdly, the pot should be warmed beforehand. This is better done by placing it on the hob than by the usual method of swilling it out with hot water.

• Fourthly, the tea should be strong. For a pot holding a quart, if you are going to fill it nearly to the brim, six heaped teaspoons would be about right. In a time of rationing, this is not an idea that can be realized on every day of the week, but I maintain that one strong cup of tea is better than twenty weak ones. All true tea lovers not only like their tea strong, but like it a little stronger with each year that passes — a fact which is recognized in the extra ration issued to old-age pensioners.

• Fifthly, the tea should be put straight into the pot. No strainers, muslin bags or other devices to imprison the tea. In some countries teapots are fitted with little dangling baskets under the spout to catch the stray leaves, which are supposed to be harmful. Actually one can swallow tea-leaves in considerable quantities without ill effect, and if the tea is not loose in the pot it never infuses properly.

• Sixthly, one should take the teapot to the kettle and not the other way about. The water should be actually boiling at the moment of impact, which means that one should keep it on the flame while one pours. Some people add that one should only use water that has been freshly brought to the boil, but I have never noticed that it makes any difference.

• Seventhly, after making the tea, one should stir it, or better, give the pot a good shake, afterwards allowing the leaves to settle.

• Eighthly, one should drink out of a good breakfast cup — that is, the cylindrical type of cup, not the flat, shallow type. The breakfast cup holds more, and with the other kind one's tea is always half cold before one has well started on it.

• Ninthly, one should pour the cream off the milk before using it for tea. Milk that is too creamy always gives tea a sickly taste.

• Tenthly, one should pour tea into the cup first. This is one of the most controversial points of all; indeed in every family in Britain there are probably two schools of thought on the subject. The milk-first school can bring forward some fairly strong arguments, but I maintain that my own argument is unanswerable. This is that, by putting the tea in first and stirring as one pours, one can exactly regulate the amount of milk whereas one is liable to put in too much milk if one does it the other way round.

• Lastly, tea — unless one is drinking it in the Russian style — should be drunk without sugar. I know very well that I am in a minority here. But still, how can you call yourself a true tealover if you destroy the flavour of your tea by putting sugar in it? It would be equally reasonable to put in pepper or salt. Tea is meant to be bitter, just as beer is meant to be bitter. If you sweeten it, you are no longer tasting the tea, you are merely tasting the sugar; you could make a very similar drink by dissolving sugar in plain hot water.
  
  Some people would answer that they don't like tea in itself, that they only drink it in order to be warmed and stimulated, and they need sugar to take the taste away. To those misguided people I would say: Try drinking tea without sugar for, say, a fortnight and it is very unlikely that you will ever want to ruin your tea by sweetening it again.

These are not the only controversial points to arise in connexion with tea drinking, but they are sufficient to show how subtilized the whole business has become. There is also the mysterious social etiquette surrounding the teapot (why is it considered vulgar to drink out of your saucer, for instance?) and much might be written about the subsidiary uses of tealeaves, such as telling fortunes, predicting the arrival of visitors, feeding rabbits, healing burns and sweeping the carpet. It is worth paying attention to such details as warming the pot and using water that is really boiling, so as to make quite sure of wringing out of one's ration the twenty good, strong cups of that two ounces, properly handled, ought to represent.


                                        - George Orwell - Evening Standard, 12 January 1946.