"Give Me Doubleplusgood or Give Me Death!"
Smart piece by Wendy McElroy on The Future of Freedom Foundation site on the push to get us to use politically correct language, and why it's dangerous:
George Orwell's dystopian novel, 1984, got a few things wrong -- for example, the date. But he was dead-on in depicting the cause-and-effect relationship between language and politics, between language and our ability to think clearly; the process of using words as social control was called Newspeak. What cannot be expressed cannot be effectively understood or opposed. Neutralizing language defuses the most powerful weapon against oppression: the ability to think....Some of attacks are blatant. For example, "gender" has replaced the word "sex" and this replacement has been key to embedding the idea of sexual orientation as a social construct and not a biological fact. Words have been demonized as de facto acts of violence, so that using a slang term for a race is viewed as a hate-filled attack that might result in retaliatory violence or even arrest. Other attacks on words are subtler. Terms have come mean their opposite, so that "equality" now requires the disadvantaging of men in law and with policies such as affirmative action in order to favor women.
...But there are many other ways to degrade the language for political purposes.
One is the introduction of "doublethink.' Doublethink occurs when someone simultaneously accepts two contradictory beliefs as true. It is achieved through using one word in a contradictory manner. An example is "affirmative action." Because it is wrong to judge people on the basis of skin color or gender, universities and employers should give preference to people based on skin color and gender. Or consider the concept of "diversity"; because differences in human beings are to be embraced we must eliminate those differences that may offend some. "Affirmative action" and "diversity" have become part of the PCspeak and modern doublethink that parallel Newspeak.
If people embrace the incompatible ideas of doublethink, their ability to make distinctions and to critically analyze issues is crippled. This hobbling is also promoted by surrounding the doublethink idea with euphemistic language that makes it more palatable and casts a priori aspersion upon anyone who objects. Thus, affirmative action is not "class preference embedded into law" but "justice to oppressed minorities"; thus, making slang terms for minorities into hate speech is not "censorship" but "respect for dignity." Who can righteously object to justice and dignity?
But he was dead-on in depicting the cause-and-effect relationship between language and politics, between language and our ability to think clearly
This concern is overblown; certainly it's not supported by anything I'm aware of in the scientific literature. While intuitively appealing, the core idea here - that language shapes our ability to think - has been disconfirmed repeatedly. There's simply no reason to think that changes in language of the sort McElroy describes in this piece impair people's ability to perceive and reason.
An example is "affirmative action." Because it is wrong to judge people on the basis of skin color or gender, universities and employers should give preference to people based on skin color and gender.
I don't think this is a very good example of doublethink. Affirmative action was intended to help compensate for real historical and cultural factors that helped keep black people poor and uneducated. Supporting affirmative action doen't require doublethink; merely the belief that a black student might not look as good on paper as white student for reasons other than merit.
Christopher at September 15, 2011 8:05 AM
"Affirmative action" and "diversity" have become part of the PCspeak and modern doublethink that parallel Newspeak.
"Reverse racism" would fit in the Newspeak category too, but none of these terms is doublethink. Newspeak is a constructed (or deconstructed) language, of which doublethink is only one aspect.
Doublethink is two contradictory beliefs held simultaneously, wuch as "War is peace" and "Freedom is slavery." (The Obama/Wall Street Journal example she cites is also doublethink.) A man-on-the-street version, 2011 style, would be "Get the government's hands off my Medicare," or my (possibly apocryphal) favorite, "I've been on food stamps and nobody helped me!"
Kevin at September 15, 2011 8:07 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2011/09/15/give_me_doublep.html#comment-2481324">comment from ChristopherSupporting affirmative action doen't require doublethink; merely the belief that a black student might not look as good on paper as white student for reasons other than merit.
Affirmative action is about promoting people sans merit. It's not about the best candidate; it's about the best colored candidate.
You don't resolve past discrimination by discriminating.
Amy Alkon at September 15, 2011 8:08 AM
I don't think this is a very good example of doublethink.
It is. In two sentances:
Racism is wrong.
Except when it is used in affirmative action.
That's doublethink. But then again, we've always been at war with Eastasia, so maybe you're right.
I R A Darth Aggie at September 15, 2011 8:17 AM
Christopher,
Disconfirmed? Cites please. Thanks.
Janet C at September 15, 2011 8:24 AM
>> Disconfirmed? Cites please. Thanks.
+1 There's a lot of work in linguistics (e.g. Lakoff) premised on this very idea.
coal at September 15, 2011 8:32 AM
Talk to Jeff over at Protein Wisdom. He's been on about this for the better part of a decade.
The pollution of language by the left is neither accidental nor arbitrary. It is about forcing everything to be discussed on their terms - and then changing the terms out from under people so that they lose the argument without even having to be challenged.
brian at September 15, 2011 8:42 AM
"gender" has replaced the word "sex" and this replacement has been key to embedding the idea of sexual orientation as a social construct and not a biological fact.
Utter nonsense. Gender is sex identification. What gender are you, female or male? There is nothing "politically correct" (or incorrect) about this and it has nothing at all to do with sexual orientation.
gharkness at September 15, 2011 9:00 AM
Busy day, and commenting on my iPad. So brief.
Regarding affirmative action: I'm not necessarily arguing that it is or was the right thing to do, only that it is not a good example of doublethink.
@Janet & @coal:
Cites:
See generally:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity
Better: read Pinker's The Language Instinct. Great book, and persuasively makes the case for the independence of language and thought and the innateness of language. It's fun, too. Pinker is a good writer.
Re: Lakoff - have you seen people calling trial lawyers "public protection attorneys"? His work on metaphor is interesting, but he's wrong in the idea that a few people can get together and change how everyone thinks about something just by choosing different words. As a cognitive scientist, his work has merit; as a political consultant, he's a charlatan.
Christopher at September 15, 2011 9:07 AM
I love Wendy McElroy, but she's confusing intent with effect. What she's describing here is what the authorities who use political language as social control WANT to happen. In the real world, thoughts are stubbornly resistant to Newspeak.
Everyone behind the Iron Curtain was subjected to relentless propaganda every day. It didn't cripple our ability to think. The strongest effect it had on my family was to fill us with a desire to escape. And just because the majority of people stayed behind doesn't mean they didn't know communism was crap. They went along to get along, and hoped things would be better one day. Human nature. The Communist Party won 11% of the votes in the Czech elections last year. Even at the height of communism 40 years ago, the percentage of True Believers wasn't much higher than that. If language & propaganda were such powerful tools, they wouldn't have needed secret police & labor camps & mass graves, would they?
The people enforcing PC on college campuses certainly want to control thoughts, but they can succeed only if people let them.
Martin at September 15, 2011 10:16 AM
Just think about how strongly the righteousness of affirmative action in college admissions has been pushed, for decades now. Yet when voters in, for instance, California & Michigan got the chance to vote on propositions banning affirmative action in public institutions, they said yes, get rid of it, by wide margins. That can't be result the language police wanted.
Martin at September 15, 2011 11:06 AM
Say that you forget to add salt to the soup. Affirmative action is the belief that you can correct this by doubling the salt in the next soup.
Andrew_M_Garland at September 15, 2011 12:07 PM
Misandry (see link at upper right)
EasyOpinions -> 02/26/10 - Classical Values by Eric
Fred: Three men robbed the bank.
Mike: Thankfully, eight police personnel caught them.
== ==
"The word "misandry" was flagged in red, unknown to the spell-checker, even though it is hardly a new word. Misandry is the hatred of men."
"Men do not exist unless they commit crimes or do bad things. Men are "people" or "personnel" when they do good things. They are "men" when they do bad things.
== ==
Andrew_M_Garland at September 15, 2011 12:14 PM
Another example is "Social Security Trust Fund", giving the natural impression that wealth is stored there to support retirement.
Actually, there is nothing of value in Treasury trust funds, only the political promise to find the money somewhere, somehow, in the future when it is needed.
All of the money collected in the name of Social Security has been spent either on SSec or on other government projects. This leaves only a political smile on a piece of paper in the "trust fund".
Andrew_M_Garland at September 15, 2011 12:18 PM
brian wins this thread with:
Bingo.
If we're talking about "mercy killing" instead of involuntary murder - someone's already lost the argument.
Martin claims that:
Oh yeah? I have had some very sad conversations with Soviet emigres (in both Israel and the US) who still think socialism is dandy and "Stalin made the trains run on time."
Yes, propaganda works.
Ben David at September 15, 2011 2:40 PM
Read before you blab, Ben David! "The Communist Party won 11% of the votes in the Czech elections last year..." Now if there are still that many True Believers in Marx, Lenin & Stalin in that little country all those years after the Velvet Revolution, it stands to reason that some emigres from the place where those ideas were first put into practice would still cling to them even after they reached greener pastures, doesn't it?
Yes, propaganda works. On some people. Others need more persuasion. Hence communism's death toll of 100 million or so.
Did Israel really become more socialist after the flood of ex-Soviets in the 90s? I thought those notions were part of the Israeli fabric right from the beginning in '48.
Martin at September 15, 2011 4:42 PM
"There's simply no reason to think that changes in language of the sort McElroy describes in this piece impair people's ability to perceive and reason."
Okay, I'll bite. Somebody want to explain how you discuss an idea without having the terms to do it?
English is tough enough in this case: people who assume they are using English correctly fail to note that colloquial usage is totally wrong in some engineering concepts. If they have a high opinion of themselves, they take offense.
And that's independent of offense someone might take as to how something was said.
Radwaste at September 15, 2011 4:44 PM
Do you use or accept the word, "detainee"?
Why don't you see "prisoner"?
If you can be manipulated by the presence of certain terms, you can be manipulated by the absence of them.
"It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words."
Oldthinkers unbellyfeel Ingsoc.
Radwaste at September 15, 2011 4:47 PM
If the article on Guantanamo has a little picture in the corner of the "detainee" in his cell, that helps to clarify matters.
It's a matter of degrees. Manipulating language can manipulate thoughts. But not to the point where no one is capable of reasoning that someone with a political agenda is trying to manipulate them.
Martin at September 15, 2011 5:08 PM
Okay, I'll bite. Somebody want to explain how you discuss an idea without having the terms to do it?
Doesn't happen. Ideas precede words. If a term doesn't exist, several can be recruited to do the job. If the concept is useful enough, people will create the word for it. This is why the idea of Newspeak is fundamentally wrong.
English is tough enough in this case: people who assume they are using English correctly fail to note that colloquial usage is totally wrong in some engineering concepts.
Disciplines all have their particular vocabulary and usage. It makes communication more precise and efficient among members of the group (and quickly discriminates between those in and those out).
Christopher at September 15, 2011 6:41 PM
Say that you forget to add salt to the soup. Affirmative action is the belief that you can correct this by doubling the salt in the next soup.
Are you really comparing the effects of Affirmative Action to those of things like slavery and Jim Crow?
Christopher at September 15, 2011 6:45 PM
To Christopher,
Do you think that I was making an analogy between Affirmative Action and soup? Really?
And, what would slavery be in that analogy? Really bad soup?
Andrew_M_Garland at September 15, 2011 7:26 PM
So yes, then. In your mind, the harmful effects of affirmative action are comparable to those of the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.
Christopher at September 15, 2011 8:21 PM
Well think about it chris. Jim crowe laws made minorites worth less than the white majority.
Now suppose you see a doctor, do you ever stop to wonder if (s)he got into medical school over a more qualified aplicant due to affirmitive action?.
Sure affirmitive action helps memebrs of the minority on an individual level, but on the group level it just reinforces sterotypes of inequality, just thru a different mechanism
lujlp at September 15, 2011 8:33 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2011/09/15/give_me_doublep.html#comment-2482918">comment from ChristopherSo yes, then. In your mind, the harmful effects of affirmative action are comparable to those of the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.
Why should today's highly qualified applicant not be admitted because somebody was discriminated against in years prior? If you're talking about fighting discrimination, isn't it ludicrous to do it by discriminating? Furthermore, I sure don't want the doctor who got in on the pity admission.
Amy Alkon at September 15, 2011 8:44 PM
I'm not saying affirmative action is right. My point with Andrew was that equating its ills to those that prompted it is crazy.
Christopher at September 15, 2011 9:52 PM
Here is an off-topic on-topic comment to this:
Northern Arizona University officials confront students over U.S. flag handouts
azdailysun.com/news/local/education/nau-officials-confront-students-over-u-s-flag-handouts/article_647bd893-1cc4-51e0-84d3-8109a6d45d8e.html
Jim P. at September 15, 2011 10:03 PM
What sort of logic are you following, Christopher? How can it be OK to commit a grave injustice against innocent people today because other innocent people suffered more terrible injustice long ago?
Affirmative action is having terrible effects right now on the very people who are supposedly its beneficiaries. Black university graduation rates are absymal. Only 40% of all blacks who enter public universities ever graduate (vs 60% of all whites):
http://chronicle.com/article/Reports-Highlight-Disparities/123857/
Every year, a huge number of hopelessly unqualified black students are being pushed into universities where they will waste years of their lives and plunge deep into student debt without having any realistic chance of ever graduating. How on earth does that correct the injustices their ancestors suffered long ago under slavery & Jim Crow?
And every one of these unqualified blacks is taking a place in university away from a qualified white or Asian student who worked hard to earn it, and who has a decent chance of graduating. Defending this is defending the indefensible. On top of all that, those affirmative action students who do somehow manage to graduate will most certainly have their professional competence questioned. If you want to be first on line to be operated on by an affirmative action surgeon, or defended in court by an affirmative action attorney, please step forward.
Martin at September 15, 2011 10:24 PM
first IN line...you get the idea.
Martin at September 15, 2011 10:27 PM
I didn't see your 9:52 PM comment, Christopher, so I may have misjudged what you're saying.
Martin at September 15, 2011 10:33 PM
"There's simply no reason to think that changes in language of the sort McElroy describes in this piece impair people's ability to perceive and reason."
"Okay, I'll bite. Somebody want to explain how you discuss an idea without having the terms to do it?"
My favorite example of this (which I'm sure I've brought up before) is the sequence of terms for the handicapped. Several decades ago, they were "crippled". Then they were "handicapped", then "disabled", then the idiotic "differently-abled".
The concept is clear. There is a word to match the concept. Well-meaning idiots find the concept distasteful (life is so unfair), and believe that, by changing the term, they can make the concept go away. After a few years, the new word they have introduced takes on the same old meaning. Reality has not changed to suit their whims after all. So the next generation of well-meaning idiots introduce the next term.
Concepts are more powerful than words. We can still reason just fine. However, by mucking with words, by making certain words socially unacceptable, it is possible to make expressing and discussing certain concepts very difficult.
The most egregious example today is race. There are numerous studies that show certain abilities are genetic, and that some of these correlate with skin color. Anyone who watches athletics observes this (look at the best runners), but discussing it openly makes people cringe. It is just not PC! It gets far worse if one veers from the world of athletic performance into the world of academics or business. The concepts and ideas are clear. Discussing them openly is essentially impossible.
a_random_guy at September 15, 2011 11:47 PM
"This is why the idea of Newspeak is fundamentally wrong."
No - because the vocabulary, on Airstrip One, is controlled by the government. Only approved speech is permitted.
Back to my example - do you use the word "detainee", as the government and media do today? Why?
It's because somehow, the handcuffs and prison cell are Just Dandy when they do not hold a prisoner.
If you can't see the bars, it's not a jail.
If you use the word "prisoner" to a government official today, you will be firmly guided back to "detainee", so that you have less incentive to ask about the rights of the accused.
Radwaste at September 16, 2011 2:17 AM
you forgot handi-capable a_random_guy
lujlp at September 16, 2011 3:41 AM
No - because the vocabulary, on Airstrip One, is controlled by the government.
This is not possible. Vocabulary cannot be controlled. When we lack adequate words, we make up new ones.
Back to my example - do you use the word "detainee", as the government and media do today?
No. I use "prisoner," as you and others do.They go for the softer connotation with "detainee" (unless it's an American being held, of course), we hear it, and think "bullshit, that's a prisoner." Their word choice doesn't trump our perceptions.
Christopher at September 16, 2011 9:50 AM
"Their word choice doesn't trump our perceptions."
And you explain Amercian public policy how?
Watch the audience by mesmerized by style over substance.
You used the word, "our". Clearly, not everyone filters what they hear and read.
Radwaste at September 16, 2011 12:03 PM
Their word choice doesn't trump our perceptions
Right,and yet despite tomatoes being a fruit,most americans consider them a vegetable becuae back in the 1800 when tomaotoes were insnlypopularthe government classifed them as vegetable, becuase vegetables were taxed higher then fruits.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nix_v._Hedden
Also Amy your 'Colloquial usage means popular usage' is supported legally by this supreme court decision, and has been used in arguments in other court cases on the interpritaion of words
lujlp at September 17, 2011 3:48 AM
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