In his well-known essay “Politics and the English Language,” George Orwell pointed out that the corruption of language goes hand in hand with the devolution of civil society into tyranny, whether “left” (communism) or “right” (fascism). Orwell was one of the first to recognize that these two forms of tyranny, though outwardly antagonistic, actually have a lot in common.
Language becomes corrupted when it is used by politicians and other opinion shapers (such as multinational corporations) to distort, deceive, or demonize, rather than to inform and elucidate.
Some forms of linguistic corruption — those of commercial origin — are fairly innocuous, but still have deleterious effects on our public discourse. One egregious example is the use of “impact” as an all-purpose verb (when it is actually a noun). The philosopher Gregory Bateson was one of the first to recognize that the language of physics or mathematics — terms like “force” or “impact” from physics, or “positive,” “negative,” or “factor” from mathematics— are inappropriate for biological (including human or social) phenomena, simply because they imply linear, predictable, and precisely measurable phenomena, yet biological systems (again, including all human systems) are inherently complex, nonlinear, and unpredictable.
Yet these physical and mathematical terms have infected both the social sciences and public discourse. I call these “linguistic parasites,” since their effect is to “suck” complexity and diversity out of our language. To test this claim, find any instance, in the social sciences or in journalism or advertising, of words like “positive,” “negative,” or “impact” (especially as a verb) and try replacing it with another, less hackneyed word. You will quickly find that any substitute you find will be clearer and more precise in meaning than the original cliché. Here are a few simple examples:
1. When she said that, it really impacted me.
2. When she said that, it really (touched/impressed/surprised/amazed/hurt/astounded) me.
or…
1. Why are you being so negative today?
2. Why are you being so (critical/depressed/unpleasant/cruel/pessimistic) today?
It’s easy to see that any substitute you choose will be more precise in meaning — hence more clearly and effectively communicated, than the original. When linguistic parasites like these infect our discourse, therefore, we flatten out our common language — resulting in net loss of diversity, aptness, and clarity in the words we choose.
These terms have very precise meanings in their original (mathematical or physical) context, in that they refer to measurable phenomena. “Impact,” for example, is the participial form of the Latin verb “impingo” which means to hit something physically (from which we get the verb “impinge”). And “positive” and “negative” have entirely appropriate and precise meanings in mathematics, referring to the right and left sides of the number line. But when they are used metaphorically in the realm of human social discourse, they lose all precision and become vague and confusing, as in the examples above. “Impact” for example, in its current ubiquitous (metaphorical) use, had its origins in the advertising industry, and then spread, like cancer, to every other domain of public and private discourse.
But while such common linguistic parasites are noisome and tedious, they pale in significance to the deliberate abuse and manipulation of language by politicians. Although both the left and right sides of the political spectrum are guilty of this, in recent years, especially in the US, the Republicans have weaponized language in an insidious manner not seen since the bad old days of Stalin and Hitler.
This weaponization began in the postwar years as the US confronted an aggressive Communist movement spearheaded by Stalin and Mao, which lead to rising paranoia about communism infiltrating the US as well. Enter Joe McCarthy, Republican senator from Wisconsin, who seized every opportunity to brand his opponents as communists, leading to the persecution of innumerable public figures, including writers and Hollywood actors, as “communist sympathizers.” While McCarthy was eventually humiliated for his shameless witch-hunting tactics, other Republican political leaders — most notably Richard Nixon — continued more subtly, by innuendo, to imply that his opponents were “communist sympathizers” if they expressed liberal viewpoints about anything.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the word “communist” lost its toxic appeal for Republicans, so they turned to more subtle tactics. These included weaponizing the American Flag by claiming the mantle of “patriotism” for themselves alone — thus implying that anyone not a Republican was not really American. In 1988, George Bush senior built his whole campaign around this trope, with bumper stickers saying “Americans for Bush” and a big banner at their electoral victory celebration announcing “America Wins.” Once again, the clear implication was that Democrats were “unamerican” (especially since they had nominated a “furriner” like the Greek-American Michael Dukakis).
Then, with the rise of their propaganda machine mislabeled “Fox News,” Republicans seized on the phrase “political correctness” to brand their opponents’ viewpoints — another subtle form of commie-baiting, since the term “politically correct” originated in ultra-left circles of Berkeley, California.
Their most recent ploy for demonizing their opponents has been to co-opt the term “woke” as an all-purpose term of abuse for anyone or anything they don’t like. “Woke” originated in African American dialect as a term for fellow black people who have awakened to the fact that racist attitudes permeate every aspect of the dominant Euro-American culture, so they should be wary in their dealings with white people in authority, such as employers, landlords, or police. But in the hands of Republican propagandists, “woke” has become the mandatory epithet for branding everything Republicans despise — feminists, voting rights activists, school librarians, liberal professors, journalists, environmentalists, political opponents, even huge corporations (like Disney in Florida) whose marketing strategies include appeals to ethnic or gender-based minorities. And Ron DeSantis, the overtly neofascist governor of Florida who has just announced his presidential candidacy for 2024, has even adopted “This is where Woke goes to die” as his campaign slogan. (The genocidal subtext of this slogan is entirely intentional.)
The vagueness of the term “woke” — which Republicans generally are incapable of defining, when challenged — is part of its toxic appeal. For — like the Nazis’ vague and comprehensive use of the term “Jewish” to condemn any media or anyone else who opposed their agenda — Republicans use “woke” as a generic term of abuse, specifically to target African Americans as their enemy, but also — by association — anyone who supports policies that oppose the Republican agenda by promoting the public interest, such as health care, women’s rights, voting rights, tolerance for ethnic, religious, and gender minorities, student loan forgiveness, higher wages, and environmental protection.
Words matter. So to all who still believe that the purpose of any government is to secure our universal rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and who still believe in consent of the governed, my advice is quite simple: stay woke.