Political Economy and Language: Missing a Link
Over at Forbes today, I shared my first discussion of the relationship between our current political and economic state and our language. While language is often and easily noted as an example of spontaneous order, related to the development and functioning of the market, many policymakers fail to see other similarities between defining written exchanges and regulating economic exchanges.
I argue:
The meddling in and muddling of language also relates to the overreaching convolution of the ever-expanding regulatory state. In a typical conversation among typical Americans, it would be said: “That redhead I talked to was nice.” The federal government, however, uses its word processor synonym function at will and requires us to say: “The vermillion-coiffed human specimen with whom I bartered verbiage was convivial.” Not only is it no more meaningful with more elaborate words, but it also starts to mean something different. So the state complicates our lives without improving them.
The manipulation of language causes misunderstandings. Who can appropriately use an invented word with no context? The manipulation of our natural social behavior causes its own misunderstandings, those that lead to recessions.
The forthcoming second article examines the way the government alters our actual language. When there is no mutually agreed upon meaning, a word (or phrase) can go obsolete, becoming a quaint linguistic oddity. I'll give you a spoiler: necessary and proper.
- Comment (13)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (5)
Comments:
May '10
Re: Political Economy and Language: Missing a Link
Simple explanation. And lessons in terminology.
Edited on February 28, 2012 at 9:22pmMay '11
Re: Political Economy and Language: Missing a Link
President Obama is very fond of using the phrase "fair share" for one example, but he never really defines what he thinks "fair" would be. Judging from his policies over the past 3 years, it's a very different definition of "fair" than what mine would be.
Mar '11
Re: Political Economy and Language: Missing a Link
Who can appropriately use an invented word with no context?
Sweegs mittley ufgus, that's who.
May '10
Re: Political Economy and Language: Missing a Link
Maura, I think the problem is much worse than you here indicate. It's not about misunderstandings.
You might like Josef Pieper's tiny gem of a book: Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power.
Dec '10
Re: Political Economy and Language: Missing a Link
"Cruel and unusual" is another phrase that's been twisted over the centuries.
But wasn't Orwell's entire thesis in 1984 that the control of language and history gives rulers the control of the very ideas that drive society?
Mar '11
Re: Political Economy and Language: Missing a Link
Governmental linguistic gobbletygook is merely a smokescreen to hide their esquivalience.
(Don't bother trying to look it up -- it's here).
May '10
Re: Political Economy and Language: Missing a Link
This of course was Orwell's bete noir. He was especially opposed to euphemisms, what Hitchens would call "nice words for nasty things". Half of the procedural tasks associated with the passage of legislation or regulation are complete when politicans get to label said legislation or regulation as whatever they wish. Moreover, euphemisms can still a guilty conscience as well as dupe gullible voters.
Mar '11
Re: Political Economy and Language: Missing a Link
Since Josef Pieper got a shout out on this thread already, I'll echo that with a recommendation for his Leisure: The Basis of Culture.
As to your point, Maura, I largely agree, but would go further. As political animals with the capacity for rational speech, there is a certain thing in human nature which (to a greater or lesser extent depending on the individual in question, but all in some measure) requires proper public speech, friendly association, and civic participation to be made whole in this world.
The corruption of this process of citizenship--for which our faculties endow us but which also requires, at the very least, growth, teaching, and example--begins with the corruption of our speech. And this corruption is not only corrosive to our politics, it mauls our nature.
In the worst cases, as you and others have alluded to, it is the conveyer to despotism.
Oct '10
Re: Political Economy and Language: Missing a Link
I hope everyone here is familiar with the classic essay on this issue: George Orwell's "Politics and the English Language." Orwell claims that murky bureaucratese makes it easier for states to rationalize their abuse of citizens:
That last sentence puts the finger on the problem: language should conjure up clear mental images for the reader or listener. Orwell's own vivid metaphors show us the way.
Apr '11
Re: Political Economy and Language: Missing a Link
Stuart Creque: "Cruel and unusual" is another phrase that's been twisted over the centuries.
But wasn't Orwell's entire thesis in1984that the control of language and history gives rulers the control of the very ideas that drive society?
1 hour ago
Most readers miss the point of 1984. It's not the technology which represses the dystopia; it's the manipulation of language.
For those interested, Jeff Goldstein at Protein Wisdom has some interesting thoughts.
Start here.
Re: Political Economy and Language: Missing a Link
I discuss much of what you have brought up in the second part of the article series, which examines instances of linguistic manipulation. In this piece, I mostly wanted to focus on the common basis of both language and economy: means of exchange.
As I hope you'll see in this and next week's post, however, is that I am not so much concerned with obvious euphemisms, but with the subtler loss of meaning of actual words we use. It's easy to see re-labeling and prettifying, yet it's not so easy to notice that there are words disappearing from misuse.
Orwell and others pointed to active manipulation, but there are ways the state is changing our language without themselves realizing.
Mar '11
Re: Political Economy and Language: Missing a Link
Maura Pennington:
As I hope you'll see in this and next week's post, however, is that I am not so much concerned with obvious euphemisms, but with the subtler loss of meaning of actual words we use. It's easy to see re-labeling and prettifying, yet it's not so easy to notice that there are words disappearing from misuse.
Orwell and others pointed to active manipulation, but there are ways the state is changing our language without themselves realizing.
Words disappear. Words sometimes just change. The Founding Fathers had a pretty good grip on what "high crimes and misdemeanors" meant, but the original meaning has been lost to most people. "Awful" did not start out as meaning really, really bad, but you'll never hear it used as it was originally.
Apr '11
Re: Political Economy and Language: Missing a Link
“The vermillion-coiffed human specimen with whom I bartered verbiage was convivial.” If only something that lively would come from (or be required by) our bureaucrats. It would probably be more like, "The individual that[sic] could be described as having 'red' (PANTONE Red 032, Federal Color Schedule #67f3) hair, spoke to this Quality Maintenance Specialist II for a period of time of approximately two (2) minutes, concerning a suitable location for the acquisition of item 46 on the Federal Beverage Table (rev. 2006a), commonly referred to as "coffee." At the conclusion of this exchange, this QMS (II) logged said interaction on forms 1080, 430, and 220, sections A-F, 2L-16x, and sub-section 5378c[4], respectively."