Think before you open your mouth !
Death Sentance: The Decay of Public Language
Don Watson (2003), Random House, Sydney
Don Watson worries. He worries that ‘public language’ is drifting into banality. Managerialism is to blame. Public language is what we hear or read in letters from our investment companies explaining how committed to their clients they are, in public sector annual reports justifying growth in expenditure and from our political leaders, to save them from lying.
Bad public language originated in the business world, from management experts ('consultants') seeking to justify their fees. It exploded in the mid-90s when the World Wide Web filled up with company mission statements, lists of corporate values and sample resumes for the next generation of culture warriors. All of sudden anybody could copy and paste this gumph. It didn't really matter that it meant nothing to us - if everybody is in on the same wheeze, then no one is going to ask those awkward questions like "so what do you actually mean when you say you are 'committed to exceeding your client's expectations'?"
But now it has escaped and like GM pollen, it is billowing around the country, changing the form of prose permanently. It has become so overused, people no longer actively listen to it, for the meaning is lost on them within the first few utterances. Our eyes glaze over and our brains turn to mulch when we hear it. We just bide our time before we spout our own platitudinous hogwash. And it is plainly rubbish prose - it lacks rhythm, passion and an ability to evolve. It also lacks verbs; 'doing words'.
Importantly, this vernacular gives our decision-makers wriggle room. Politicians and bureaucrats can discharge weasel words to evade a difficult answer and can use them in countering an argument, whilst still appearing to say 'yes' to everyone. In short, it damages our democracy.
Don Watson is someone who would prefer the schmaltzy, rousing speech given by the President of the United States (aka Bill Pullman) before the final battle in the movie Independence Day to a lifeless 'client prospectus' for a 'learning institution, moving forward with a reform agenda'.
We all nearly chundered when we heard it, but read it or listen to it again. It is full of verbs, emotion and imagery. It is a little melodramatic. But then, so what?
Watson perfectly understands that the English language continually evolves. He acknowledges that currently, the language is massively larger that it ever has been. Only we use so little of it. Contemporary public language is a dead language - it has headed down an evolutionary cul de sac, like the Neanderthals of the Pleistocene age. It has no where to go, other than to re-order the same lead-weight words. It may survive for a long time yet, but ultimately it is barren, and so doomed.
"We're fighting for our right to live; to exist.And should we win the day, the 4th of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day when the world declared in one voice: "We will not go quietly into the night. We will not vanish without a fight. We're going to live on. We're going to survive."
Today, we celebrate our Independence Day!"
George Orwell invented 'Newspeak' for the totalitarian world he created in his book, 1984. Nowadays, many of his "A" and "B Vocabulary" Newspeak words have entered common diction - 'Newspeak' itself, but also 'sexcrime', 'thoughtpolice' and 'doubleplus'. We have even invented some of our own - 'managementspeak' and 'qualitytime'.
The purpose of the fictional architects of Newspeak was to make it impossible for good Party Members to ever go 'off message' (or 'offmessage' in the Newspeak variant). Heretical words and whole dictionaries of synonyms were erased. But worse still, the meanings of words, words that have served as the medium for grand ideas such as Marxism, liberalism and conservatism, were stripped bare to be left as empty vessels for describing the banal within a narrow range of sanctioned thought.
Thus, Orwell recounts that the word 'equal' is retained in Newspeak and 'all men are created equal' is a valid Newspeak sentence, were it not for the preposterous assertion that it makes. All men cannot be created of equal height, weight and shape. The political or revolutionary resonance that 'equality' once had was purged and long forgotten.
But this is no fictional dystopia. Language is held hostage today. Politicians no longer fight for 'equality'. We certainly still hear the word, but today it is only uttered with the conjoined caveat: "…of opportunity". Hear the phrase often enough and soon, the "… of opportunity" can be quietly dropped and our only understanding of the concept of equality will have been transformed into that signified by our equal opportunity not to be poor.
The larger ideal of political, legal and, most certainly, material equality as a social project is forgotten and the left will be unable to articulate their demands to an apathetic public.
Don Watson is no drama queen. He does not see the steady decay in public language as something we should take to the streets and throw up the barricades over. There should be no ‘Coalition of the Willing’, fighting a ‘War on Terrible Prose’. He would be quite content, for starters, to see words such as 'enhance', 'outcomes' and 'empower' banished for a while; for the English language to grasp back the virility that has been stolen from it by the permissive managerialism of life.
He just wants us to use more verbs. No one ever did anything through a succession of adjectives.
Watson stops short of saying that our language is being manipulated to serve the interests of business and a media driven politics. It is true that there are no 'grand architects' busily expunging our language of 'ungoodthinkfulness'. But it is also no random 'drift' towards banality. It is being persistently and quietly shaped into this shapeless morass by ad-men and spin-doctors and those that wish to be like them.
Managerialism has invaded our private lives as it is emulated in all public language, from brochures for holiday destinations to the annual reports of crusty museums, taken up by the managerial revolution and trying to act like a corporation. People are learning to become 'good duckspeakers' (or even 'doubleplusgood duckspeakers') in all aspects of their lives. It is no longer restricted to corporate 'mission statements' and it is invading our homes and personal lives. We talk of 'enhancing our work-life balance' (why does 'work' always come before 'life'?) and female 'empowerment' to our peers and loved ones. We even hear it on daytime TV as Dr Phil tells us to ‘enhance our lives by committing to understand the values of our partners’.
When we have been thoroughly indoctrinated into this world of dead and meaningless prose, devoid of imagination, nuance and action, then the task will be complete. Humans will exist solely to ensure the continuing survival of the corporation. We will no longer be equipped with the verbal tools to argue to the contrary, for the necessary words will have been either forgotten or stripped of heretical meaning: to 'live' will simply mean 'to consume'.
Don Watson may still be relaxed about the steady decay in public language, but a sinister edge is well disguised by its gradual change.
Full text of the President's speech in Independence Day:
-------------------------------------------------------
- The Principles of Newspeak by George Orwell
Thursday, September 09, 2004
Election hots up
Best of buddies: ALP Leader Mark Latham and incumbent PM, John Howard
Leading Australian politicians have poetically responded to accusations that the Federal election campaign is being dumbed-down, by taking part in a head to head, full-on, fight-to-the-death, poetry competition.
Critics had previously slammed Federal Treasurer Peter Costello and ALP Leader Mark Latham for reducing the level of public debate in the run up to the election to facile three word, rhyming ‘catchphrases’.Earlier this week, Latham launched the ALP’s pre-election tax and benefit manifesto in which he said he would “Ease the Squeeze” on hard-working middle income families.
Responding later that day, Costello hit back, criticising Latham for attempting to mislead the Australian public with inaccurate figures and trying to “Hoax the Folks”.Since then, two independent think-tanks have criticised the leading political parties for attempting to ‘denigrate the quality of public debate’ and of ‘reducing a fundamental democratic freedom [that of voting] to a choice between who can come up with the catchiest prose’.
Emmanuel Hinds, from the Public Institute for Society, Synergies and Providing Objective Open Rhetoric (PISS-POOR) said:“The main parties are both doing the Australian voting public a huge disservice by turning the most important aspects of democracy into a juvenile game of sound bite rapping.”
“If Howard and Latham are serious about engaging the voters in this election campaign, then they’re both going to have to lift their game,” he said.“Simple three word ditties just don’t cut it. Quality public debate can only come from a more challenging poetic forms,” he concluded.
To answer their critics, the leaders of the two main parties, incumbent PM John Howard and Latham went live to broadcast yesterday in a more meaningful poetry competition, where more difficult forms of verse were tackled.Opening up, in the “Limerick Lambast” round, John Howard foretold of a humbling end to the ALP leader’s election challenge:
Who thought himself a fairly bright spark.
But the great Aussie voters,
Those reliable doubters,
Left the ALP in the dark.
Not to be outdone, Latham hit back:
That old John Howard just seemed to laugh,
As though he thought lying just wasn’t so daft.
He’s done it before now,
God only how knows how,
Let’s see him wired to that polygraph.
Round two required the challengers to adopt the style of 19th Century American poet, Edgar Allan Poe in “The Raven”. Again, Howard led off:
Once in a poll Down Under, the ALP it tried to plunder,
An election victory by gaining many more seats than e’er before.
Latham, he tried to hoax them, and into his fold a-coax them,
But the battlers would not trust him, no matter what he implore.
He’ll take less than seventy-four and nothing more.
To which Latham retorted:
Though the lying rodent maybe smiling, his demeanour is non-beguiling,
With grotesque deceit he remains a-rotten to the core.
For the man he has no backing and in honesty he’s lacking,
For the children overboard, ‘tis the blame that he should have bore.
I ask only this of him and nothing more.
In the rough and tumble of electioneering, the poetry play-off provided welcome relief for many voters, away from the usual humdrum of unintelligent and sycophantic, lowest-common-denominator clap-trap that is usually trotted about this time.
Next week, organisers of the poetry event are arranging a burping competition to continue the in the spirit of raising the standard of public political debate. It is hoped that incumbent Health Minister, Tony Abbott and former Labor Leader and big hitter, Simon Crean can meet the challenge.
| I am employed by Brisbane City Council. All views expressed in this blog are my own and in no way reflect the views of my employer. |
From WeaselWords.com.au