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Philosophy and Corruption of Language

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

Caleb Thompson
Caleb Thompson
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
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Extract

Most people are acquainted with the abuse of language that is involved in political propaganda. They accept that even in the best of times politicians aim, in part, to deceive their listeners, to put a good face on the worst of failures, to play down the successes of their opponents. In a general way, political language aims to guide people's perceptions of conditions and events in a way that is favourable to the interests of a politician and his party, interests which may or may not be consistent with the interest of his listeners. Such language is not meant to engender consideration of issues, but rather to free them from the burden of consideration. In the worst of times there is little or no interest in the fidelity between a speaker and his words and between words and things. The accuracy of language is abandoned in favour of its effect; truth is subordinated to ambition.

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 67 , Issue 259 , January 1992 , pp. 19 - 31
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1992

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References

1 Orwell, George, ‘Looking Back on the Spanish War’, My Country Right or Left, Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, Vol. II, 4 vols (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World), 2: 256. The italics are mine.Google Scholar

2 Orwell, George, ‘Politics and the English Language’, In Front of Your Nose, The Collected Essays, Journalism, and Letters of George Orwell, Vol. IV, 4 vols (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1968), 4: 132.Google Scholar

3 Weil, Simone, ‘The Power of Words’, in Simone Weil: An Anthology, Miles, Siân (ed.) (New York: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1986), 222.Google Scholar

4 For another good case of this, see des Pres, Terrence, ‘On Governing Narratives: The Turkish Armenian Case’ in The Yale Review (Summer, 1986) pp. 517–531Google Scholar. Des Pres points out the way that it has become intellectually respectable to doubt the occurrence of the Armenian holocaust. He argues that what are ordinarily standards of scholarly objectivity (e.g., ‘There are two sides to a story’) are there being used to represent the political interests of Turkey and the United States.

5 Op. cit. note 2, 139.

6 Op. cit. note 3, 222.

7 Op. cit. note 2, 360.

8 Op. cit. note 3, 222.

9 Ibid., 237.

10 Op. cit. note 2, 129–130.

11 Ibid., 138.

12 James, William, Varieties of Religious Experience (New York: Penguin, 1982), 13.Google Scholar

13 Op. cit. note 2, 127.

14 Ibid., 128.

15 Op. cit. note 3, 237.

16 Ibid., 237.

17 Ibid., 222.

18 Ibid., 222.

19 Op. cit. note 2, 139–140.

20 Ayer, A. J., Language Truth and Logic (New York: Dover, 1952), 5.Google Scholar

21 Ibid., 64.

22 Ibid., 34.

23 Op. cit. note 3, 237.

24 See Cavell, Stanley, The Claim of Reason (Oxford University Press, 1979), 264–92.Google Scholar

25 Ibid., 290.

26 Ibid., 290.

27 Op. cit. note 2, 139.

28 I am grateful to Cora Diamond for her comments on earlier drafts of this paper.