‘Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way’. How true, you might think (especially when you’e listening to someone turning every statement into a question). However, the quotation is taken not from a statement by the chief inspector of Ofsted nor the latest Minister of Education but George Orwell in 1946 (in his essay Politics and the English Language) making an appeal for clarity in communication in the face of what he saw at the time as the greatest threat to the simple, honest expression of ideas: the Latinate, prefabricated off-the-peg phrases which simulate articulate speech while actually substituting a gloss of words for real meaning (the language we probably identify now with caricatured politicians, particularly when they begin: ‘Let me be perfectly clear...’. Orwell was pleading (or demanding) a return to the brutal simplicity of our original Saxon dialect and his essay quietly and effectively demonstrates how slovenliness in the use of language leads to slovenly thinking and vise versa (usually, in the case of politicians, with highly deliberate intent). Simple, straightforward clarity is all, he tells us. In other words, everyone should write in the style of George Orwell.
As a conclusion he leaves the reader with a set of ‘rules’ (or commandments):
So, what is the legacy: a decent set of values for precise communication? Listen to an any episode in the continuing saga of Question Time and make your own mind up on how far we’ve taken any notice of these rules since his death (contrast the language of public and panelists, for example). However, reading the rules now in 2015, what do you think the politically correct crowd would make of number 5; mistake it for UKIP policy? Should any enterprising English teacher attempt to turn this list into a wallchart for their classroom, Twitter would be alive with the habitual straining pulses, the rabid ramblings of those who lust to be offended: the usual crowd of Muslims, Homosexuals, Feminists.etc; in fact, any ‘minority’ beginning with a capital letter (no one is offended as an individual these days) capable of mobilising a political army through the instantaneous magic of social media, before clogging up the airwaves of every available talk show. (‘As a woman, ..As a Gay man...As a Muslim living in this country, I feel...this teacher/cartoonist/comedian/broadcaster must be castrated BEFORE he is burned alive for the sin he has committed against Allah, Peace be unto him, etc, etc,etc). Has there ever been an easier time to offend? Have the consequences ever been so assuredly fatal?
No wonder the most casual of comments are doctored, the ambitious neurotically guarded, and we have the blandest politicians in history. The cliches of PR soundbites could write themselves and usually do: ‘Freedom of Speech is a fundamental right of our...’, ‘We live in a democracy where even...’, or most embarrassing of all: ‘I don’t believe what you say but I will fight for your right to say it... as long as you don’t offend anyone’. The last part of that particular phrase strangely never seems to carry over the airwaves although we can hear it in the tone with the audio perception of trained dogs(the first part about fighting is usually uncannily uttered by someone who looks more at home with interior design than hand to hand combat). Today the threat to clarity of expression is not the lack of care Orwell perceived in the post-War 40s but its polar opposite, the compulsive concern and attention, the servile bedside manner employed to nurse the most innocuous comment, lest someone, somewhere with an omnipresent surveillance should find offence; the self censorship imposed by political correctness.
What is political correctness? The Oxford dictionary defines it as ‘the avoidance of forms of expression or action that are perceived to exclude, marginalize, or insult groups of people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against.’ It’s original meaning, however, was the dogmatic application of Stalinist doctrine (not many people know that), as caricatured in Orwell’s own vision of the Thought Police.
The ‘avoidance’ is the key. Where have we heard such negativity before? ‘Thou shalt not...have false gods before me. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbours ass...no matter how firm and toned.’ Employ a law, police it and you no longer have to think about it any more, in any situation, at any time. You don’t, effectively, have to think. If we abolish distasteful expression, eliminate the words from our vocabulary, by another small miracle of PR we have eliminated the problem. We have done the job; that’s it, end of story. No more to be said. We can think what we like, behave how we feel as long as we don’t use ‘those’ words.
Barack Obama, the black man in the white house, a leader elected in a messianic campaign of adulation even by the standards of American politics (jazz hands and bowed heads, laughter and weeping), the breaking surf on the wave of the long struggle for civil rights in the land of the free, made just this point within the calm atmosphere of a radio studio, in a calm discussion of the current state of his less than united states. ‘Racism,’ he says, confronting the issue, ‘we are not cured of it. And it is not just a matter of it not being polite to say nigger in public. That’s not the measure of whether racism still exists or not.‘ Wow. A simple statement, clearly expressed...by a politician. Orwell’s eyes widening. Listening to the man’s quiet honesty, you might be moved to a little respect, might even relax the cynical true lie detector for a few seconds reflection on how he still thinks, despite the death and damage of 60 years of struggle, despite the inspiration of his own career trajectory, racism remains rife in America, in the hearts and minds of every state in the union, in a good number of the very Congressmen he will have to confront the following day and every other day to the end of his tenure. And he has simply said what he thinks. How surprised would you be then, surfing the channels, to see the response of banner headlines in the consequent news broadcasts: ‘Obama uses the N word!’
The English GCSE syllabus has quite rightly employed Steinbeck’s modern classic Of Mice and Men for many years now, it is a favourite with examination boards, teachers and students alike, particularly as it has the power to emotionally engage teenagers right across the ability range. Some who might never pick up another piece of literature again in the their life will remember the very human relationship between Lennie and George with passionate affection. I know, I’ve heard them. The fact that the book contains 11 repetitions of ‘the N word’ is a statistic which has managed to pass unnoticed by readers for a good part of a century and even now can be quite lost among the rest of the colloquial vocabulary of the uneducated ranch workers of the 1930s, for which a glossary is provided in some editions. This short novelette is the second most famous title in the opus of a man who won the Nobel prize in 1962 for his portrayal of real people in their own real language, a writer actually championing the dispossessed and downtrodden, exposing the reality of the social structure of capitalist America at its lowest point in the Depression. The word ‘nigger’ - let’s see and hear what we’re talking about, please - actually illustrates the dehumanising of the character of Crooks, the negro ‘stablebuck’, a point Steinbeck elaborates in detail in an entire chapter and which is frequently the focus of exam questions. Now, without a whimper of protest from exam boards who have employed it for so long, the book has now been withdrawn from the GCSE syllabus, and although not baldly stated, one can only assume the move seeks to avoid allegations of offence (no matter how ignorant or ill informed) taken by what is now largely a multicultural audience ‘educated’ in political correctness.
The N word: what a cumbersome mouthful. It has something in common with all that ‘Peace be to the Prophet’ parroting we hear all too frequently now, contorting eyes and mouths into pious, po-faced gurning. The N Word, Y word, W word, C word and F word. I had to Google the W word and I was shocked: where I come from it means Wanker (and what the f**k is this ‘g-d’ business). Soon we’ll have a whole alphabet of political correctness and we can insult each other in abbreviation: ‘Don’t treat me like a C, you F’ing N’. What do we think we’re doing with this text language? Do we really believe we eliminate prejudice merely by eliminating a word (which is hardly disguised by its initial) as if the symptom is the disease itself? Have we regressed to the state of children? It’s not big and it’s not adult. We are merely stockpiling ammunition for the bitter politics of the playground where bullies are prepared to use anything to assert themselves at the expense of others: ‘I’m telling. You used the N word... Please Miss, he used the N word (and he’s the fucking President)...Dad, Mr G was reading to the class today and he used the N word’ A more dangerous version of this infantile game is played out in the halls of academia where many a promising career has been maliciously destroyed.
What we need is a Lenny Bruce of the 21st Century. Insert routine of your choice: how about : ‘...the word’s supression gives it the power, the violence, the viciousness. If President Kennedy got on television and said, ‘Tonight I’d like to introduce the niggers in my cabinet,’ and he yelled ‘niggerniggerniggerniggerniggernigger ‘ at every nigger he saw...till nigger didn’t mean anything anymore, till nigger lost its meaning - you’d never make any four year old cry when he came home from school.’
The N word. Don’t get me wrong, it can see the (twisted) logic. It is possible in the forseeable future to have a whole generation ignorant of the actual words behind these letters, they won’t be any less racist, homophobic or kinder to women, they will just have invented a new vocabulary.
What would Orwell have made of the Political Correctness business?
Orwell is revered not only by those who know his work but those who have never read a single word he has written, partly because, even now, he may be one of the few political and social commentators anyone can name, but mostly because his magnum opus has been reduced to a series of ‘catchphrases’ so organically absorbed into mainstream culture we barely remember their origin. For over a decade now, Big Brother has showcased an annual (or bi-annual, if we’re including the ‘celebrity’ offshoot) rag bag of neurotic, hyper-active wannabes and transvestites; most of whom would be suitable candidates for Room 101, which, by coincidence, is the title of a tired format for grumpy complaints by somewhat more sedate ‘celebrities’ highlighting the petty irritations of modern consumer life; a format dependent upon but still awaiting the injection of redeeming humour. Less popular is the Double Think, Double Speak franchise wherein politicians compete with each other in the skill of simultaneously holding rival contradictory views (usually exhibiting the language cited in the essay above). Not so high in the ratings, and characterised by repetition, overkill and an exhausting dominance of the schedules, it nonetheless tends to be revived every 5 years, despite relentlessly drawing fewer votes than most of its interactive ‘Reality’ competitors. Television was in its infancy when Orwell died; one wonders what he would make of this use of the dysfunctional totalitarian society he slaved to redraft in the remote and inhospitable island of Jura? Although he died in poverty, his thoughts might not merely concern his royalties and repeat fees.
What would he make of the language our politicians employ (although, to be fair, similar complaints might be justified by apologists throughout history) and the small army of researchers, advisers, speech writers and spin doctors on the payroll to produce it? TV, of course, has changed all that old school rhetoric. The battleground has long since shifted from the craft of persuasive debate, eliminating the challenge, the heckling, the potential triumph or humiliation offered by the old forums; now we have the claustrophobia of the TV studio where the interrogating camera’s up close and personal micro-scrutiny of half smiles, concealed smirks, desperate glances, damp foreheads, etc. ensures a studied determination to avoid any clear answer that might later be translated by media lackeys into an honest statement (which might have to be justified as if you really believed what you said). And at all costs, never, never, never allow yourself to be coaxed into spontaneity or you might be conned into genuine feeling and actually say what you think...and possible offend. The brutal truth must be hidden, at all costs, behind a barricade of bland, assembly-line soundbites delivered by the faceless, styled into invisibility (caricaturists have their work cut out in the 21st century): ‘This is the work of extremists...not ordinary Muslims. Islam is a peaceful religion...blah,blah,blah.’ How far this is dysfunctional to the workings of democracy can be seen in the voting figures (especially of the young). Disaffection with the meaningless gibber, the corruption of both personal morals and public funds, combined with the isolation of career politicians in parties divorced from anything resembling an ideology and all sealed within the public school bubble of entitlement in Westminster, has undermined the whole system. No one talks with conviction and, as no one is really talking, no one is listening.
Surely, with a simple Orwellian logic, we can assume we are now living in times ripe for passion, when any moderately charismatic speaker with nothing to lose could make an impact he could hardly have imagined in an earlier generation of genuine individuals. Farage, Johnson, now Corbyn (the solitary human among the inept ventriloquist dummies in Labour’s recent, farcical, leadership election) have taken the foreground as ‘politicians the public can believe in’ and at least two of these have proved there is nothing to lose by answering questions with simple, direct statements employing the vocabulary of the common man, the man (or woman) most likely to be voting for them (Johnson, of course has his own persona, providing him with a range of techniques for endearingly avoiding questions altogether). Surely, you would think, their very success points the way forward.
As for the N word, Wasn’t it Chuck D who said: ‘Words don’t mean shit, Nigger. Show me you ain’t no mu’fuckn racist; give me a mu’fuckn job.’ No, on second thoughts, I don’t think it was.
As so often in our culture, Shakespeare has already got there first and most succinctly: ‘Talking isn’t doing. It is a kind of good deed to say well; and yet words are not deeds.’
DG 2015
As a conclusion he leaves the reader with a set of ‘rules’ (or commandments):
- Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
- Never use a long word where a short one will do.
- If it is possible to cut a word out, cut it out.
- Never use the passive where you can use the active
- Never use a foreign phrase or a jargon where you can think of an everyday English equivalent
- Break all these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
So, what is the legacy: a decent set of values for precise communication? Listen to an any episode in the continuing saga of Question Time and make your own mind up on how far we’ve taken any notice of these rules since his death (contrast the language of public and panelists, for example). However, reading the rules now in 2015, what do you think the politically correct crowd would make of number 5; mistake it for UKIP policy? Should any enterprising English teacher attempt to turn this list into a wallchart for their classroom, Twitter would be alive with the habitual straining pulses, the rabid ramblings of those who lust to be offended: the usual crowd of Muslims, Homosexuals, Feminists.etc; in fact, any ‘minority’ beginning with a capital letter (no one is offended as an individual these days) capable of mobilising a political army through the instantaneous magic of social media, before clogging up the airwaves of every available talk show. (‘As a woman, ..As a Gay man...As a Muslim living in this country, I feel...this teacher/cartoonist/comedian/broadcaster must be castrated BEFORE he is burned alive for the sin he has committed against Allah, Peace be unto him, etc, etc,etc). Has there ever been an easier time to offend? Have the consequences ever been so assuredly fatal?
No wonder the most casual of comments are doctored, the ambitious neurotically guarded, and we have the blandest politicians in history. The cliches of PR soundbites could write themselves and usually do: ‘Freedom of Speech is a fundamental right of our...’, ‘We live in a democracy where even...’, or most embarrassing of all: ‘I don’t believe what you say but I will fight for your right to say it... as long as you don’t offend anyone’. The last part of that particular phrase strangely never seems to carry over the airwaves although we can hear it in the tone with the audio perception of trained dogs(the first part about fighting is usually uncannily uttered by someone who looks more at home with interior design than hand to hand combat). Today the threat to clarity of expression is not the lack of care Orwell perceived in the post-War 40s but its polar opposite, the compulsive concern and attention, the servile bedside manner employed to nurse the most innocuous comment, lest someone, somewhere with an omnipresent surveillance should find offence; the self censorship imposed by political correctness.
What is political correctness? The Oxford dictionary defines it as ‘the avoidance of forms of expression or action that are perceived to exclude, marginalize, or insult groups of people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against.’ It’s original meaning, however, was the dogmatic application of Stalinist doctrine (not many people know that), as caricatured in Orwell’s own vision of the Thought Police.
The ‘avoidance’ is the key. Where have we heard such negativity before? ‘Thou shalt not...have false gods before me. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbours ass...no matter how firm and toned.’ Employ a law, police it and you no longer have to think about it any more, in any situation, at any time. You don’t, effectively, have to think. If we abolish distasteful expression, eliminate the words from our vocabulary, by another small miracle of PR we have eliminated the problem. We have done the job; that’s it, end of story. No more to be said. We can think what we like, behave how we feel as long as we don’t use ‘those’ words.
Barack Obama, the black man in the white house, a leader elected in a messianic campaign of adulation even by the standards of American politics (jazz hands and bowed heads, laughter and weeping), the breaking surf on the wave of the long struggle for civil rights in the land of the free, made just this point within the calm atmosphere of a radio studio, in a calm discussion of the current state of his less than united states. ‘Racism,’ he says, confronting the issue, ‘we are not cured of it. And it is not just a matter of it not being polite to say nigger in public. That’s not the measure of whether racism still exists or not.‘ Wow. A simple statement, clearly expressed...by a politician. Orwell’s eyes widening. Listening to the man’s quiet honesty, you might be moved to a little respect, might even relax the cynical true lie detector for a few seconds reflection on how he still thinks, despite the death and damage of 60 years of struggle, despite the inspiration of his own career trajectory, racism remains rife in America, in the hearts and minds of every state in the union, in a good number of the very Congressmen he will have to confront the following day and every other day to the end of his tenure. And he has simply said what he thinks. How surprised would you be then, surfing the channels, to see the response of banner headlines in the consequent news broadcasts: ‘Obama uses the N word!’
The English GCSE syllabus has quite rightly employed Steinbeck’s modern classic Of Mice and Men for many years now, it is a favourite with examination boards, teachers and students alike, particularly as it has the power to emotionally engage teenagers right across the ability range. Some who might never pick up another piece of literature again in the their life will remember the very human relationship between Lennie and George with passionate affection. I know, I’ve heard them. The fact that the book contains 11 repetitions of ‘the N word’ is a statistic which has managed to pass unnoticed by readers for a good part of a century and even now can be quite lost among the rest of the colloquial vocabulary of the uneducated ranch workers of the 1930s, for which a glossary is provided in some editions. This short novelette is the second most famous title in the opus of a man who won the Nobel prize in 1962 for his portrayal of real people in their own real language, a writer actually championing the dispossessed and downtrodden, exposing the reality of the social structure of capitalist America at its lowest point in the Depression. The word ‘nigger’ - let’s see and hear what we’re talking about, please - actually illustrates the dehumanising of the character of Crooks, the negro ‘stablebuck’, a point Steinbeck elaborates in detail in an entire chapter and which is frequently the focus of exam questions. Now, without a whimper of protest from exam boards who have employed it for so long, the book has now been withdrawn from the GCSE syllabus, and although not baldly stated, one can only assume the move seeks to avoid allegations of offence (no matter how ignorant or ill informed) taken by what is now largely a multicultural audience ‘educated’ in political correctness.
The N word: what a cumbersome mouthful. It has something in common with all that ‘Peace be to the Prophet’ parroting we hear all too frequently now, contorting eyes and mouths into pious, po-faced gurning. The N Word, Y word, W word, C word and F word. I had to Google the W word and I was shocked: where I come from it means Wanker (and what the f**k is this ‘g-d’ business). Soon we’ll have a whole alphabet of political correctness and we can insult each other in abbreviation: ‘Don’t treat me like a C, you F’ing N’. What do we think we’re doing with this text language? Do we really believe we eliminate prejudice merely by eliminating a word (which is hardly disguised by its initial) as if the symptom is the disease itself? Have we regressed to the state of children? It’s not big and it’s not adult. We are merely stockpiling ammunition for the bitter politics of the playground where bullies are prepared to use anything to assert themselves at the expense of others: ‘I’m telling. You used the N word... Please Miss, he used the N word (and he’s the fucking President)...Dad, Mr G was reading to the class today and he used the N word’ A more dangerous version of this infantile game is played out in the halls of academia where many a promising career has been maliciously destroyed.
What we need is a Lenny Bruce of the 21st Century. Insert routine of your choice: how about : ‘...the word’s supression gives it the power, the violence, the viciousness. If President Kennedy got on television and said, ‘Tonight I’d like to introduce the niggers in my cabinet,’ and he yelled ‘niggerniggerniggerniggerniggernigger ‘ at every nigger he saw...till nigger didn’t mean anything anymore, till nigger lost its meaning - you’d never make any four year old cry when he came home from school.’
The N word. Don’t get me wrong, it can see the (twisted) logic. It is possible in the forseeable future to have a whole generation ignorant of the actual words behind these letters, they won’t be any less racist, homophobic or kinder to women, they will just have invented a new vocabulary.
What would Orwell have made of the Political Correctness business?
Orwell is revered not only by those who know his work but those who have never read a single word he has written, partly because, even now, he may be one of the few political and social commentators anyone can name, but mostly because his magnum opus has been reduced to a series of ‘catchphrases’ so organically absorbed into mainstream culture we barely remember their origin. For over a decade now, Big Brother has showcased an annual (or bi-annual, if we’re including the ‘celebrity’ offshoot) rag bag of neurotic, hyper-active wannabes and transvestites; most of whom would be suitable candidates for Room 101, which, by coincidence, is the title of a tired format for grumpy complaints by somewhat more sedate ‘celebrities’ highlighting the petty irritations of modern consumer life; a format dependent upon but still awaiting the injection of redeeming humour. Less popular is the Double Think, Double Speak franchise wherein politicians compete with each other in the skill of simultaneously holding rival contradictory views (usually exhibiting the language cited in the essay above). Not so high in the ratings, and characterised by repetition, overkill and an exhausting dominance of the schedules, it nonetheless tends to be revived every 5 years, despite relentlessly drawing fewer votes than most of its interactive ‘Reality’ competitors. Television was in its infancy when Orwell died; one wonders what he would make of this use of the dysfunctional totalitarian society he slaved to redraft in the remote and inhospitable island of Jura? Although he died in poverty, his thoughts might not merely concern his royalties and repeat fees.
What would he make of the language our politicians employ (although, to be fair, similar complaints might be justified by apologists throughout history) and the small army of researchers, advisers, speech writers and spin doctors on the payroll to produce it? TV, of course, has changed all that old school rhetoric. The battleground has long since shifted from the craft of persuasive debate, eliminating the challenge, the heckling, the potential triumph or humiliation offered by the old forums; now we have the claustrophobia of the TV studio where the interrogating camera’s up close and personal micro-scrutiny of half smiles, concealed smirks, desperate glances, damp foreheads, etc. ensures a studied determination to avoid any clear answer that might later be translated by media lackeys into an honest statement (which might have to be justified as if you really believed what you said). And at all costs, never, never, never allow yourself to be coaxed into spontaneity or you might be conned into genuine feeling and actually say what you think...and possible offend. The brutal truth must be hidden, at all costs, behind a barricade of bland, assembly-line soundbites delivered by the faceless, styled into invisibility (caricaturists have their work cut out in the 21st century): ‘This is the work of extremists...not ordinary Muslims. Islam is a peaceful religion...blah,blah,blah.’ How far this is dysfunctional to the workings of democracy can be seen in the voting figures (especially of the young). Disaffection with the meaningless gibber, the corruption of both personal morals and public funds, combined with the isolation of career politicians in parties divorced from anything resembling an ideology and all sealed within the public school bubble of entitlement in Westminster, has undermined the whole system. No one talks with conviction and, as no one is really talking, no one is listening.
Surely, with a simple Orwellian logic, we can assume we are now living in times ripe for passion, when any moderately charismatic speaker with nothing to lose could make an impact he could hardly have imagined in an earlier generation of genuine individuals. Farage, Johnson, now Corbyn (the solitary human among the inept ventriloquist dummies in Labour’s recent, farcical, leadership election) have taken the foreground as ‘politicians the public can believe in’ and at least two of these have proved there is nothing to lose by answering questions with simple, direct statements employing the vocabulary of the common man, the man (or woman) most likely to be voting for them (Johnson, of course has his own persona, providing him with a range of techniques for endearingly avoiding questions altogether). Surely, you would think, their very success points the way forward.
As for the N word, Wasn’t it Chuck D who said: ‘Words don’t mean shit, Nigger. Show me you ain’t no mu’fuckn racist; give me a mu’fuckn job.’ No, on second thoughts, I don’t think it was.
As so often in our culture, Shakespeare has already got there first and most succinctly: ‘Talking isn’t doing. It is a kind of good deed to say well; and yet words are not deeds.’
DG 2015
