A World Where Everything Can Be Called Anything Else Mark Olson Honor’s Thesis Professor McGuffey 2014/15 2 Introduction All words like Peace and Love, All sane affirmative speech, Had been soiled, profaned, debased To a horrid mechanical screech. -W.H. Auden1 It seems to go without saying that our ability to use language to communicate with people is a human faculty of the utmost importance. Speech is, after all, what distinguishes us from other species, and was a key reason for human development. However, if one impartially observes everyday mainstream political discourse, or the speeches of politicians, it becomes apparent that something is amiss. The marketplace of ideas seems to be functioning as the theory suggests; ideas are being freely exchanged at a dizzying speed on the relatively unrestricted Internet and elsewhere. But a cursory glance at the various political ideas being exchanged reveals that certain political words have various meanings, depending on who is using them, and these various meanings often “cannot be reconciled with one another.”2 How does this happen? And would it be appropriate to say that some people are abusing, or misusing, political words? Or is using political words however one pleases just the “natural” result of a democratic society that cherishes freedom of speech? 1 W.H. Auden, “We Too Had Known Golden Hours.” Quoted from Hannah Arendt’s speech that was delivered upon receiving Denmark’s Sonning Prize in 1975, and published in Responsibility and Judgment. Page 10. 2 Orwell, George. George Orwell Essays. “Politics and the English Language.” page 959 3 The issue of words having irreconcilable meanings does not seem to be a problem, for example, in the physical sciences. It would be strange for a physicist to adopt a new meaning for the word gravity without any kind of coherent reasoning; this would go against the standards that are put in place in the physical sciences. Thus controversy surrounding the meanings of the words in the physical sciences rarely happens, and attention is mainly focused on the competing theories within the given field of science. However, this issue is not always the case in the political world. For example, the socialist literature of the 19th and 20th century expressed socialism to mean a system in which the workers own and control the means of production, consumption, and distribution. Yet it is common to hear people in right- wing circles say that President Obama and the Democrats are implementing socialism in America. Has the meaning of socialism changed? It would be difficult to justify a claim that President Obama is creating policies that hand over ownership and control of America’s businesses to the workers. What makes it even stranger is that those who consider themselves socialist are saying that President Obama and the Democrats are implementing policies that are anything but socialism.3 How can there be such a stark difference between the two points of view on the meaning of one word? The partial answer is that many political ideas are still contested within the political world and have not reached a consensus that is shared by all, unlike how the concept of gravity, or other aspects in the physical sciences, eventually reached a 3 The “World Socialist Website” is a place where today’s socialists publish their perspectives. A quick glance at the various articles quickly reveals a starkly different picture of President Obama and the Democrats. www.wsws.org 4 consensus and became scientific law. And because of the contested nature of these political ideas they remain in competition in the marketplace of ideas; that is, a person or an institution can argue that socialism is X, Y and Z, while another set of people can argue that socialism is actually A, B and C. The theory of the marketplace of ideas suggests that the truth will emerge from a free and fair competition. But what kinds of standards exist within this marketplace of ideas? And would it be fair if a group of people with greater resources and access to mass communications could attempt to undermine the meaning of a political idea so that their idea will gain an advantage in the marketplace of ideas? What begins to become apparent is that the standards in the political world are much looser than the standards used in the physical sciences. In other words, there is no permanent committee that regulates and approves of the meanings of important words used in mainstream political discourse.4 But neither is there in the physical sciences. This seems to suggest that the contested nature of political ideas might be more of an issue because politics mainly deals with the unsettled, and often turbulent, question of Who rules Whom? The important question of who rules whom thus may reveal why political, economic, and religious ideas seem to be in a continuous competition. The proponents of various political, economic, and religious ideas seek to offer their adherents the best explanation of a complex, diverse, and continuously changing world, and also believe their ideas offer the best strategy for the future. But why do the meanings of certain political words also have to fall prey to the continuously 4 Point of clarification: when I speak of the standards in mainstream political discourse I am excluding the standards that exist in academia. 5 changing world? Why can’t we just create new political words to represent the new ideas, or evolving ideas? It would be one thing if the contested meaning of a political word were a new concept, but many political words have been around for over a century, some much longer. Thus one of the consequences of the contested nature of political ideas is that the meaning of the words used to describe them, like socialism, are abused and become victims, so to speak, in the struggle over how the world should be ruled. This problem then creates a situation in which words become ambiguous and indeterminate. How do political words become indeterminate? Was this a problem in pre- modern times, or is it just a problem that arose during modernity? In this essay I will explore these questions and argue that the abuse and misuse of political words by various political actors are creating indeterminate political words, which leads to the degradation of political discourse. An example of the abuse of political words would be people’s using them more as pejoratives to attack political opponents. The use of pejoratives in speech is often used to conceal facts and divert attention away from much needed arguments, rather than to explain and understand the various issues. And an example of the misuse of political words would be ordinary people’s inappropriately using words through lack of understanding and/or mimicking the talking points of their trusted sources for understanding politics. This is a problem because it causes confusion throughout society and hinders our ability to find common ground. I am not going to suggest that I have the solutions to the problem; rather this essay will explore the various causes of the misuse and abuse of political language by highlighting the insights of four prominent political thinkers on 6 language: Plato, Alexis de Tocqueville, George Orwell, and Hannah Arendt. My hope is that this exploration will help contribute to, and deepen, the discussion regarding the degradation of political discourse. In the first part of this paper I will be using the insights found in Hannah Arendt’s work to discuss the importance of speech for political life, and how words are something that we use to appropriate nature and the various things we produce in this world. Arendt argued that not only was language common to us all, but that nature and the innumerable amount of things in this world were common to us all as well – even though our relations towards these things varies from person to person. Arendt also believed that speech and action are the single most important conditions of human life, so much so that life without them would not be life at all.5 The second part of the essay will then explore how the degradation of language happens in the political world. To do this I will again use the insights of Arendt on what she saw as people failing to make important distinctions when engaging in political discourse, and a phenomenon that she called “the functionalization of all concepts and ideas.” The functionalization of concepts is when a person starts labeling a distinct concept by using another distinct concept’s name because they believe the two different concepts serves the same function in society. For example, people sometimes call communism a religion because the adherents of communism supposedly worship the idea of communism like religious adherents worship their respective religious dogmas. Arendt believed that this 5 Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. Page 176. 7 leads to confusing the issues because people no longer make the important distinctions between the concepts and ideas. The second part of looking at the degradation of language will then use the insights of George Orwell and his observations on the abuse and misuse of language in society. Orwell observed that society appeared to be moving away from the use of concrete language and toward the use of abstract language. He also saw how the use of indeterminate political words and vague language had a special ramification for the political world by highlighting how partisans used these words. And the third part of the essay will then explore possible reasons for the degradation of language by looking at the insights of Plato, and also of Alexis de Tocqueville.