April 3, 2004
IT’S ALL IN THE NAME
It's always worse than you think (The New Criterion, April, 2004)
We have always fondly thought of England as at least the slightly more vigilant partner when it came to preserving propriety, respecting tradition, and resisting change undertaken merely for the sake of change. A recent visit to London has made us reconsider. One of the first things to greet us was a headline in The Daily Telegraph: “Yet another Labour snub to the Queen.” Actually, there were two snubs. The first was the decision—taken by the Labour government without consulting Buckingham Palace—to drop the word “Crown” from the Crown Prosecution Service. The second snub was the decision to rename “Her Majesty’s Prison Service” the “National Offenders’ Management Service.” No, we are not making this up. In part, of course, both renamings are part of the Labour government’s not-so-subtle efforts to abolish Britain’s Constitutional Monarchy by erasing its stamp from more and more public institutions. But replacing “Prison Service” with “Offenders’ Management Service” is not an anti-monarchical gesture so much as a politically correct one. It is exactly the sort of thing that George Orwell would have savored as a specimen piece of Newspeak— before, that is, he savaged it as an insidious euphemism designed to increase state control by redescribing its activities in bureaucratic psychobabble. With the phrase “Prison Service” we know where we are—in the legal realm of specific crimes and corresponding punishment. But substitute “Offenders’” for “Prison” and where are we? In that Kafkaesque realm where yesterday’s innocuous remark is tomorrow’s punishable outrage. Already “racism” and “xenophobia” have been designated crimes by Europe’s masters in Brussels: how much easier to handle such amorphous torts when criminals are rebaptized “offenders” who in turn are no longer “punished” but merely “managed,” like the cattle, the sheep, that so much of Europe’s populace is eagerly striving to become.
Few battles are tougher for conservatives than the struggle to protect traditional forms and language in public life. Faced with earnest reformers who insist they wish only to make the world a kinder and more welcoming place, most people simply can’t articulate their visceral sense of loss or unease and they eventually conclude matters of form are not all that important. The argument that symbols and language affect actions and consequences is a hard sell in our hyper-rationalist age of politicized language. But how many millions died in the twentieth century because Western countries converted their ministries of war into ministries of defense?
Are you arguing that there wasn't enough war in the 20th century, that somehow war wasn't properly engaged, or that if militaries had remained guided by "war" departments, there would have been fewer wars ?
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at April 4, 2004 3:10 AMPerhaps he is arguing that we should call things precisely what they are. I'm all for it.
But that might lead to odd results. Such as: The Politics by Other Means Department.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at April 4, 2004 3:51 AMNo perhaps here.
As Orwell told us over a half-century ago, the abuse of language is the strategy of rogues and scoundrels, and the first step, if practiced comprehensively by regimes with no checks and balances, on the road to totalitarianism.
And Orwell must be read and read again. For we are all susceptible, even when (perhaps especially when) the intentions are supposedly benign.
It has been noted that one of the reasons that the current crisis, incubating for years, is now upon us with such ferocity, is that we have been losing the war over language, and this, it seems to me, has accelerated with ever increasing stridency and effect since the latest Palestinian intifada erupted in September 2000, followed by 9/11 a year later and the war in Iraq a year-and-a half after that.
The result of institutionalized double-speak---of lying---is to distract, deligitimize, confuse and ultimately demoralize and debilitate.
And when it is noted that "all governments lie," there must be recognition that while this is too often the case, it does not mean that all governments prevaricate equally. For some regimes and organizations, lying is their raison d'etre.
To quote the ever eloquent David Warren (who references Solzhenitsyn):
http://www.davidwarrenonline.com/SunSpec/Feb03/index68.shtml
"The U.S. won the Cold War because, on balance, it told the truth, and on balance the Soviets told lies. It would have won it rather sooner telling something like the whole truth on all occasions.
"And likewise today, truth remains the ultimate weapon of free men, as lies are the weapons of tyrants. Truth is courage, lies are cowardice, and the victory is finally to the true."
Jeff:
No, because that would be incorporating euphamism and theory too. War is a perfectly good term.
Michael:
I believe the post WW1 hyper-moralism, pacifism and internationalism all cost lives and that the use or rather misuse of language contributed to the political strength of those movements.
Yes, politically correct euphemisms are weapons in the arsenal of tyranny, but the need for conservatives, indeed all persons of reason, to safeguard our linguistic patrimony is even more profound.
How we speak determines how we think. For example, one who conjugates the verb, "to be" as, "I be, you be, he be's, we be, you be, they be," is at a disadvantage in comprehending issues of individual rights and responsibilities. Limitations in the useage of tense, voice and number have similar effect with respect to matters of causation and time order.
This is precisely why programs which "dumb down" grammar, or allow for the teaching of standard English as a second language for speakers of subcultural argots are so pernicious.
Not just 'Prison' to 'Management'; they transfered ownership from Her Majesty to the State(National) and the prisoners (Offender's).
Posted by: Noel at April 4, 2004 4:52 PMNoel:
Good point, but it could be worse. As David noted last week, the Canadian prison service is called Corrections Canada.
Posted by: Peter B at April 4, 2004 5:11 PM