English Literature

George Orwells writings are pervaded by a preoccupation with language, specifically its
co-option, distortion and abuse by figures and institutions of authority in the interests of
enforcing particular politicalideological agendas
        If he is a person naturally orthodox (in Newspeak a  Goodthinker ), he will in all
circumstances know, without taking thought, what is the true belief or desirable emotion.
    Language is the principle means by which the corrupt and oppressive regimes with which
the reader is presented in works such as 1984 and Animal Farm maintain a measure of control not only over the political persuasions of the general populace, but over the thoughts of the individual. In 1984, Orwell creates the concept of  Newspeak,  a satirical parody of socialist
ropaganda and political language in which binarisms and oxymorons are deliberately proliferated as a means of keeping the populace in a constant state of confusion and uncertainty, and words are re-defined to signify the opposite of their traditional meaning. In Animal Farm, the ruling elite of pigs (a deliberately unsubtle metaphor on Orwells part) engage in a form of political spin
uncomfortably redolent of what we have come to expect as standard from politicians in the post modern era) in order to maintain a patently unequal and unjust status quo.

    Language, in Orwells estimation, has the potential to be both the tyrants shackle and the revolutionarys sword. In his essay Politics and the English Language, Orwell makes his concerns with regards to the  decay  of language plain

     The appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved as itwould be if he were choosing his words for himself. If the speech he is making is one that he is
ccustomed to make over and over again, he may be almost unconscious of what he is saying, asone is when one utters the responses in church. And this reduced state of consciousness, if not indispensable, is at any rate favourable to political conformity. 
    Language, Orwell argues, is the principle medium of conscious thought the material from which thought itself is constructed, and the means of its assembly. Therefore the dilution or decay of language naturally inhibits the ability of individuals to think with clarity and precision.

Ergo, the individuals capacity for criticism or dissension from established or imposed principles is significantly diminished. It is for this reason that the politicians in Orwells works demonstrate a deliberate and scurrilous desire to not only control language, but also to hasten its dissolution into a semantic slush in which specificity and clarity of communication become impossible

     By expurgating all words that might be troublesome...and by making other words mean theopposite of what they  used to mean...the rulers of Airship One wish to make it impossible for people to think straight.  

    In Orwells estimation, this deliberate erosion of language has profound consequence notonly in the political and socio-cultural arenas, but with regards to personal liberty. The ability tothink without restriction and the manner in which politicalideological authorities invariably attempt to stunt it is also a recurrent, arguably predominant theme in Orwells works, and the maintenance of language, he argues, is essential to maintaining that most basic of freedoms

     But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can
spread by tradition and imitation even among people who should and do know better. The debasedlanguage that I have been discussing is in some ways very convenient. Phrases like a notunjustifiable assumption, leaves much to be desired, would serve no good purpose, a considerationwhich we should do well to bear in mind, are a continuous temptation, a packet of aspirins always at ones elbow.
    The apparent proliferation of  woolly,  imprecise language (which Orwell identifies as not exclusive to politics but also pervasive in more passive form in the arenas of academia and philosophy) allows for a lack of clarity in terms of intention and implication on behalf of the writerspeaker by barraging the readerlistener with vague and clumsy polysyllablism, they absolve themselves of responsibility for providing clear and concise argument or specific information all meaning must be filtered from the verbal stew in the manner that a whale filters plankton from the ocean. Responsibility for discerning meaning and significance is therefore placed in the lap of the consumer, allowing for a vast range of interpretations in which the writer speaker is given sufficient room to wriggle and segue depending upon whatever consequences their words bring about

     With the Leavisites, Orwell asserts the fundamental importance of concrete representation in literature, sharing the belief that accurate perceptions of human life and the physical world can be recorded in rich, evocative verbal texture, and that the ultimate test of literary quality is the
felt life  manifest on the page.
    This persistent and escalating vagary in turn feeds back into the system of thought and perception that produced it, Orwell argues,  ones standard of language (language being the very stuff of thought) informing ones standard of conception. The persistence and general acceptance of bad language  in culture allows those who are intellectually unqualified and -more sinister still- operating with regards to particular ideological agendas, to maintain positions of influence and authority, to exercise control over the beliefs, behaviours the very thoughts of others, and to do so in an environment where the possibility for challenge or criticism is significantly diminished

     In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism., question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.

    Furthermore, Orwell argues, the natural occlusion and  cushioning  of significance that the decay of language produces allows for countenance of atrocities that would otherwise be utterly intolerable.

    Thus the speaker, the writer the employer of language in any way, shape or form has an overwhelming responsibility to maintain a particular standard thereof. In Orwells estimation, such individuals (particularly those who are marketed as keepers or purveyors of language) must necessarily operate as guardians, cultivating language as a precious and utterly essential crop, without stunting its natural development out of personal agenda

     I have not here been considering the literary use of language, but merely language as an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought. Stuart Chase and others have come near to claiming that all abstract words are meaningless, and have used this as a pretext for advocating a kind of political quietism. Since you dont know what Fascism is, how can you struggle against Fascism. 

    Language, Orwell argues, is the foundation of freedom itself, since both freedom and language are inextricably bound to the individuals capacity for thought. Note that, in Orwells works, tyranny, censorship and oppression invariably occur as much if not more so in the internal arena of thought and belief as they do in the external. Bodies of ideological authority seek to direct how the individual thinks and feels, knowing that the behaviour said individual exhibits can then be predicted and controlled. It is therefore not an abstract or optional luxury that the decay of language be halted, rather it is essential if individual freedom, socio-cultural variety and political dynamism are to be maintained.

    It is not surprising therefore that the act of writing so often becomes one of ideological rebellion in Orwells fiction Its this scribbling of his -along with illicit sex- that gets Winston into so much trouble.

    Nor that the act of writing is presented as comparable to acts as natural and instinctive to humanity as sex. The writer occupies a position of nigh sacred responsibility in Orwells perceptions, the responsibility to cultivate language commensurate with that of safeguarding free thought, expression and criticism ...one ought to recognize that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language, and that one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end.

    Furthermore, Orwell argues that situations of politicalsocio-cultural upheaval can be somewhat ameliorated via clarity and concision of language clear communication of refined and common goals is eminently preferable to a status of vague, incoherent bumbling and persistent misunderstanding.

    Orwells perception of the nature of language is not universally shared. In his essay George Orwell 19th Century Liberal, Woodcock suggests that Orwells insistence upon linguistic  clarity  becomes ironic to the point of hypocrisy, given the ambiguity and contradiction that seemed to inform his own political principles  ...he (Orwell) seems to have no clear conception of a Socialist society, beyond a rather vague idea that brotherhood is the essential basis of socialism.
    Though demonstrating characteristics and ideals redolent of various ideologies, Orwell cannot be described as conforming to any one particular school of political thought. Rather, it seems that his opinions on politics are rooted in an intractable belief in individual liberty and freedom of thought

     Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. 
     He also demonstrates a universal and unbiased pessimism with regards to political ideologies and institutions regardless of what label or banner they happen to march under, Orwell acknowledges the predatory self interest inherent in political thought. Determining what his ideal  with regards to politics is therefore becomes problematic Orwell was a realist by nature.

Whatever ideals he advertises in his work are always tempered by a trenchant acknowledgement of
their fragility. Thus it seems that Orwells political  ideal  would be one in which any and all
figures or institutions of authority are kept under consistent scrutiny and critical pressure from those they purport to represent. Such a status relies upon the freedom of the individual to think clearly and critically, and to express their criticisms with scalpel-like precision, which in turn relies upon a standard of language that must be maintained. The writer therefore becomes necessarily politicised by nature charged with the duty of communicating with concrete clarity and confidence, and expurgating those stock-phrases, cliches and habits that dilute the impact of language.

    Criticisms of Orwells position derive principally from his utilitarian conception of language
With the Marxists he asserts that all art is propaganda, that every text has an overt or covert message which criticism should discover, formulate and assess.

    The standards Orwell creates for the operation of language could well be interpreted as myopic in their exclusively political implication, leaving little or no room for applicationsof aesthetics. He also fails to consider that the very vagary and lack of precision he bemoans in  modern language  may in fact have application in arenas that he fails to consider, for example in philosophy or metaphysics where emphasis upon uncertainty is more virtue than vice. However, this may well be as a  result of the immediate and highly tangible socio-political concerns of the time and culture of his writing rather than an ignorance of these factors on his part.

   
    There are also schools of thought (Post Modernism, for example) that interpret what heperceives as the  decay  of language as simply a natural factor of languages evolution asindividual words and phrases accrue memetic  freight,  their cultural relevance and contextsnaturally shift and diversify, resulting in a problematic but inevitable efflorescence of meaning, asopposed to the decay  Orwell identifies

     In the Postmodern, narrative, not science, leads to an interrogation of the great variety oflanguages and language games denotative, scientific statements about flora and fauna interminglewith deontic prescriptions and questions the rules and conditions of discourse are not established inadvance, but rather emerge in the conversation itself. 

    But it is clear from his writings that Orwell is not concerned with such passive objectivity language, in his estimation, is not some external force to be bowed to, rather a tool of human making and of human responsibility, that has as much potential to be harnessed for the common good as for the ill. His perception of language relates almost exclusively to its implicationsfor individual liberty, which for Orwell consists primarily of the ability to consider, conceive, communicate and criticise without inhibition or restriction.

    He refutes the Post-Modern perception of language by tacitly acknowledging its broader philosophical claims, but asserting that they have little to no tangible application for the individual, or for the politics that is languages principle concern. Language, regardless of what certain theorists and academics proclaim, cannot be separated from politics, according to

Orwell. Therefore, the writer, the speaker and the otherwise communicator is a political entity by nature and obligation, its principle and over-arching purpose to maintain language
beyond the decay and corruption promoted by those who would abuse it to sap and suppressthe free thought of the individual, and, by extension, of society as a whole.