We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Samizdata quote of the day The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.
– George Orwell
Yet strangely I do not think Orwell actually knew David Cameron.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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Brilliant, if I may say so and a great ‘find’.
Have copied with acknowledgement!
V good!
Didn’t know Kevin Rudd either.
But Kev’s Labor, so every so often he has to put on fake working class mannerisms instead (which makes him sound like a just barely more intelligent Pauline Hanson)
I hate to disagree with Orwell of all people, but I don’t think that this is a useful observation. It is certainly true with some people, but then there are those who are different, and make a point of using a language that is as simple as possible, in order to appear common or folksy or whatever else may be politically expedient at the moment – Obama comes to mind. Also, the reverse is not necessarily true either: some perfectly sincere people use bloated and convoluted language for all kinds of reasons (one of which is often insecurity).
Timothy beat me to it. Also, I just had a thought that this may be one of the cultural differences between the US and the UK, at least where political culture is concerned.
Barack Obama’s language is only “clear” if one examines it closely – as Glenn Beck is fond of pointing out.
For example, if asked “are you a socialist” Barack Obama does not say “no”, he says (in a lighthearted voice) “if I were a socialist would I…..” (then describes something he has done – which, actually, a socialist WOULD do).
This gives the impression that the charge is absurd – without actually denying the charge. Indeed, if one examines the words very carefully, the language used actually confirms the charge.
But that is hardly a “clear” use of language. So, at least as regards Barack Obama, Orwell’s statement holds up.
“I am lapidary but not eristic when I use big words.” – William F. Buckley, Jr.
Paul, Orwell is talking about elaborate style/high register as a means to conceal substance. Obama is doing the opposite: he is using relatively plain language. The fact that he is evasive on certain key issues is certainly true, but it has nothing to do with style or register. You can ask me if I’m a Marxist, and I can answer that the weather is great, but it’s going to rain tomorrow. Very plain and simple, no ‘long words or exhausted idioms’.
Or Barack Obama
While the exact form of the obfuscation Orwell is talking of will vary based on the time, culture and temperament of the speaker, I think his general point stands and is actually strengthened by the Obama example given by Paul Marks. Those who would seek to mislead others invariably resort to ambiguity of meaning, whether through jargonisation, cliches or through the verbal judo employed by Obama. In any case clarity of expression is not the goal.
A democratic socialist quoted favourably on Samizdata? Well who’d have thought…
As long as Cameron and the Tories step up the smoking ban law and make it illegal to smoke everywhere outdoors in all of England so I no longer have to look at the filthy drug addicts getting no pleasure out of their addiction and merely making my freshly shampooed hair reek of their stench, then he can be a Communist or a Fascist or anything in-between. Just please, Mr. Cameron, do not remove my freedom from tobacco away from me and force me to have to see those half-human addicts and inhale their ghastly stench any more than I can bear as it is now. Peace and freedom to all of England and all that good Libertarian stuff as that is how I feel too, very Libertarian with the warmest of wishes, Sharon.
Watch it Sharon or they’ll ban whatever it is you’re smoking next.
Yes, Jay, you are correct.
The rest of the article (‘Politics and Language’) is well worth a read:
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm
It actually spurred a rethinking of my, albeit quite dry and technical writing.
Erm, Sharon? Have you actually read what you just wrote?
You support coercive use of force against others in order to support your rights at the expense of other peoples, and you call youself libetarian?
I think she was being sarcastic, mandrill.
I am surprised that no one has mentioned the Arch Bishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams yet. He has demonstrated that he is capable of speaking clearly and concisely by doing so when he has nothing to hide. But then at other times he obscures his meaning with tons of convoluted verbiage. I would suggest that he is living proof of Orwell’s statement.