Politics and the English Language 2/4/17

George Orwell, in his essay, "Politics and the English Language", explains that stale imagery and lack of precision have diminished the English language. He talks about how the language is declining and changing in a bad way due to economic and political causes and goes on to provide his readers with five passages as examples of how writing has become unclear and faulty. Orwell says that aside from the individual faults of each passage, the five passages share similar flaws. It is as if each writer either has a meaning and can't express it, or he unintentionally says something else, or he is almost uncaring as to whether or not his words have meaning. According to Orwell, "this mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence is the most marked characteristic of modern English prose, and especially of any kind of political writing." He states that political writing is bad writing because it uses the English language so mechanically, repeating the same words and imitating previous writings, that the life of what is being said is drained. Some political speeches aren't even written by the politicians who give the speeches. Orwell also explains that political writing is one that uses vague language specifically to hide important details from the audience or to limit the image that forms in the audience's head. "Political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness" because things like "the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, and the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan" are too brutal for most people to face. But vague language also allows the audience to be misled on purpose and Orwell wants his readers to be aware of that. 

I found Orwell's essay to be very interesting yet difficult to read. After understanding his reasoning for the essay I found that I fully agree with him. The English language is diminishing and is being taken advantage of in political writing. Politicians are able to bend and cloud their words to reveal only what they want the audience to hear. When serious events occur, deadly or dangerous, political speeches are purposely made vague so that the people understand that there is something going on without getting mental pictures of the deaths or specifics. On one hand it's noble that they want to shield the people from the brutalities happening around us but on the other hand we don't fully understand the severity of the events due to the fact that certain details are hidden from us. Imprecise and unclear language also allows governments to conceal violence or illegal acts in agreeable words and phrases. This kind of language in political writing shows that the speaker does not want to reveal all the facts about what has happened or is about to happen, especially if it only benefits him/ her and not the audience. Orwell's purpose was to inform his readers that vague language is being used, especially in political language to brain wash or trick people and gain their trust but if we learn to avoid this kind of language ourselves then we won't be misled by politicians because we'll know that there is something not being said.