What words would you use to depict this face?

Take but a moment to really consider that question before moving on.

george orwell's face

This is how the writer Christopher Hitchens interpreted the face up1:

A slightly tall, angular, shy, but not unconfident Englishman, with a hollow-cheek look. A rather dolorous expect in some ways, a rather solemn look. But withal it'southward not the look of someone with no sense of humour. Information technology's the await of someone who's been through quite a lot and has tried his best. Simply in that location is a terminal element of cynicism to it, also every bit, I call back, some of the hard-to-understand handsomeness for which we English people are so rightly famed. Information technology'south an ironic wait actually is what it is, and it's the look of someone who suffered a corking deal.

The human being in the photo, Eric Arthur Blair (1903 – 1950), was a novelist, essayist, journalist, critic, and, most importantly, an exemplary human being. He exited the womb English merely entered the grave an outspoken citizen of World. Blair was born in Bengal, wrote his outset articles in French, worked as a police officer in Burma, and settled in England. He is best known for his novels 19 Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, both of which he wrote under a pen proper name with which you may be more familiar: George Orwell.

Orwell stands out from the other great writers of the 20th century considering of his political awareness and opposition to totalitarianism, Stalinism, fascism, and social injustice. Past concentrating on essays along with fiction, according to Hitchens, writing in Why Orwell Matters, Orwell was able to take on "the competing orthodoxies and despotisms of his day with little more than than a battered typewriter and a stubborn personality."2

But what makes Orwell stand out from the other great humanists of the 20th century, and why he should affair to you, is the way he took that stubborn personality of his and used information technology to tackle many of his own despotic and prejudicial inclinations. Hitchens expands:

The evidence of his upbringing and instincts is that he was a natural Tory [bourgeois] and even something of a misanthrope…3He had to suppress his distrust and dislike of the poor, his revulsion from the 'coloured' masses who teemed throughout the empire, his suspicion of Jews, his awkwardness with women and his anti-intellectualism. Past instruction himself in theory and practice, some of the teaching being rather pedantic, he became a great humanist.4

While Orwell's writing often paints a hopeless picture of humanity, his self-taught humanitarianism proves that corking alter at the level of the private is possible. His work cautions us about the seduction of selfishness, merely his life shows us that compassion is not inherited—information technology'south cultivated.

Orwell wasn't but a critic of his times: he is a critic for all times. Even now, threescore-5 years after his death, his piece of work seems only as, if not more, relevant. The following list provides some insight into the prophetic themes of Orwell'southward piece of work:

  • His work on the conflict between regional nationalism and European integration.
  • His social investigations, which helped lay the footing for what nosotros now call "cultural studies."
  • His fascination with the problem of objective or verifiable truth, which he feared was being driven out of the globe by the deliberate distortion and even obliteration of contempo history.
  • His honey for "growing things" and concern with the future of the natural surroundings or what is now considered as "green" or "ecological."
  • His astute awareness of the dangers of "nuclearism" and the nuclear country.
  • His views on the English, and his urge to defend information technology from the constant encroachments of propaganda and euphemism.v, 6

All those themes are somewhat related, but in this commodity I'll exist focusing on the last listed detail: Orwell'south views on language and its corrosive influence on the individual and the state. To do this, I will describe from Orwell's essay On Politics and the English vii.

With Orwell's guidance, I volition show you how politicians distort facts and deceive listeners with their discussion choices, how our constant exposure to political spoken language dulls our sensory acuity, and how learning to write well (a subject on which Orwell will soon instruct united states) is the best practice for thinking well, and, ultimately, reforming the world.

Orwell's main argument in Politics and the English Language is that linguistic communication and thought act much like conjoined twins of the human psyche, and thus, "If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt idea." If we disregard the health of one twin, nosotros encumber the other. Orwell goes on to explain:

Modernistic English language, especially written English, is total of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to have the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to recollect clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration…

Is the President a Boob?

I don't believe in the Illuminati, but I tin can see why 1 would. When a high-ranking politician delivers a speech communication, it tin seem every bit though they're just a puppet, a tool, interim as a chess piece in a much larger maneuver, in a much larger game, in which, like usa listeners, they are the played and not the role player.

president obama puppet

Orwell describes this effect in his essay:

When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases — bestial, atrocities, iron heel, bloodstained tyranny, free peoples of the world, stand shoulder to shoulder — one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a alive homo existence but some kind of dummy: a feeling which suddenly becomes stronger at moments when the light catches the speaker's spectacles and turns them into blank discs which seem to have no eyes behind them.

And this is non altogether fanciful. A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology has gone some distance toward turning himself into a machine. The appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, only his encephalon is not involved, as it would be if he were choosing his words for himself. If the voice communication he is making is one that he is accustomed to brand over and over over again, he may be nearly unconscious of what he is saying, as i is when 1 utters the responses in church. And this reduced state of consciousness, if not indispensable, is at any rate favourable to political conformity.

Emotional states are contagious. Charismatic speakers like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Adolf Hitler were able to move the masses by kindling the passion they wanted their listeners to experience merely in themselves first.

adolf hitler giving angry speech

Hitler had a knack for turning placid crowds into rima oris-foaming mobs.

From this perspective then, it makes sense that a politician who wants to do the opposite—who seeks to elicit unthinking conformity from his audience—would make himself mindless by mindlessly reciting words that were written for him and not past him.

Thinking with Sober Clarity

A man may take to potable because he feels himself to exist a failure, then fail all the more than completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language language. Information technology becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, simply the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for united states of america to have foolish thoughts.

If we all took great pains to improve our writing by questioning the deeper pregnant of stock phrases similar "took great pains," if we all revelled in the succulent divergence between "disinterested" and "uninterested," if nosotros were as quick to put our ear to the footing of linguistic trends every bit we are the latest Twitter trends, if we learned how to write agile prose just too understood how passive prose was written, if we could pique our own passion for writing and accept that first step towards the peak of political reform, we could peek a new world: a world where the ability has been plucked from the palms of the perverted, propaganda-puppets we call politicians and returned to the people—the ordinary people.

[T]he fight against bad English is non frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional person writers…In our age there is no such thing equally 'keeping out of politics'. All problems are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer.

Continuing shoulder to shoulder equally comrades in clear thinking, we could create non an Orwellian army, but an army of Orwells to take on the competing "orthodoxies and despotisms" of our day. Orwell had ane dilapidated typewriter and one stubborn personality—between u.s., nosotros have billions.

But yous don't accept to do this. As Orwell makes clear in his essay:

[Y]ou are not obliged to go to all this trouble. You lot can shirk information technology by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in.

If y'all're just as fine living by the cliché "ignorance is bliss" as you lot are writing information technology without a second thought, I must caution you: afterwards reading the seven ideas that follow, you'll never be able to view politics and the media the same style again.

George Orwell's 7 Almost Common Problems with Language

Are y'all sure you're not a writer?

To reemphasize Orwell: clear writing and clear thinking are non just the "concern of professional writers." We are all writers and critics in some capacity. It doesn't matter if you lot're a published author, a blogger, a social media enthusiast, a individual journaler like Anne Frank, or only a concerned citizen. Your words and your thoughts matter, only they affair so much more than when they truly belong to you.

Orwell says that if you let them, politicians "will construct your sentences for you—even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent—and at need they volition perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself." The following seven concepts will preclude this from happening to you.

1. Clichés & Dying Metaphors

By using dried metaphors, similes, and idioms, yous save much mental effort, at the toll of leaving your meaning vague, not only for your reader but for yourself.

Politicians love using clichés. In the Guardian article Politicians' favourite clichés revealed, we observe a report—of sorts—carried out by a John Hardy Clarke. During the iv-calendar month run-up to a 2001 British election, Clarke counted and sorted all the clichés that were said on political broadcasts. At the top of the list was "the fact of the matter is", which was said 740 times. Second was "and once more, if I can just make this point", which was uttered 430 times. Lastly, "in that location is no instant solution" was repeated 412 times.

Hither are the twelve most popular political clichés Clarke found:

  1. The fact of the matter is…
  2. And again, if I can just make this signal…
  3. In that location is no instant solution…
  4. Information technology's going to have fourth dimension…
  5. A whole range of proposals…
  6. There are no easy answers…
  7. We desire to see a wide range of options right across the board…
  8. That is why we're putting in more coin in existent terms than any previous administration…
  9. Looking at a comprehensive draft of measures…
  10. The dire situation nosotros inherited from the previous administration…
  11. Permit me at this phase be absolutely open and honest…
  12. Our message is very clear and very elementary…

The fact of the matter is, these clichés sometimes deed as filler, allowing politicians to respond to a question for which there are no easy answers or instant solutions. These vacuous phrases can also create the illusion of an answer since a sound is coming out of the speaker's larynx, but the meaning is neither very clear nor very simple. As they feed you their draft of measures, you might ponder the whole range of their proposals, or, if you're like me, feel annoyed by their dire set up of rhetorical devices they inherited from the previous assistants. Just again, if I can just make this point: never mimic the style of this paragraph in your spoken or written language. Condemn vagueness and kill cliché, especially in matters that business organisation your country.

Clichés come in many forms. In fact, whatever phrase that "betrays a lack of original thought" is a cliché. Orwell peculiarly disapproved of a type of cliché he chosen "dying metaphors":

A newly invented metaphor assists thought past evoking a visual image, while on the other hand a metaphor which is technically 'dead' (e. one thousand. iron resolution) has in effect reverted to existence an ordinary give-and-take and can more often than not be used without loss of vividness. Only in betwixt these 2 classes there is a huge dump of worn-out metaphors which have lost all evocative power and are merely used because they save people the problem of inventing phrases for themselves.

Orwell lists the following as examples: Band the changes on, take upwards the cudgel for, toe the line, ride vicious over, stand up shoulder to shoulder with, play into the hands of, no axe to grind, grist to the mill, fishing in troubled waters, on the order of the day, Achilles' heel, swan song, hotbed.

For a contempo instance of the use of cliché in politics, I'll refer you to President Obama's November 15, 2015, argument on the terrorist attacks in Paris, in which he said:

obama using cliche in paris attacks speech

Skillful writers tend to describe the familiar in a way that sounds unfamiliar and the unfamiliar in a style that feels familiar. Not-so-good writers describe the familiar in familiar terms, making the imagery stale and mundane, and depict the unfamiliar in unfamiliar terms, making it indecipherable for the layperson. The problem with the former over-familiar, cliché-prone way of describing things, according to Alain de Botton in How Proust Can Modify Your Life, "is not that they contain false ideas, but rather that they are superficial articulations of very good ones…Clichés are detrimental in so far as they inspire us to believe that they fairly describe a state of affairs while merely grazing at its surface."viii

Marcel Proust was a principal of writing original images. A friend of Proust'due south once tried his hand at writing a novel. He asked Proust for some feedback. In his lengthy, balanced review, Proust kindly disparaged his friend'south utilise of dying metaphors:

In that location are some fine big landscapes in your novel, simply at times one would like them to be painted with more originality. It's quite true that the sky is on fire at dusk, but information technology'southward been said likewise often, and the moon that shines discreetly is a trifle dull.

Eight years after, Marcel Proust wrote his ain clarification of a moon:

Sometimes in the afternoon heaven a white moon would pitter-patter upwards like a little cloud, furtive, without display, suggesting an actress who does non accept to 'come on' for a while, and and so goes 'in forepart' in her ordinary wearing apparel to watch the residue of the visitor for a moment, but keeps in the background, not wishing to attract attention to herself.nine

If y'all want to drag your descriptive writing to Proust'south level, you must turn your words into a lens through which the reader can experience the globe with "new eyes."

How exactly do you do that?

Here are Orwell'due south four questions to ask yourself when you lot next review your written imagery:

  1. What am I trying to say?
  2. What words will express it?
  3. What image or idiom will make it clearer?
  4. Is this epitome fresh enough to have an effect?

2. Wordiness

The 2nd failing of political spoken language Orwell addresses in Politics and the English Language is wordiness. Back home, whenever my father asks me a direct question, and I answer in a long-winded, vague way, I'll ofttimes get the response, "Are you a politician or what?" Information technology ever makes me chuckle—with recognition.

Politicians speak in such a way that seems precise and intelligent, simply if you lot carefully scrutinize their linguistic communication, you'll run across that the nature of their sentences are really completely full of unnecessary words. So, the adjacent fourth dimension you hear the sound of a politico talking nearly how our nation has learned from past history, and how the major political breakthroughs of the 21st century volition help us, the people, to unite together and reconsider again just how lucky we are to be alive today, you may have the unexpected surprise that roughly 19% of their words are pointless.10

3. Passive Voice

If the subject performs the action of the verb, we call that active; if the subject receives the action, we phone call that passive. Politicians frequently utilize the passive vocalism when they want to dodge responsibility. The classic example existence:

Agile vocalism: I made a mistake.

Passive vocalisation: Mistakes were made.

While searching online for examples of the passive vocalization, I stumbled upon a 1974 speech by the soon-to-be 39th American President, Jimmy Carter, which perfectly displays the devious power of the passive voice. Here's what was said:

I've had a constant learning process, sometimes from lawyers, sometimes from practical experience, sometimes from failures and mistakes that have been pointed out to me afterward they were fabricated.

Find how Carter frames himself as the receiver of the action. He's too careful to listing his "practical experience" separately from the author-less "mistakes". Who exactly has made the mistakes Carter is alluding to? Him? His staff? Us?

I rewrote the argument in an active, direct voice for comparing. Here, Carter drives the activity:

I am constantly learning. Sometimes I learn from lawyers, and sometimes I learn from applied feel, including my failures and mistakes.

Now that's a argument I tin can respect.

I found some other case of the passive vocalization being used in politics that was as well terrible to omit. The paragon of articulation himself, George W. Bush Jr., in his Accost to the Nation on the Troop Surge in Republic of iraq, stated:

The state of affairs in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people – and it is unacceptable to me. Our troops in Iraq have fought bravely. They have washed everything we have asked them to practise. Where mistakes accept been made, the responsibility rests with me.

These three sentences are everything wrong with political language. Start, the unacceptable cause of "the state of affairs in Iraq" is unclear. Is George proverb that the Us invaded because of the unacceptable situation in Iraq, or that the consequence of the invasion is unacceptable? The concluding sentence: "Where mistakes have been made, the responsibleness rests with me" is exactly the type of ambiguous atrocity Orwell admonished. Even the connotatively-loaded word "residual" seems forced in to produce a resolute and peaceful climax, but that topic deserves a section unto itself.

4. Sentences Saved from Bathos

Leaders need to exhibit certainty. In times of political chaos—which is more or less all the time—we require the solution, non a solution. For politicians to be voted into office, they need to appear as though they have all the answers, fifty-fifty when they don't. "I'm sorry, I am unsure" is a perfectly good response to a question about the time to come of world affairs, but ane that you will never hear from a politician.

A common technique politicians utilize to maintain their steadfast dominance, is to end their sentences with an emphatic, everything-will-be-alright sense of assuredness. It seems a strong catastrophe to a weak answer goes a long way.

Here's an extract from Obama's speech in the Post Iran Nuclear Accordance Annunciation Press Conference. I've emboldened the ends of his sentences to reveal his virtuoso ability to save sentences from anti-climax:

And as I said yesterday, the details of this deal thing very much. That's why our squad worked so hard for so long to go the details right. At the same fourth dimension, as this debate unfolds, I hope we don't lose sight of the larger picture – the opportunity that this agreement represents. As we go forward, it'due south important for everybody to retrieve the culling and the primal option that this moment represents.

Being aware of emphatic give-and-take order may make your writing stronger. Information technology'south really a handy rhetorical device. Let's just exist conscientious not to misfile style with substance. The difference betwixt the two, I think you'll agree, matters very much.

5. Pretentious Diction

In 2013, a paper was published called The Seductive Allure of "Seductive Allure" which highlighted our over-trust in complex-seeming neuroscience explanations—even when they're circular and casuistic11. Acclaimed neuroscience author Steven Pinker said of this miracle something that applies just besides to Orwell's view on political language:

[Some scholars] spout obscure verbiage to hide the fact that they have nothing to say. They dress upwardly the trivial and obvious with the trappings of scientific sophistication, hoping to bamboozle their audiences with highfalutin gobbledygook.

I don't always find the employ of big words invidious. Sometimes their employ can exist chrysostomatic—pulchritudinous fifty-fifty. But it'south a mistake to assume that all quotidian sentences, by implication, are jejune. On the whole, I consider myself fairly eleemosynary in judging other people's writing. I may put upwardly with a mélange of pompous words and brush off the writer's intentions as jocose, as I'k sure you will with mine. The problem with pretentious diction simply becomes axiomatic when the topic is serious—say, for case, the governance of a land. When hearing pretentious diction proceed in mind that the espouser of such verbosity may have simply looked up a bunch of highfalutin words on Google, which they don't actually empathise, to appear intelligent. That's what I did.

This is Orwell's list of pretentious words ordinarily used in politics:

Words to apparel up simple statements and give an air of scientific impartiality to biased judgements: phenomenon, element, individual (as substantive), objective, chiselled, constructive, virtual, basic, primary, promote, institute, exhibit, exploit, utilize, eliminate, liquidate.

Adjectives to dignify sordid processes of international politics: epoch-making, epic, historic, unforgettable, triumphant, age-quondam, inevitable, inexorable, veritable.

Words included in the attempt of glorifying war: realm, throne, chariot, mailed fist, trident, sword, shield, buckler, banner, jackboot, clarion.

6. Words with Variable Meanings

When politicians repeatedly spout buzzwords at us, or equally Orwell chosen them, "meaningless words," it doesn't take long earlier we start to accept them equally part of the linguistic furniture—their usage becomes unquestioned, and so does their meaning.

"The discussion Fascism has at present no meaning except in then far as it signifies 'something non desirable'," writes Orwell. And, "In the instance of a word like republic, not only is in that location no agreed definition, just the try to make one is resisted from all sides. It is nigh universally felt that when we telephone call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that information technology is a democracy, and fearfulness that they might accept to terminate using that give-and-take if it were tied down to whatsoever one significant."

In 1948, 2 years subsequently On Politics and the English language Language was published, Eleanor Roosevelt made a speech in Paris where she discussed The Struggle for Human Rights. Her speech seems heavily influenced by Orwell'due south essay12, but, ironically, every bit you'll run into, it is also the a violator of its own moral:

Nosotros must not be deluded by the efforts of the forces of reaction to prostitute the great words of our free tradition and thereby to confuse the struggle. Democracy, freedom, human rights have come to take a definite pregnant to the people of the world which we must not let whatever nation to so change that they are fabricated synonymous with suppression and dictatorship.

At that place are bones differences that prove up fifty-fifty in the use of words betwixt a autonomous and a totalitarian country. For case "commonwealth" means one thing to the U.s.a.Due south.R. and another the U.s.a.A. and, I know, in France.

Orwell marks these words as being too variable to mean anything concrete: republic, socialism, liberty, patriotic, realistic, justice, form, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality, romantic, plastic, values, homo, dead, sentimental, natural, vitality.

George Orwell also despised the employ of the "not un- formation" in political language, going so far as to say that it would exist possible, fifty-fifty, to "laugh the not un- germination out of existence."

To achieve this, he encourages us to memorize the sentence:

A not unblack canis familiaris was chasing a not unsmall rabbit across a non ungreen field.

7. Oversimplification

Reverend Dr. Giles Fraser, who lectures on morality and ethics at the Academy of the British Ministry of Defense force, says that "killing in combat for a psychologically normal private is bearable only if he or she is able to distance themselves from their own actions."

One such manner the military helps their soldiers get over that reluctance to impale is past giving them a new vocabulary which reframes horrific acts of brutality as mere strategy. Human enemies that demand to exist murdered become "targets" to be "reduced".

In a telling interview by the BBC on this topic, Lt Col Pete Kilner said:

We talk about destroying, engaging, dropping, bagging – you don't hear the word killing.

Orwell referred to this dehumanizing, oversimplification of language equally, "the defense force of the indefensible."

He goes on:

[T]he cantlet bombs on Japan, can indeed be dedicated, but merely by arguments which are besides savage 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.

Orwell lists these three examples of oversimplification in political language forth with what they really mean if 1 were to unpack them:

Pacification = Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle car-gunned, the huts gear up on fire with incendiary bullets.

Transfer of population = Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry.

Elimination of unreliable elements = People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the cervix or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps.

The Trouble with Politics and the English Language

When information technology comes down to it, skillful writing and thinking is not near having perfect grammar or impeccable punctuation. "What is in a higher place all needed," Orwell writes, "is to let the meaning choose the give-and-take, and not the other manner effectually." The worst matter nosotros could practice is "surrender" to words.

I sincerely promise that this article has given you some insight into why the meaning-choosing-the-word approach is so important and how yous can start using it in your writing. To end, I'll leave you with what Orwell considered to be the root cause for bad writing and with it, the best solution.

The problem:

When yous call back of a physical object, you think wordlessly, and so, if you want to depict the thing yous have been visualising you probably hunt about until you find the verbal words that seem to fit information technology. When you retrieve of something abstract you are more inclined to employ words from the offset, and unless y'all make a witting effort to prevent it, the existing dialect will come rushing in and do the job for you, at the expense of blurring or fifty-fifty changing your meaning.

The solution:

Probably information technology is better to put off using words as long as possible and become one'south meaning as clear as 1 can through pictures and sensations. Later one tin can choose — not only accept — the phrases that will best comprehend the meaning, and then switch circular and decide what impressions i's words are likely to make on another person.

George Orwell'due south half dozen "Rules" for Better Writing and Meliorate Thinking

1) Never employ a metaphor, simile or other effigy of oral communication which yous are used to seeing in print.

two) Never apply a long word where a brusque i will do.

3) If it is possible to cut a word, ever cut it out.

iv) Never use the passive where you can utilize the active voice.

v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you lot can think of an everyday English equivalent.

half dozen) Suspension any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

A Final Message From George Orwell

Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies audio truthful and murder respectable, and to give an advent of solidity to pure wind. I cannot change this all in a moment, but ane can at least change one's ain habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase — some jackboot, Achilles' heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno, or other lump of verbal turn down — into the dustbin where it belongs.

And if you lot constitute this article helpful or important at all, please laissez passer it along to your friends.