The Teeming Mass: Defending the Indefensible: Orwell, Political Language, and the State of Politics

From fighting for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War to his criticism of Stalin’s dictatorship through the allegorical novella Animal Farm, writer and journalist George Orwell’s support of democratic socialism was widely known. In his essay ‘Why I Write’, he suggests “Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it.”. Even without ‘Why I Write’, the links between his political views and writing are undeniable. Many of his works were illegal in places where his writing criticised the ideology of those in power, with the USSR banning both Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, and Francoist Spain banning Homage to Catalonia due to its support of the Republican faction.

Orwell’s 1946 essay ‘Politics and the English Language’ presents his views on the unnecessarily complicated language of politics in his time. He argues that Dying Metaphors, Operators or Verbal False Limbs, Pretentious Diction and Meaningless Words contribute to the ambiguity of prose and political writing in the 20th Century.

He prescribes the following rules for those aiming to write clearly;

• Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

• Never use a long word where a short one will do.

• If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

• Never use the passive where you can use the active.

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

• Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

The final rule contradicts the other five, but it allowed Orwell to disregard the rules he prescribed when necessary, meaning he could avoid being labelled a hypocrite by his critics. His essay suggests that “If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary step toward political regeneration”, directly linking the inaccessibility of political language and the post-war politics in his time.

Political language today continues to flout Orwell’s rules, with “A mass of Latin words fall[ing] upon the fats like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details.” as politicians continue to use their language to obscure reality. Current Prime Minister Boris Johnson often receives attention for his speeches and the Coronavirus Pandemic has placed him under the spotlight, with far less support in a socially distant Commons than before. Johnson’s ambiguous language is clear in his recent speech directed at school leavers, those who have had their exams cancelled by the pandemic and face an uncertain future. His speech, despite being nearly 6 minutes long, has been described as “faux inspirational” by those leaving school this year, “an attempt to appeal to us without adding anything we didn’t already know”. He fails to acknowledge the education inequality highlighted by the pandemic and the grading system implemented by his government. Students across the country are at risk of being underpredicted, with working class and BAME students being disproportionally affected. Even if their predicted grades are accurate, these students can still be failed by the standardisation process, which places far more importance on whole cohort performance than individual attainment. Some of my less cynical peers have suggested that the speech, despite offering little comfort to students, actually could have good intentions. However, many have also suggested this speech is Johnson’s way of appealing to younger voters, a potentially long-term move as the U.K. is not due to hold another general election until 2024.

However, many modern political slogans do not follow the style of language Orwell refers to as ‘bad English’, instead, these slogans rely on their simplicity and memorability to inspire political feeling. The Conservative Party are frequent users of three-word slogans, from ‘Vote for Change’ in 2005 to ‘Get Brexit Done’ in 2019 and most recently, ‘Build Build Build’, referring to Johnson’s plans for economic growth in a post-Coronavirus world. These slogans, despite not featuring in Orwell’s ‘Politics and the English Language’, do have an Orwellian tone. “War is Peace”, “Freedom is Slavery” and “Ignorance is Strength” are three of the Party’s slogans in Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, complete contradictions, they are a frightening reflection of modern political campaigns and their utilisation of simple but effective messages. Importantly, short, memorable slogans are not a solely Conservative election tactic, Labour has ‘For the Many, Not the Few’ and ‘It’s Time for Real Change’, Trump has ‘Make America Great Again’ and the Vote Leave campaign used ‘Let’s Take Back Control’ during the E.U. referendum in 2016. Orwell suggests “Orthodoxy, of whatever colour, seems to demand a lifeless, imitative style.”, as easily applicable to short slogans as to ambiguous language.

Orwell’s writing remains relevant, his comments on political language in 1946 are equally applicable in 2020. Through his essay, he presents what he perceives as the faults of politics and wider society, with the suggestion that the state of politics in his time is largely influenced by the ‘decay’ of language, conforming to a fairly prescriptive view by implying there was once a time of perfection for the English language, a time earlier than that from which he writes. However, there was no such time and people have been complaining about language for centuries, linguistic pedantry is not a phenomenon of the 20th Century. Yet, Orwell also rejects other common prescriptive complaints, such as the frequency of Americanisms in British English and the importance of grammar and syntax, he himself suggesting he is primarily concerned with the clarity of language. While Orwell’s views are somewhat prescriptive and failed to have a lasting impact on political language, the idea of a more accessible political world is not necessarily a negative thing. Politics influences everyone, but the language surrounding it makes it inaccessible for many, something which may need to change sooner rather than later.

“In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics’. All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia.”