of cuttlefish and men
TRANSCRIPT
-
7/27/2019 Of Cuttlefish and Men
1/2
Of Cuttlefish and Men
Paul Kingsnorth
Late last year, local government minister Nick Raynsford was sent down from Mount Tony to snap at the
ankles of the firefighters union.
It was tragically hard to avoid him: he was all over the radio, explaining his governments policies on
shafting workers whose boots they werent fit to polish. Day after numbing day I heard him talk about
modernising the fire service. I heard him explain that he was exploring how modernisation might
unlock cost savings. And after about a week of it, I realised that I had absolutely no idea what he was
talking about.
Fifty-five years ago, George Orwell wrote an essay called Politics and the English Language. In our
time, wrote Orwell, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible Thus
political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness
when there is a gap between ones real and ones declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to
long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.
Nick Raynsford, it seems, can squirt with the best of them. What did he mean when he said
modernisation? Take a look at the governments plans for the fire service: he actually meant
privatisation. What did he mean when he said unlocking cost savings? He meant sacking people. He
couldnt say this though; if he had done, people would have understood it and most of them would have
been against it. Who wants to privatise the fire service and sack firefighters? Hardly anyone. Who, on
the other hand, is opposed to modernisation and cost savings? Hardly anyone. See? Clever, isnt it?
I shouldnt pick on Mr Raynsford, though: hes only doing his job. Neither is this another whinge aboutLabour spin. Theres a much bigger, global, picture: a widespread and long-standing corruption of
language by the powerful. For an entire political culture has been built on one delightfully simple
premise: to get away with doing something downright evi l, its not necessary to change your behaviour
its just necessary to change the language you use to describe it.
Understanding this helps understand the robotic consultant-speak employed by New Labour, a party of
free marketeers and corporate fifth columnists who are still, poor dears, slightly embarrassed about it.
New Labours favourite crime against language is called dressing up ideologically -driven activities in
managerial words. Its dead easy: all you do is pretend that the right -wing neoliberal measures you are
planning are something normal and natural that nobody could possible be against. Bothered about
turning the world into one great big free market and removing any barriers to corporate profit,
whether they be ancient cultures or environmental regulations? Its OK thats called globalisation; its
mainly about having faster internet connections and low-cost air fares. Not only is it beneficial to all, but
its inevitable.
This is related to another language crimeusing meaningless words to describe horrible things so that
people dont realise how horrible they are. The most notorious example of this is the phrase collateral
damage, which the Americans used for years during Vietnam to save themselves from having to use the
less palatable phrase dead babies. A new entry, also courtesy of the US government, is pre -emptive
-
7/27/2019 Of Cuttlefish and Men
2/2
defence this means attacking anyone we want to and justifying it by saying that they might attack us
one day. Then theres rogue state which means enemy of American capitalism with en suite oil
supply and war on terror which means flailing publicly at anyone using terrorism against us, whilst
happily funding and training people who use it against others.
There are other language crimes. The one entitled using warm words as a substitute for doing anything
is particularly prominent in the business world, and covers phrases like corporate social responsibility,
voluntary action, sustainable development, open debate and consultation with stakeholders. Then
there are the wider examples of serial dishonesty in language which are now so taken for granted that
its easy to us them without thinking: freedom, democracy, civilisation, development, choice can
you define any of these, or are they just vaguely-defined, pleasant-sounding things which are
conveniently hard to oppose when governments go to war or corporations trash the planet in their
name?
This is not trivial stuff. Language, as Orwell noted, helps to define thought, as well as the other way
around, and dishonest use of words creates a reduced state of consciousness, a numbness in the
listener. The way to cut through that numbness is to listen closely to how those with power explain
themselves. If the words, as Orwell put it, fall upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outlines andcovering up all the details, then somebody somewhere is doing something they dont want you to know
about, probably in your name and with your money. And no-one wants that. Do they?