Language as a weapon of mass inculcation
The former Mr. Sponge talked me into reading Janet Reitman’s Inside Scientology, and this jumped out at me:
Walter’s mind was slowly reshaped, though he wouldn’t realize it for many years. Later he’d understand that this as a byproduct of other, less positive effects of Scientology’s auditing processes and especially its particular use of language. Hubbard’s word for spirit, for example, was theta. No one spoke of love in Scientology; they had affinity. The word auditing no longer referred to a task that accountants performed but instead meant “to listen and compute” in accordance with the standard, a word that seemed to denoted the accepted application of Hubbard’s technology. But commenting on the precise definition of standard, Walter said, “Who knows what that meant? It meant whatever he wanted it to mean,” and this malleable use of words served as an effective instrument of control.
Before long, the accepted definitions for ordinary words had vanished, replaced with new meanings that separated Scientology from other subjects and Scientologists from other people. “It’s very, very subtle stuff, changing words and giving them a whole different meaning—it creates an artificial reality,” said Walter. “What happens is this new linguistic system undermines your ability to even monitor your own thoughts because nothing means what it used to mean. I couldn’t believe that I could get taken over like that. I was the most independent-minded idiot that ever walked the planet. But that’s what happened.”
In 1946, Orwell published Politics and the English Language.
Meaningless words. In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning. Words like romantic, plastic, values, human, dead, sentimental, natural, vitality , as used in art criticism, are strictly meaningless, in the sense that they not only do not point to any discoverable object, but are hardly ever expected to do so by the reader. When one critic writes, “The outstanding feature of Mr. X’s work is its living quality,” while another writes, “The immediately striking thing about Mr. X’s work is its peculiar deadness,” the reader accepts this as a simple difference opinion. If words like black and white were involved, instead of the jargon words dead and living, he would see at once that language was being used in an improper way. Many political words are similarly abused. The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies “something not desirable.” The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different. Statements like Marshal Petain was a true patriot, The Soviet press is the freest in the world, The Catholic Church is opposed to persecution, are almost always made with intent to deceive. Other words used in variable meanings, in most cases more or less dishonestly, are: class, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality.
Today I suspect Orwell would add to that list tax and spend, liberal, Judeo-Christian, etc. And most of what Tim Geithner just said, as recounted by Digby.
Rachel Maddow explains [text and video]
Super Committee for rad ‘pugs and Dem mods only?
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News:
American Crystal Sugar lockout complicated by Teamsters [background]
Re-filling your headlights with water
“One false move away from a recession”? WTF are we in now? And how many false moves does it take? The first couple dozen didn’t take?
Via News Cut, does depression make for better leaders? (post-meds I’d argue that learning how to deal with cyclic depression does give you better insights into yourself and others)
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Like Leona Helmsley (without the dog):
Pat Buchanan croons a tune from Dixie (with all the love that’s in him)
A surprisingly deep post about Anoka-Hennepin anti-gay bullying from one of Jonathan Turley’s vacation substitute bloggers
If you have to tell people you’re not a terrorist….
The WashEx says Dems use the poor as human shields, and then proceed to bludgeon their own metaphor to death with examples of how good the poor have it now
Gold inches up towards $1,700 an ounce as teabagging capitalists take out insurance against themselves [gold's rapid chart climb is paralleled by a related phenomenon]
Yesterday’s Ike recycled, and more links
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Etc.:
Obesity and smoking? good for ten years off (your life)
I wasn’t offended by news that Louis Magazzu was taking nude pictures of himself, until I saw a picture of Louis Magazzu (clothed, thank god)
Gothic hillbilly noir (now that’s got to appeal to some of you1)
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Girl’s basketball is much more exciting when they play five on a side. [historical context for everyone who just wondered wtf]
Some good culture news.
The Siskel Film Center was showing a Russian print of Tarkovsky’s Stalker (1979) last night. (Tarkovsky is best-known for the original Solaris, the not-George-Clooney version). The assistant cameraman from the shoot was onhand for afterwards Q&A.
I’m happy to report that the theatre was sold out, and it was not old folks by any stretch — I’d say the median age was probably late 20s-early 30s. Granted, the theatre is heavily connected to The Art Institute, and one of their dorms is right next door, but still. The film is almost 3 hours long, and by modern American standards ponderous and sluggish (but visually and psychologically absorbing). Nobody fidgeted, nobody was texting, nobody was coming and going. People sat and soaked up the film.
It was just a nice feeling to be in a temple of cinema for three hours with a packed house who knows how to disengage from our too-often hairbrained and overly-distracting surroundings, and focus for three hours, together, on a “difficult” piece of art.
Dial up “Stalker (Tarkovsky, 1979)” on the youtubes if you want to sample.