Doublespeak

 
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Original image by Jordan L'Hôte licensed under CC-SA-BY 3.0 via https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1984JLH2.jpg

This started out being a “classic” repost and by the time I got done fixing the twenty-year-old writing, it was a new article.  The original article has been reposted as originally written in late 2001/2002, at this link. Doublespeak (2001)

Doublespeak is the art and subterfuge of using language to misdirect, misinform, or flat-out lie.  It often involves logical fallacy, intentional appeals to emotion over fact, and other crimes against critical thought.  It can take the form of euphemism, “soft” language, the use of words and phrasing that have a high emotional valence but low informational content to appeal to the baser instincts rather than the intellect.

As a huge fan of artists like George Carlin and Bill Hicks, the use of language and euphemism is simultaneously fascinating, horrifying, and hilarious to me.  The contortions people will go through to avoid acknowledging a simple reality are just insane.

A great example of this came up in my personal life while this article was in draft:  apparently it’s now fashionable to refer to yourself as “sober” if you’ve used “hard” (physically addictive) drugs in the past (e.g. opioids, amphetamines and methamphetamines, cocaine) but now you only smoke pot.

This is, of course, absolutely silly; a self-serving, dishonest, manipulative, and disingenuous word game played by addicts (and I am one so please spare me the complaints about your value judgements relating to that word) so they can pretend their addiction is somehow “different” from the addiction that has social stigma attached.  You’re not sober if you’re high – that’s not even an observation, it’s a tautology.  No amount of self-serving wordplay will change that – and in the context of addiction, it’s potentially fatal bit of self-deceit, due to the nature of addiction and what it does to the thought processes of the addict.

This underscores just one of the reasons doublespeak is so insidious and harmful; it helps people maintain self-destructive lies.  What amazes me is people craft these excuses for their spin and jive, and they’re all self-serving bovine excrement. “I don’t want to be stigmatized as an addict; so I just stigmatize everyone else who’s an addict and then reject that label for myself because I’m better than those people I’m unfairly stigmatizing in the very process of complaining about being unfairly stigmatized.”  And we’ve become so corrupted in our thinking that people don’t even hear themselves when they say this stuff.

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douglas nusbaum Doug@dnusbaum.com
4 years ago

See also Humpty Dumpty speak from “Through the looking glass”
“A word means exactly …”
You might enjoy investigating English Prime.

Colin Mansfield
4 years ago

Some time ago, the informative British comedy panel show, QI (Quite Interesting) asked a question of their audience, who has read 1984? Quite a few people raised their hands but then dropped them the the host pointed out that 1984 was one of those books that everybody says they have read but actually hadn’t.

Paul Lackey
Paul Lackey
4 years ago

“..it has never been more important for YOU (yes, YOU) to listen carefully to what you are told, and do your very best to understand what is actually being said..”

Unfortunately, I have not yet been able to kick the habit of watching televised media that includes advertising. This has lead to a large amount of screaming at the TV box about the BS being passed off to those who don’t have the patience or understanding to decipher. I just hope one day, as a species, we learn better. I am not holding my breath..

Paul Lackey
4 years ago

This is a great piece*

(hard to feel comfortable referring to a 3-page essay as a “piece”)

John Henry
4 years ago

(Hey, this is the kind of stuff I was talking about liking and sharing more often 🙂 )

Annie James
4 years ago

Seems like that’s the nonsense the opposite party touts…and the uninformed whole heartedly believes!

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