In Orwell's World

"The great enemy of clear language is insincerity."
While reading Orwell's piece about the abuse that language suffers and its effects on society, I found myself agreeing with his premises and was thrilled that someone else could put it into such a clear format. I think as well that these days, it seems that the more vague your ideas, the loftier they seem, and therefore less prone to attack. I read recently that a there is a gnawing peer-pressure for professors at Harvard to produce as many scholarly books as they can, and by this measure they are judged. Speaking from assumption alone, it proabably isn't easy to sit down and breeze throguh one of those, and I wouldn't be worried so much as to the content of the book as to the way it will be expressed. I fear the lack of clear, pristine ideas in clear language. I also feel this could be the difference between reading the Leighley book, for instance and the McChesney. The McChesney, and I am not alone on this, is hard to focus on when reading. He does appear to speak convincingly, but at sentences such as: "Ultimately, one must hold to the conviction that the media system that best serves democratic values will contribute to generating an economic system most responsive to the genuine needs of the population (pg. 23)." You could probably have said the same idea like this: "Ultimately, it appears that the media system that integrates with the people, will contribute to an economy suited to the people." It just seems to me that this idea could have been stated more easily.

To relate Orwell to what we have done in class, I would say that the media does not so much excel in using flowery words and phrases, for that would confuse many people, but they use simple words, but with a vague meaning. And, as we learned previously, their main steam of information comes from the US government, who are masters of framing and vagueness. So no surprise there.

There is a hysterical Jon Stewart clip that is pertinent to this topic. You can find it online at the daily show website , under the title, "The Write Wing". In it Jon Stewart compares the different Presidential speeches with some being very vague and flowery, which he claims were clearly written for the President; and others which are incompetently typical of the President. To me, I don't know if Bush has the problem that Orwell speaks of in terms of flowery talk, we pretty much know when he's lying even when he's not haveing his speaches written for him.

In one of the prefaces to Animal Farm, Orwell writes that his book was almost not published since it used pigs as a clear reference to the Soviets. I think Orwell did this to simply express what his view already were, that a good metaphor is very important in conveying a clear idea.