George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language”

A Revisit of the Classic Essay for 2023

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George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language”

A Revisit of the Classic Essay for 2023

This 15-ish page classic Orwell essay—published in 1946 when Orwell was 43, four years before he died—says everything that needs to be said about Woke Identity Politics (or whatever the hell you prefer to call it, since the new trend seems to be claiming that the word ‘Woke’ itself carries no meaning; whatever you want to call “it” the point is that there is an identifying “it” to be commented on).

It's funny, sad, absurd and terrifying that the progressive left used to absolutely cherish George Orwell, an avowed anti-Totalitarian and Social-Democrat, and yet they have now basically (and quietly) shifted this narrative, attempting of all things to turn Orwell himself—and therefore his ideas—into yet another “Republican talking point.” I won’t go into the specifics of why the contemporary “progressive” left has lost their minds, how they’ve become the very thing they claim to hate, how Animal Farm and 1984 describe not only the far-right wing of America but the far-left. That, in my view, is so patently obvious to anyone still using a functional brain that it need not even be explicated.

In “Politics and the English Language” Orwell discusses many concepts, all of which have to do with what he perceived at the time as the decay of the Anglo-Saxon writing phenomenon. One thing I love about Orwell is his no-bullshit, direct, straight-from-the-hip, concise and almost punch-you-in-the-face manner of writing. He tells you like it is. As with any writer, I do not agree with every single thing he writes. But I do think, right or wrong as any case may be, he was certainly one of our most honest writers.

In the essay he rants eloquently about the overuse of “fancy” or “pretentious” or “glittery” language (all except “pretentious are my words). He complains about the then-contemporary lack of “precision” and “clarity” (his words). The overuse of Latin and Greek words get a harsh grilling. Nonsensical, trite, overused cliché metaphors and similes get a beating. Worn-out metaphors; mixed metaphors; pre-fabricated words strung together for ready-use; the lack of self-honesty around any writer’s inherent political bias; etc. Vagueness gets a sock to the face; he prefers “concreteness” and “detail” over general, lazy assertions which cannot easily be seen, understood, identified, defended. Bad, useless diction. Changing simple words or concepts into their opposites.

Orwell drums up (brilliantly) Six Writer Questions: “A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say? 2. What words will express it? 3. What image or idiom will make it clearer? 4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?”

He complains about “euphemisms” and the overuse of “the not-un formation,” as in “Jimmy was not unable to write well.” Just say:” “Jimmy wrote well.” Why the additional glittery ornament? Why the flashy added words? To try to sound more intelligent? Really writers who do this more often sound pretentious and insecure. Orwell writes about what authors are often trying to say consciously, and how that often contradicts what comes out on the page unconsciously.

He writes about the Six Rules of Writing:

“One can often be in doubt about the effect of a word or a phrase, and one needs rules that one can rely on when instinct fails. I think the following rules will cover most cases”:

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

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

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

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

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

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

###

Contemporary Times and “Politics and the English Language.”

In the essay Orwell makes several astute clarifying statements about bias and political agendas in writing. This is the end of the first paragraph of page one:

“It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes.

Here’s a proper quote from the essay on clarity: “If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers.”

Here is where the second decade of the 21st century comes in a la Wokeism/Identity Politics:

“Many political words are similarly abused. The word fascism now has 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 Pétain 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.”