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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

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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?