Recommended Reading

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

This month's topic is actually quite perfect considering my recent Easter gift from my SO:



I just recently started reading, but it presents political doublespeak in a way that's amusing and entertaining, and includes some political cartoons and jokes.

Frank Luntz, a Republican consultant, has written an entire book about weaseling, called Words That Work. He counsels politicians to say:

electronic intercepts NOT wiretapping
exploring for energy NOT drilling for oil
tax simplification NOT tax reform
tax relief NOT tax cuts
opportunity scholarships NOT vouchers

The Democrats are not above the fray. Liberal linguist George Lakoff, tired of being outflanked by the clever conservatives who substitute death tax for estate tax, tries his hand at counterweaseling -- how about freedom judges instead of judicial activists? he asks. Nice try, George, but the conservatives are obviously better at this.

It's easy to see why politicians would pay big bucks for this kind of advice. Here's some for free:

"My mother was a cutlery specialist" NOT "My mother was an ax-murderer"
"I received my education in some of the most venerable institutions in our nation" NOT "I spent seven years in Leavenworth and three months at the Betty Ford Center"
"I have always striven to serve the public" NOT "I started out as a bartender in a gentleman's club"

The book was published in 2007 and deals with universal issues of political argument, satire, and doublespeak. Part VI of the book deals with The Star Trek Strategy: Misleading by Creating an Alternate Universe, which I think is a chapter Michele Bachmann could learn a thing or two from reading. Part II covers The "So's Your Mother" Strategy: Misleading by Getting Personal, something all of us in this comm have been guilty of from time to time. I really can't say enough good things about this book. It's enlightening and fun and I hope, if anyone hasn't read it already, they take a look.

Comments

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Cool post; I love the design for the cover you posted, and being a typography whore, I love that font too!

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

The thing I loved the most is my SO bought me an autographed copy - real ink, not stamps and Daniel Klein's signature was a bit smudged toward the end. Very cool!

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Just an icon comment.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Old hat. Don't forget Plato and a Platypus....

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

I haven't read that one yet, or Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates: Using Philosophy (and Jokes!) to Explore Life, Death, the Afterlife, and Everything in Between. Looking to add both to my book collection at some point.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

Just bought all three :)

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

I don't think people give the left enough credit for how they shape the language of arguments.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Or the Right. Like with the pretense that fascism and communism are the exact same thing and that the whole business of the Axis-Soviet War was a family squabble, not the major ideological war of the 20th Century.

One of these things is not like the other

[russj.livejournal.com]

What fascism and communism have in common is that they are both forms of statism--as opposed to individualism.

Re: One of these things is not like the other

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

That's what they have in common, yes, the precise nature of that statism however had some blatant irreconcilable differences. It's why that whole four year war happened. Communism was class, fascism was Prussianism on crack.

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

Aardvarks are magnificent creatures. Nothing more to say but I may search for the book.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Honestly, the Dems just don't re-define rhetoric very well. I mean the last one they had that was good at it was what, Truman? Newspeak incidentally reflected the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis that if you removed the positive reference to freedom as an idea that the idea itself would disappear. Much of Orwell's original work was a satire of both the British Labor party *and* of the Soviet Union, which he had a massive hate-on for. The truly ironic part is the extent to which people today go to avert the obvious conclusion that Orwell's book was in fact a satire of Soviet practices.

Nowadays with our enhanced interrogation techniques pursuing our not-a-wars which kill 20-somethings while not targeting people for assassination and our freedom fries and pre-emptive war doctrine today's USA has under Clinton, Bush, and Obama adopted some of the same maskirovka to disguise what we're actually doing instead of speaking about what we really do. It's like how people will use phrases like pass away/kick the bucket/pushing up lillies as opposed to die/dying.