Politics and the English Language: In Favor of More Arguing and Less Name-calling

In Politics and the English Language, George Orwell decries the poor use of language in the political writings of his day, calling for a less obfuscatory style and presenting examples of bad writing. No doubt political discourse has degenerated even further in the years since 1946, when Orwell’s essay first appeared. This may be a characteristic of political rhetoric common to all times and places about which little can be done, but there is one practice we really do need to put a damper on, and that is calling opponents “idiots.”

In recent years, I’ve been surprised to see how frequently people use the word “idiot” or an equivalent to describe anyone with whom they disagree. Perhaps this has always been true in the vulgar idiom of the street, but it is certainly new in higher spheres of discourse, such as public debate, from which one would expect more. It is hard to imagine past newsmen like Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite or even more recent figures such as Dan Rather or Tom Brokaw calling public figures “idiots” on the air, but it has become quite common in recent years.

Fox news commentator Bill O’Reilly has his “pinheads,” and most other well-known news anchors have followed his lead in having a regular segment just for insulting someone. Politicians do it as well, such as when former Utah governor Jon Huntsman called Baptist pastor Robert Jeffrees a “moron” recently (previous blog), or when former Speaker of the House Newt Gringrich in a recent Republican presidential debate offered open insult to a lot of people:

“What is amazing to me is the inability of much of our academic world, much of our news media and most of the people on Occupy Wall Street to have a clue about history.”

He just called a lot of people idiots, just without using that exact word. The political and economic pundits are even worse about it, and even academic scholars, when debating contentious issues like evolution or religion, increasingly resort to insult.

Surely public figures, often educated at the nation’s best institutions of learning, know that calling someone an idiot is not an argument. Of course, the object of their ire may very well be an idiot, but what needs to be said is why that person’s view is so wrong--or why that person is an idiot. The summary insult is a shortcut that spares one the effort of formulating and expressing real arguments. The insult is superfluous and unconstructive.

I suspect that this tendency is at least in part a social phenomenon caused by information overload. Our lives are increasingly dominated by media that present us with a cacophony of contrary opinions all backed voluminously with facts and argumentation. The brain tires of the argument and wants to put it all to rest in one fell swoop. Calling someone an idiot accomplishes this nicely, at least in the mind of the one doing the name-calling, by obviating consideration of anything that person says.

As understandable as that is, we must take the time to form our opinions deliberately and express them eloquently. We must take the time to argue or we risk forfeiting the realm of public discourse to those least worthy of engaging in it--the least thoughtful and least well-spoken.