The Tyranny of Words

I'm going to quote extensively from Stuart Chase's important book (first recommended to me by the social critic, Lenny Bruce) The Tyranny of Words first published in 1938. Chapter II of that book is entitled A LOOK AROUND THE MODERN WORLD.

... let us take a brief survey of some effects of bad language in the contemporary scene.

... if people as one meets them ... are, in overwhelming proportions, kindly and peaceful folk, ... and if the human brain is an instrument of remarkable power and capacity ... there must be some reason, some untoward crossing of wires, at the bottom of our inability to order our lives more happily and to adapt ourselves and our actions to our environment.

Nobody in his senses wants airplanes dropping bombs and poison gases upon his head; nobody in his senses wants slums, Tobacco Roads, and undernourished, ragged schoolchildren in a land of potential economic plenty. But bombs are killing babies in China and Spain today, and more than one-third of the people in America are underfed, badly housed, shoddily clothed. Nobody wants men and women to be unemployed, but in Western civilization from twenty to thirty million are, or have recently been, without work, and many of those who had recovered their jobs are making munitions of war. In brief, with a dreadful irony, we are acting to produce precisely the kinds of things and situations which we do not want. ... The tendency of organisms is strongly toward survival, not against it. Something has perverted human-survival behavior. I assume that it is a temporary perversion. I assume that it is bound up to some extent with an unconscious misuse of man's most human attributes -- thinking and its tool, language.

Failure of mental communication is painfully in evidence nearly everywhere we choose to look. Pick up any magazine of newspaper and you will find many of the articles devoted to sound and fury from politicians, editors, leaders of industry, and diplomats. You will find the text of the advertising sections devoted almost solidly to a skillful attempt to make words mean something different to the reader from what the facts warrant. ... "A controversy," says Richards, "is normally an exploitation of a set of misunderstanding for warlike purposes." Have you ever listened to a debate in the Senate? A case being argued before the Supreme Court? ... This is not frail humanity strapped upon an eternal rack. This is a reparable defect in the mechanism. When the physicists began to clear up their language, especially after Einstein, one mighty citadel after another was taken in the quest for knowledge. Is slum clearance a more difficult study than counting electrons? ...

... Abstract terms are personified to become burning, fighting realities. Yet if the knowledge of semantics were general, and men were on guard for communication failure, the conflagration could hardly start. There would be honest differences of opinion, there might be a sharp political struggle, but not this windy clash of rival metaphysical notions.

A diversion: My Back Pages -- song lyrics by Bob Dylan


Crimson flames tied through my ears
Rollin' high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps
"We'll meet on edges, soon," said I
Proud 'neath heated brow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth
"Rip down all hate," I screamed
Lies that life is black and white
Spoke from my skull. I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers
Foundationed deep, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

Girls' faces formed the forward path
From phony jealousy
To memorizing politics
Of ancient history
Flung down by corpse evangelists
Unthought of, though, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

A self-ordained professor's tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
"Equality," I spoke the word
As if a wedding vow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

In a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I'd become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My pathway led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect
Good and bad, I defined these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

If one is attacked and cornered, one fights; the reaction is shared with other animals and is a sound survival mechanism. In modern times, however, this natural action comes after the conflict has been set in motion by propaganda. Bad language is now the mightiest weapon in the arsenal of despots and demagogues. Witness Dr. Goebbels. Indeed, it is doubtful if a people learned in semantics would tolerate any sort of supreme political dictator. Ukases would be met with a flat "No comprendo" or with roars of laughter. A typical speech by an aspiring Hitler would be translated into its intrinsic meaning, if any. Abstract words and phrases without discoverable referents would register a semantic blank, noises without meaning. For instance:

The Aryan Fatherland, which has nursed the souls of heroes, callus upon you for the supreme sacrifice which you, in whom flows heroic blood, will not fail, and which will echo forever down the corridors of history.

This would be translated:

The blab blab, which has nursed the blabs of blabs, calls upon you for the blab blab which you, in whom flows blab blood, will not fail, and which will echo blab down the blabs of blab.

The "blab" is not an attempt to be funny; it is a semantic blank. Nothing comes through. the hearer, versed in reducing high-order abstractions to either nil or a series of roughly similar events in the real world of experience, and protected from emotive associations with such words, simply hears nothing comprehensible. the demagogue as well have used Sanskrit.

If, however, a political leader says:

Every adult in the geographical area called Germany will receive not more than two loaves of bread per week for the next six months,

there is little possibility of communication failure. There is not a blab in a carload of such talk. If popular action is taken, it will be on the facts. ...

Endless political and economic difficulties in America have arisen and thriven on bad language. The Supreme Court crisis of 1937 was due chiefly to the creation by judges and lawyers of verbal monsters in the interpretation of the Constitution. They gave objective, rigid values to vague phrases like "due process" and "interstate commerce." Once these monsters get into the zoo, no one knows how to get them out again, and they proceed to eat us ...

Judges and lawyers furthermore have granted to a legal abstraction the rights, privileges, and protection vouchsafed to a living, breathing human being. It is thus that corporations, as well as you or I, are entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It would surely be a rollicking sight to see the Standard Oil company of New Jersey in pursuit of happiness at a dance hall. It would be a sight to see United States Smelting and Refining being brought back to consciousness by a squad of coastguardmen armed with a respirator, to see the Atlas Corporation enjoying its constitutional freedom at a nudist camp. This gross animism has permitted a relatively small number of individuals to throw the economic mechanism seriously out of gear. ... If people were armed with semantic understanding, such fabulous concepts could not arise. Corporations would not be interpreted as tender persons.

(MG) the prose which follows is filled with luscious images -- the kinds of things one needs to envision while reading certain nationally syndicated op-ed writers, who shall remain here, for now, nameless.

Corporations fill but one cage in a large menagerie. Let us glance at some of the other queer creatures created by personifying abstractions in America. Here in the center is a vast figure called the Nation -- majestic and wrapped in the Flag. When it sternly raises its arm, we are ready to die for it. Close behind rears a sinister shape, the Government. Following it is one even more sinister, Bureaucracy. Both are festooned with the writhing serpents of Red Tape. High in the heavens is the Constitution, a kind of chalice like the Holy Grail, suffused with ethereal light. It must never be joggled. Below floats the Supreme Court, a black-robed priesthood tending the eternal fire. The Supreme Court must be addressed with respect or it will neglect the fire and the Constitution will go out. This is synonymous with the end of the world. Somewhere above the Rocky Mountains are lodged the vast stone tablets of the Law. We are governed not by men but by these tablets. Near them, in satin breeches and silver buckles, pose the stern figures of our Forefathers, contemplating glumly the Nation they brought to birth. The onion-shaped demon cowering behind the Constitution is Private Property. Higher than Court, Flag, or the Law, close to the sun itself and almost as bright, is Progress, the ultimate God of America.

Looming along the coasts are two horrid monsters, with scaly paws outstretched: Fascism and Communism. Confronting them, shield in hand and a little cross-eyed from trying to watch both at once, is the colossal figure of Democracy. Will he fend them off? We wring our hands in supplication, while admonishing the young that governments, especially democratic governments are incapable of sensible action. From Atlantic to Pacific a huge, corpulent shape entitled Business pursues a slim, elusive Confidence, with a singular lack of success. The little trembling ghost down in the corner of Massachusetts, enclosed in a barrel, is the Taxpayer. Liberty, in diaphanous draperies, leaps from cloud to cloud, lovely and unapproachable.

Here are the Masses, thick black, and squirming. This demon must be firmly sat upon; if it gets up, terrible things will happen; the Constitution may be joggled -- anything. In the summer of 1937, Mr. John L. Lewis was held to be stiffing up the Masses; and the fear and horror of our best people knew no bounds. Capital, her skirts above her knees, is preparing to leave the coutnry at the drop of a hairpin, but never departs. Skulking from city to city goes Crime, a red, loathsome beast, upon which the Law is forever trying to drop a monolith, but its aim is poor. Crime continues rhythmically to Rear Its Ugly Head. Here is the dual shape of Labor -- for some a vast, dirty, clutching hand, for others a Galahad in armor. Pacing to and fro with remorseless tread are the Trusts and the Utilities, bloated, unclean monsters with enormous biceps. Here is Wall Street, a crouching dragon ready to spring upon assets not already nailed down in any other section of the country. The Consumer, a pathetic figure in a gray shawl, goes wearily to market. Capital and Labor each give her a kick as she passes, while Commercial Advertising, a playful sprite, squirts perfume into her eyes.

From the rear, Sex is a foul creature but when she turns, she becomes wildly alluring. Here is the Home, a bright fireplace in the stratosphere. The Economic Man strolls up and down, completely without vertebrae. He is followed by a shambling demon called the Law of Supply and Demand. Production, a giant with lightning in his fist, parades reluctantly with Distribution, a thin, gaunt girl, given to fainting spells. Above the oceans the golden scales of a Favorable Balance of Trade occasionally glitter in the sun. When people see the glitter, they throw their hats into the air. That column of smoke, ten miles high, looping like a hoop snake, is the Business Cycle. That clanking goblin, all gears and switchboards, is Technological Unemployment. The Rich, in full evening regalia, sit at a loaded banquet table, which they may never leave, gorging themselves forever amid the crystal and silver. . . .

Such, gentlemen, is the sort of world which our use of language fashions.

...

Handicraft communities could handle language without too seriously endangering their survival. They tortured and sometimes killed poor old ladies as "witches." They reduced their own efficiency in acquiring the necessities of life by elaborate rituals and superstition. But while language was a handicap, it was not a major menace. There was not much reading or writing. Plenty of firsthand experience acted as a check on unprovable statements.

Power Age communities have grown far beyond the check of individual experience. They rely increasingly on printed matter, radio, communication at a distance. This has operated to enlarge the field for words, absolutely and relatively, and has created a paradise for fakirs. A community of semantic illiterates, of persons unable to perceive the meaning of what they read and hear, is one of perilous equilibrium. Advertisers, as well as demagogues, thrive on this illiteracy. The case against the advertising of commercial products has hitherto rested on mendacity. In modern times outright mendacity--such as a cure for cancer--is tempered with spurious identification. The advertiser often creates verbal goods, turning the reader's attention away from the actual product. He sells the package, and especially the doctrinal matter around the package. The plain woman, by using a given cosmetic, is invited to become Cleopatra, vested with all the allure of the East. In brief, consumers often pay their money for the word rather than for the thing.

Without ability to translate words into verifiable meanings, most people are the inevitable victims of both commercial and literary fraud. Their mental life is increasingly corrupted. Unlettered peasants have more sales resistance, and frequently more sense. Foreign traders in Mexico complain bitterly of the "damned wantlessness" of the Indians. The Indians are a handicraft people, and take meaning more from doing than from talking.

One wonders if modern methods of mass education promote as much knowledge in children's minds as they do confusion. Certainly in Germany, Italy, and Russia today [circa 1938] the attempt is being made to bind the minds of children as once the feet of Chinese gentlewomen went bound. Millions of mental cripples may result.

(MG) Perhaps the most pernicious of all the cheney administration's legacy is the "No Child Gets Ahead" legislation, which has enriched the test-preparing and test-checking industries, but has resulted in schools teaching for the tests. The teachers with whom I've discussed this wrong-headed legislation react as if they have been hit by a retro-virus, all passionately opposed.

A fascinating conversation with a stranger a couple of months ago culminated in this keen observation: "We don't have a system of education in America, we have a system of INDOCTRINATION."

"The outside world," remarks Korzybski, "is full of devastating energies, and an organism may only be called adapted to life when it not only receives stimuli but also has protective means against stimuli." Without knowledge of the correct use of words most of us are defenseless against harmful stimuli. Those who deliberately teach people to fly from reality through cults, mythologies, and dogmas are helping them to be unsane, to deal with phantoms, to create dream states.

Fortunately there is nothing seriously the matter with our natural mental equipment. It might be improved, but our normal human brain, to quote Korzybski, has the possibility of making at least ten (10) with 2,783,000 zeros after it, different connections between nerve cells. There is no name in arithmetic for such a number. it is greater than the number of molecules in the universe, greater than the number of seconds which the sun has existed. With such a switchboard, the human brain ought to suffice for ordinary working purposes.

People are not "dumb" because they lack mental equipment; they are dumb because the lack an adequate method for the use of that equipment. Those intellectuals whose pastime is to sit on high fences and deplore the innate stupidity of the herd are on a very shaky fence. Often, if they but knew it, they are more confused than the man on the street, for they deal if loftier abstractions. When I hear a man say, "We never can get anywhere because the masses are so stupid," I know that I am in the presence of a myth maker, caught on his high perch behind the bars of a verbal prison.