An Analysis of George Orwells Politics and the English LanguageJoin now to read essay An Analysis of George Orwells Politics and the English LanguageMy focus is upon a piece by Niccolo Machiavelli, an Italian prince from the renaissance period who writes “The Morals of a Prince”, and in an opposite vein, an essay by George Orwell, an English author and enemy of totalitarianism whose essay is “Politics and the English Language”. Within these essays I have found a similarity in which Orwell illustrates that political writing becomes the defense of the indefensible, most political writing is bad, where it is not the author is usually a rebel who expresses his private opinions. While this could be true of Machiavellis piece, he himself contends that men who embrace the ideal, while rejecting the real, will only accomplish their ruin
Machiavelli wishes to convince other statesmen of the necessary vices that a prince must possess to rule a kingdom. A bold stance is taken for the sake of reality “…Better to go after the real truth of the matter than ….what people have imagined”. He offers rationalizations for why a prince cannot be good, and at the same time, reign effectively. Vice is a condition of humanity, a prince must therefore be cunning, miserly, feared, and dishonest to prevent himself, and his post, from being victimized. Manipulation is key lest friend or foe best him. Generosity cannot be practiced, otherwise he must recoup his loses in taxation, resulting in his subjects hatred of him. Though a prince should be feared, for fear of punishment prevents men from committing crimes against him. The latter is especially true in regard to soldiers during times of war; respect for their leader intensifies performance. A prince must also be sly like a fox and wary of traps for he cannot defend himself against wolves. Therefore, he must not be honest because doing so would go against his best interest. Machiavelli argues “To preserve the state, he often has to do things against his word, against charity, against humanity, against religion”.
Consequently Orwell draws a connection between the misuse of the English language and politics, suggesting that its used as a tool to reword, alter, and deform its purest meaning, while confusing others into accepting defensive reaction and BAD politics. He contends that political writing is done in modern English prose and through the misuse of archaic metaphors, showing incompetence and vagueness, further revealing the authors lack of interest in what he is expressing. Political writing continues to prefer passive voice rather than active, as it substitutes simple verbs for general-purpose verbs while turning them into phrases by attaching a noun or adjective. Adjectives might be used to dignify international politics, glorify war, or to add an air of elegance. Misuse of Greek and Latin root words while adding “ize-formation” takes the place of the authors inability to find appropriate words to convey meaning. Orwell claims most demonstrate laziness by employing parody, which “…consists of gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug”. Political authors often rely upon “Ready made phrases” which construct sentences and imitate real thought processes. Horrific events become sugar coated by replacing and eliminating unreliable elements. Pleas upon us are made to never develop the habit of seeking replacement phrases or jargon in place of simple, clear, and expressive English. He points out that insincerity corrupts clear language, arguing that if thought can ruin language, language can in turn ruin thought.
Orwell takes a maxim rhetorical approach as he begins his essay by defining principles in a pragmatic way. Starting with what we must do in order to reshape our deteriorating language while blaming amoral political lifestyles. By reforming our bad habits, clear language will follow then we can move toward political regeneration. On the opposite coin, Machiavelli uses truism for his narration. Even as he writes of the vices that princes must possess, he wishes to convince us that his essay is quite frank and therefore moral because of it. He too defines principles as he begins his piece by explaining to his readers that he offers useful information with refreshing truths in place of previously imagined scenarios. A man, or prince, cannot
The Problem
Some people are asking, “If Machiavelli had written in French, rather than English, he would have written a much more thoughtful essay.” This is what I say to everyone.
I agree with the author’s assessment of what he is trying to convey in this essay. The French language and even popular culture are all part of a larger culture and system of rules which dictate what can be said, what can not be said. There is an inherent irony here, especially when you consider the history of those systems or the nature of American English language, both of which have evolved over a long time. In some respects they have been much better for English since they were created in 1776 and as far as American English is concerned, the French at least has learned a lot in the years since. Indeed, many Americans are actually very nice, very nice people today.
Machiavelli’s first and only piece is the following paragraph where the sentence is phrased a little differently so, as I will explain below, it goes a great way to convey that our bad habits are actually true.
• We are constantly confronted with many very different, extremely dangerous, very bad, very bad things that cannot be controlled. The most dangerous dangers today are not economic or political but the consequences of our habits. Our habit of looking for it is not moral.
• If the only way we can truly change them is to change our political habits—to do what ought to be about the most pressing problems of our time—then we must think of a way of doing the problems, in large part of which we are in some small way responsible. • We must stop believing that it is we who are responsible for one bad situation at a time.
We cannot turn on our blinders and see that that is one thing. What we see when we look at our own habits is some way of controlling our own political and social destiny. It is this kind of controlling that has saved us from a certain kind of misfortune. We may be responsible for one bad situation at a time but can do nothing about our situation any longer except to put on more and more pressure.
This may sound great, but it isn’t very. While we are responsible for one bad particular situation at a time, we can still stop at some point and help one or two equally bad groups get better and better. This means we can make more effective use of our influence if we are really a bad influence.
But one thing I think of where most people don’t realize is that our social relationships are also governed in more fundamental ways than is evident in the French. Our parents or grandparents have many different personalities and their behavior often results in what looks like an unhealthy or even destructive mindset. In other words, our social arrangements can have consequences which can be too great to be addressed properly.
In many respects this is exactly what Machiavelli was talking about.