The Doublespeak Chronicles Part 1

Doublespeak : "The power to hold two completely contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously..." (Orwell)

Here and in some future posts I will discuss examples from modern mainstream discourse and political life. It's a vital topic to understand because doublethink, and it's close cousin "cognitive dissonance" set up confusions in people's mind which are very dis-empowering and can even allow us to be manipulated.

This is a controversial thing to say. One can be accused of being aloof and writing off swathes of people as gullible pawns, or even of being a "conspiracy theorist".

But most mainstream media is demonstrably in the hands of a small bunch of very narrow interest, so the idea that they might be able to set parameters of thinking and debate is hardly tinfoil hat stuff.

Sigmund Freud's nephew, Edward Bernays, was the father of modern Public Relations and advertising. He wrote "On Propaganda" - a ground breaking treatise at the time.

Soviets and Nazis in particular gave "propaganda" a bad reputation (along with putting fluoride in the water), so "PR" ended up the preferred term.

It was Bernays who got first got women to think smoking was a symbol of feminism through a range of media stunts and advertising.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSdrYJOvr3Q

(This link is from the amazing Adam Curtis - his BBC documentaries like "Century of The Self" and "The Trap" are vital viewing on these issues and easily found on Youtube)

Advertising throws up an example of everyday doublespeak, not the best but it illustrates my point.

Advertising is a mega billion global industry that essentially engages in mind control. Many people will say that advertising doesn't affect them. But if it had no effect then the capitalists simply wouldn't pay for it.

Naomi Klein's No Logo is the standard modern-ish text on the power of modern advertising.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0TQR1kVs0k

As I said before, "propaganda" is often associated in people's minds with Hitler and Stalin's regimes. But does that mean it became less successful after their demise, or did the propagandists get better and more subtle. Evidence suggests the latter.

Another example: How many people claim not to believe what they read in the papers or other mainstream media but are happy to espouse firm opinions based exactly on what they gleaned from those media?

These examples are a bit simplistic, but I hope they set the scene to discuss more specific examples from current political life.

Exhibit A: The European Union "Presidency" and "Constitution".

As an issue, the EU bores the pants off a lot of people. We had a European Election earlier this year where Europe hardly got mentioned, even though it has to be said that UKIP got the 2nd highest amount of votes.

But it's been in the news this week because the last obstacles to the full implementation of the Lisbon Treaty have fallen away.

And we've had plenty of hype about "Who will be the president?". It now looks like a certain war criminal is no longer in line for the job. Pro EU people in this country must be very relieved. But, the idea of an "EU President" really bothers some people.

"hang on", they say, "...what's this...we weren't told about this...I don't want an EU President without at least being asked".

"Ahhh...." say the defenders...."This isn't really a president".

The specific role is to be "President Of The Council".

Currently this job is done for 6 months at a time, the post rotates according to who is head of the government of the nation operating the "presidency".

The main functions are to chair meetings, draw up agendas, technical bureaucratic stuff like that.

The new position will be allotted directly to one person on 2 1/2 year terms. So, it's not really a president. Just president of the commission. The cynics just didn't understand. And once this is explained to the troublemaking citizen, it's straight back to "who will be the president?", "the president this" and "the president that".

The person will represent the EU on the world stage (presumably lessening the chance for 27 countries to represent themselves) and generally swank about the place as president. Would Blair have wanted the role if it was just a dull and technocratic?

Some may not accept that the EU is engaging us in doublethink, at least not deliberately, on the basis of that example.

But what about the "constitution"?

A few years ago, when some countries tried to run the constitution by some actual citizens in referenda. Notably France and The Netherlands roundly rejected.

The way round that turned out to be to just not call it a constitution. This got round all necessary national courts and parliaments apart from Ireland's - the only country who have been allowed a direct say on this watershed document, and the score is still only 1-1 in how they have voted.

Angela Merkel said "The substance of the constitution is preserved. That is a fact." And that is the consensus.

2 quotes to shed light on the mindset at work here

"We know that nine out of 10 people will not have read the Constitution and will vote on the basis of what politicians and journalists say. More than that, if the answer is No, the vote will probably have to be done again, because it absolutely has to be Yes. " — Jean-Luc Dehaene, Former Belgian Prime Minister and Vice-President of the EU Convention

"Public opinion will be led to adopt, without knowing it, the proposals that we dare not present to them directly ... All the earlier proposals will be in the new text, but will be hidden and disguised in some way". -Former French President and Vetran Euro-stalwart and Trilateral Commission member.

Not directly related, but we shouldn't forget: "We will put it to the British people in a referendum." — Gordon Brown, General Election Manifesto, 2005

If you weren't convinced that the "president who isn't a president" is doublespeak, the "constitution that isn't a constitution" is a slam-dunk. And there's worse to come in future editions of "The Doublespeak Chronicles"...