Orwellian Wisdom

Certain texts repeatedly come up in any discussion of persuasive communications.

Aristotle’s works on logic and rhetoric top the list for obvious reasons, as do historic speeches by great writers and orators such as Winston Churchill and Martin Luther King.

But an essay by George Orwell, called Politics and the English Language, also tends to be discussed frequently when critical thinking, rhetoric (or whatever else you want to call the subject under discussion at this site) turns to political matters. 

Orwell’s brilliance as a political and literary thinker provides enough reason for his work to show up in so many different areas of learning.  And his accessibility (particularly through his fictional works such as Animal Farm and 1984, which many of us were introduced to in High School) also accounts for his name being so frequently invoked in political discussion.

I also suspect that as an anti-totalitarian Socialist, Orwell is hard to claim exclusively by either Left or Right, both of which utilize his name and work (often to condemn what they perceive to be the ultimate end point of the other side’s political trajectory).  And given how much these two poles have come to define the boundaries and dynamics of political debate for the last century, it’s at least good to know that a writer who transcends such a dichotomy still resonates with today’s readers (and thinkers).

A quote from Politics and the English Language that frequently makes an appearance is Orwell’s translation of an honest (if hideous) political sentiment into contemporary, immoral double-speak:

Consider for instance some comfortable English professor defending Russian totalitarianism.  He cannot say outright, “I believe in killing off your opponents when you can get good results by doing so.”  Probably, therefore, he will say something like this:

“While freely conceding that the Soviet regime exhibits certain features which the humanitarian may be inclined to deplore, we must, I think, agree that certain curtailment of the rights to political opposition is an unavoidable concomitant of transitional periods, and that the rigors which the Russian people have been called upon to undergo have been amply justified in the sphere of concrete achievement.”

This excerpt alone is enough to demonstrate the decrepitude of language Orwell was warning about, but reading through his essay from start to finish, you realize that he is not just discussing the symptoms but also the cause of this disease.  And this cause is the understandable desire to make ones writing seem more informed and well thought through than it is by stringing together “strips” of pre-fabricated or pre-digested words or groups of words (which might be clichés, but may also be acceptable but overused phrases or metaphors), rather than actually knowing what you want to say and putting the time, effort and thought into figuring out how to say it well.

One doesn’t need to tune into the latest presidential speech or candidate debate to see this stringing together of reasonable-sounding but utterly vacuous language as a substitute for serious thought and honest communication.  Anyone who has worked in an office setting will immediately recognize it in the language of the corporate memo whose writer can’t bring him or herself to simply say: “The strategy we decided to follow last year was a failure, so we’re going to abandon it and try something else.”  (As opposed to the much more familiar “Market conditions have changed over the last 12-18 months, which require us to review all initiatives underway within the organization.  And while not diminishing our commitment to key market opportunities and methods of achieving them with which stakeholders are already aware, current plans are to broaden our existing strategies to encompass new alternatives that will help us maximize value for our customers, employees and shareholders.”)

But modern politics adds a new twist to the subject of Orwell’s warnings: the use of science (or more specifically, scientific polling and statistical analysis) designed to determine exactly which points and what phraseology will get the biggest rise (and produce the fewest “negatives”) within a well-honed and audience-tested speech.  In other words, science – which helps us reach precision and accuracy in so many other endeavors – in politics is being used to ensure that meaningless or deceptive language will still sound correct and honest to certain audiences. 

A way out of this trap for ourselves is to follow Orwell’s suggestion and begin our thinking about an argument not by selecting language that seems convincing, but by truly thinking through what we are trying to achieve.  And once that’s been accomplished, we should choose the fewest, clearest and shortest words needed to communicate our message, ornamenting language (if necessary) with vivid and original images and metaphors, rather than tired clichés. 

And as consumers of persuasive communication, we should stay on high alert for dying metaphors (play into the hands of, grist for the mill, anytime soon…), verbal false limbs (render inoperative, be subjected to, exhibit a tendency towards…), pretentious diction (categorical, virtual, ameliorate, extraneous), and meaningless words (or at least words that clearly mean more than one thing being used definitively, such as democracy and patriotism). 

While it might be a challenge to tap into the wisdom of thinkers who wrote in the 400s BCE in an age when we think we have all the answers, it’s worth listening to someone speaking to use from a “mere” 66 years ago who clearly understands us better than we understand ourselves.

Rhetoric – 1

As the presidential primaries roller coaster towards what will ultimately be the selection of a Republican interlocutor to argue his case with a Democratic incumbent, it will be useful to look at some of the language (or rhetoric) that is likely to make up such arguments.

It’s a pity that rhetoric (now thought of as mere rhetoric) has moved from being one of the primary subjects of study for an educated person to something treated with suspicion if not outright contempt.

I suppose if you look at rhetoric as nothing more than a bag of verbal tricks designed to pull the wool over the eyes of an easily duped audience, it’s an easy category of human knowledge to dismiss.  But it’s never been clear to me that once we have rid ourselves of nasty and cynical old rhetoric, what exactly is supposed to replace it?  Will the world be transformed into a place where only honest and purely sincere discourse reigns?  Or is it more likely that those who have not chosen to ignore a study of rhetorical techniques (such as advertisers and politicians) will use those skills as they like, with the rest of the population no longer familiar that there is even a subject of rhetoric to be studied?

We’ve already talked about one component of rhetoric: Aristotle’s three modes of persuasion (logos, pathos and ethos).  But there are a whole host of rhetorical devices which, like fallacies, have mostly Latin names and are fun to illustrate with familiar (or wacky) examples.  And while we’ll take a look at rhetorical techniques over the next few postings keep in mind that (as with fallacies) one needn’t be familiar with every one of them to be on the lookout for ones most likely to be used in a modern Presidential campaign.

Let’s start off with the category that makes up the bulk of most lists of rhetorical devices: those that rely on linguistic styling.

Some of these will be familiar from the introductions to poetry we had in grade school, such as alliteration (repeating consonant sounds as in Spiro Agnew’s describing critics as “nattering nabobs of negativism”), assonance, the same technique with vowel sounds (as in “I Like Ike”), metaphor, simile, allusion and analogy (each of which relate one thing to another in a verbally interesting way - as in "no man is an island").  It should come as no surprise that word choice and sentence structure that make poetry and prose more interesting impact readers and listeners of political oratory in a similar fashion.

Then there are techniques relating to word sequencing such as antistrophe (repeating the same word or phrase - as in “Yes we can!” - at the end of successive clauses or phrases), tricolon (capping a part of a speech with a group of three words or phrases, as in Hilary Clinton’s appeal to "my supports, my champions…my sisterhood!”), and that perennial favorite chiasmus (relating two clauses via reversed structure as in “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”)

In researching this piece, I was surprised to discover that my own writing makes extensive use of the parentheses device, in which a word or phrase appears in the middle of a sentence (enclosed in either dashes or parentheses, like this).  This technique lets you disguise an important point as an informal aside, drawing attention to a critical component of an argument by making it almost seem a disposable afterthought.

My surprise derived from the fact that, like most of you, I have never formally studied rhetoric but have simply developed a writing style over time by both writing and reading the political writing of others.  And at some point during that period, I must have encountered political writing using this device that I found particularly persuasive, internalizing it in the process (along with other informal asides such as starting a sentence with “In truth,…” or “But stop and think for a moment…”). 

One of the reasons it’s good to start this discussion of rhetoric with linguistic examples is that they are harder to dismiss as intrinsically manipulative.  After all (there I go again), we want our politicians to engage us when they speak, not read out dry passages of text and policy proposals.  In fact (I can’t seem to help myself), any politician who does not pepper his or her speeches with interesting language choice and word sequences is likely to be dismissed as “boring,” “dry” or the dreaded “uninspiring.”

No doubt there are interesting psychological explanations as to why this word choices or cadences have a particular impact on human cognition and emotion.  But for purpose of this discussion, mastery of these techniques represent an entrance point for persuasive speech, an ethically neutral set of tools which can be used by anyone who masters them for good or ill.

And one of the best ways to ensure we are not manipulated by these or other forms of rhetoric is to develop and understanding of these techniques so that we can recognize and appreciate them (without being suckered by them, especially out of ignorance).

Ethos

Aristotle, in his usual fashion, systematized the modes of persuasion we are already seeing in the run-up to the Presidential campaign into the categories of logos (logic), pathos (emotion) and ethos (the topic for today).

While most people can spot when a speaker is delivering a logical or emotional argument, ethos is a more complex and subtle thing to determine. The Greek term translates to “character,” so in one sense ethos is the character of the person delivering a persuasive (political) speech.

But what do we mean by character? Is it the authority a speaker brings to the subject due to his or her level of expertise or experience? While such authority can be a component of ethos, an appeal to authority (including one’s own) can also be considered a fallacy, especially if the person claiming authority has not earned this right (or is trying to use his or her authority on one subject to establish credibility in another subject outside their domain of expertise).

A speaker can also establish credibility by speaking exceedingly well and convincingly. But if such skill is used to cover up a lack of actual knowledge (or obscure a poor argument), then rhetoric is not being used to clarify but to confuse or even deceive.

It helps if we think of ethos as an award given by an audience to a speaker which derives from a number of variables. Aristotle felt that ethos can only be awarded to someone based on what they say, not on any authority or moral character they have established outside of the arguments they are presenting. But he was living in an era when political campaigning consisted almost entirely of speeches given in person before live groups such as political assemblies or the courts.

In our modern world, we are forced to create a composite of a candidate based on inputs and information coming from all directions (the news media, breakdowns of a candidate’s personal and political history, campaign ads created by them as well as directed against them). In fact, even when we have celebrated a particular candidate’s rhetoric skill (as we did with the current President during the last election), our evaluation was based more on his ability to speak before and move extremely large audiences than it was on the particular contents of any given speech.

So how can we determine the ethos of a candidate, other than taking the easy way out and rewarding it automatically to the person we were planning on voting for anyway (and similarly denying it to his opponents) regardless of what either of them says?

Certainly (appropriate) authority and general rhetorical talent can be part of the equation. But a more important test was alluded to in the recent posting on pathos. There I noted that emotionally based arguments cannot be dismissed out of hand as manipulative and irrational, but they should be subject to scrutiny to ensure they are not being used inappropriately.

Within this context, pathos can be tested both quantitatively (is the speaker too dependent on emotional argument, sacrificing logos in the process?) and qualitatively (is he or she appealing to good emotion such as courage and generosity, or bad emotion such as fear and selfishness?).

If a speaker gets this combination right (regardless of whether they are speaking before one person or many, in person or over the airwaves), then we should be more inclined to award them that powerful intangible gift of ethos.

And if they don’t (or if no candidate does), we’ll need to live with the fact that we might be electing a President with high qualifications, great gifts or strong experience, who unfortunately lacks components of character required to earn the reward of ethos, a lack that will likely come back to bite him (and us) during his or her term in office.

Pathos

Because logic provides such a sound basis for making decisions, it follows that logos – the ability to present an argument based on logic – will have considerable rhetorical power. If we are presented with one argument based on sound premises linked to conclusions via a solid chain of reasoning, this is generally seen as superior to an argument which lacks these qualities (all other factors being equal).

But as appealing as it might be to base all of our decisions on cold, hard logos, logic alone suffers from two significant shortcomings. First off, the structure of logic works, regardless of the “facts” it is applied to. For example, IF all unicorns are magical creatures AND Gerry is a unicorn, then the statement “Gerry is a magical creature” is logically true, even if unicorns, magical creatures (or Gerry, for that matter) do not exist.

More significant for those looking for practical ways to apply critical thinking to important problems (such as choosing a President) logic cannot necessarily break a tie between two arguments of equal logical strength. Building on a simple example from last time, there might be a perfectly valid and logical argument why a school band should spend its money on new uniforms (because they will provide benefit for many years) and an equally sound argument why that same money should be spent to play at the Rose Bowl (since it raises the profile of the band and will help recruit new members).

Given that most of the political debates we have (or should have) are based on choosing between equally valid (and often equally good or bad) choices, something other than logic must be used to help us make a choice. Enter human emotion.

Now arguments based on emotion (i.e., pathos) tend to make us uneasy for two reasons. First off, we instinctively see emotion as non-rational. But we have already taken a look how at another seemingly non-rational attributes of the human condition (imagination) can help inspire and/or channel critical thinking.

It’s no accident that Aristotle built his Golden Mean ethical theory around emotion (and action) since these are the primary drivers of human existence. Within this context, reason plays the role of informing and training us how to make choices in these two non-reasoning realms. And even if we could turn ourselves into Vulcans, dedicated to making all decisions by logic alone, we’ve just noted that logic runs into a wall when we are faced with a choice between arguments over competing goods of equal logical strength.

The other (stronger) argument against pathos is that it is manipulative. By appealing to our gut or animal instincts, rather than our higher human facilities of reason (it is argued) pathos-driven rhetoric asks us to short-circuit thought and come to a speaker’s desired conclusion based on how it makes us feel (regardless of the argument’s logical worth).

There’s no question that pathos can and has been used in this way throughout history. Demagogues were whipping up the crowds to make irrational decisions back in the day when the rules of rhetoric were first canonized, and we only need to turn on cable TV to see manipulative, emotion-laden arguments presented on an hourly basis.

But the criticism of pathos being destructive assumes that all emotions are equal, which they clearly are not. Appealing to fear, greed, hate, and guilt for example, represent an appeal to bad emotions (or, as I like to think of them, “emotions of the gut”) while an appeal to courage, generosity, love and sympathy appeal to good emotions (or “emotions of the heart”).

So one way to determine if pathos is being used cynically or constructively is to analyze whether the emotions we are being asked to take into account when evaluating an argument (such as a campaign speech) are reaching to our gut vs. our heart.

The other factor to keep in mind is that strong arguments that leverage emotion (good or bad) should not rely exclusively on emotional appeals. In fact, one sure sign of demagoguery is the demagogue’s exclusive or over-reliance on pathos vs. finding just the right combination of logos and pathos to drive the argument forward.

Given that every political debate has an emotional component, we should not become cynical if a political speaker makes use of powerful pathos-based rhetorical techniques. And we should be particularly careful not to fall into the trap of deciding that the emotional content of speeches made by candidates we support are inspiring while those made by their opponents are creepy and manipulative.

Rather, we should judge political speech (made at a campaign stop or TV ad) based on whether the speaker is appealing to the gut vs. the heart, and how well they get the balance right between logos and pathos. And if they get this tricky combination right, they will be rewarded with the highly valuable third component of rhetoric: ethos, the subject of the next posting.

Logos

Regardless of how heated our political conversations have become, they remain conversations (i.e., we still settle our political differences largely through dialog vs. some other method such as violence or coercion). Which means the ability to create and analyze persuasive speech, writing and other forms of communication (otherwise known as rhetoric) is as important today as it was 2500 years ago when the ability to persuade others was the key to power (and self-reliance) within the first democratic societies.

Today, the term “rhetoric” is largely dismissive (as in “mere rhetoric”), stressing the fact that persuasive speech can often used be to mask, rather than reveal, the truth. But for millennia, the ability to master rhetorical skill was one of the cornerstones of being an educated person. And I suspect it is no accident that as opportunities to study rhetorical techniques have waned, so has the quality of our political discourse.

This is particularly unfortunate since rhetorical skills are not that difficult to understand or master (at least to a point where we can use them to analyze the persuasive communication of others – such as campaign speeches or television ads). For example, Aristotle posited three modes of appealing to an audience that are as relevant today as they were in ancient Athens. These include:

Logos – The use of logic to frame an argument

Pathos – The appeal to emotions of the audience

Ethos – A somewhat more complex concept relating to the authority and credibility of the speaker

Today, we’ll take a look at logos and see how it can be use by political candidates trying to get our attention and persuade us to do this or that, and by voters to determine the quality of those political arguments.

Despite the fact that classical logic is not automatically part of everyone’s high school or college education any longer, logic is still an enormously popular and ingrained subject in scientific and technical areas. Anyone performing computer programming (from kids playing Scratch to skilled developers working with advanced programming languages) are essentially wrestling with logical problems built on the premise that thought and action can be boiled down to symbols that can be manipulated and tested for accuracy.

In political discourse, our innate passion for consistency can be seen as our natural desire to reject any argument that boils down to the simple logical statement: “A equals NOT A” (a contradiction that automatically disqualifies an argument as having insufficient logos).

Now when we deal with complex issues (such as budget priorities, national defense, social issues and the like), it can sometimes seem like these matters are far too complicated to transform into simple IF-THEN statements and the like. In fact, one of the great frustrations of technically minded men and women (such as scientists and engineers) with politics is that political discourse seems to defy the type of neat categorization they see in their professional life.

But all arguments – even the most complex – can be translated into smaller units, each of which can be tested for logical soundness. For example, a particular spending program (whether designed to help the poor or defend the nation) implies premises (that there exists a category of people needing a certain service or a threat that needs countering by a specific weapon system), which can be identified, quantified and analyzed. And once those premises have been identified and studied, we can review the chain of logic between those premises and the conclusions drawn from them.

These logical chains can go in more than one direction. For example, there may be a compelling logic that a spending program will be effective, but an equally compelling logic that demonstrates it will not be cost-effective (which would imply the need to search for other alternatives).

In fact, the greatest problem associated with basing our political discourse and analysis on logos has nothing to do with the inability of logic to help us separate good from bad policies. Rather, it is the fact that logic does not provide us with enough information to decide between competing goods.

Even if we look at a simple, localized political issue (such as whether or not to buy school band uniforms this year vs. use that money to pay for a trip to perform in the Rose Bowl), we are likely to end up with equally compelling arguments on either side of equivalent logical soundness. In fact, most (if not all) of the political arguments worth having are not between the bad and illogical vs. the good and logical, but between two equally good and equally logical alternatives.

For those decisions, we need some additional information (or persuasion) to make a decision. And one of the things we can turn to are our emotions. So tune in next time for a discussion of pathos.