Hush hush, liberal-propagandist pact among high school history teachers in Massachussetts–and beyond…

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The Federalist

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https://thefederalist.com/2018/08/07/emails-reveal-high-school-teachers-plotting-hide-political-bias-parents/

• EDUCATION

Emails Reveal High School Teachers Plotting To Hide Their Political Bias From Parents

The Left is abusing American high school education in its struggle to gain and retain political power. We only found out about this incident by accident. How many more?

By Ilya Feoktistov

AUGUST 7, 2018

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Shortly after President Trump’s inauguration, a group of public school history teachers in the posh Boston suburb of Newton pledged to reject the “call for objectivity” in the classroom, bully conservative students for their beliefs, and serve as “liberal propagandist[s]” for the cause of social justice.

This informal pact was made in an exchange of emails among history teachers at Newton North High School, part of a very rich but academically mediocre public school district with an annual budget of $200 million, a median home price of almost half a million, and a median household income of more than $120,000. Read the entire email exchange here.

I obtained the emails under a Massachusetts public records law after one of those teachers arranged, earlier this year, for an anti-Semitic and anti-Israel organization to show Palestinian propaganda films at Newton North. This stunt earned the Newton Public Schools district a rebuke from the New England branch of the Anti-Defamation League and from Boston’s Jewish Community Relations Council. But, as the teachers’ emails reveal, Jew-hatred is not the only specter haunting the history department at Newton North.

The Teachers Conspire to Hide Extreme Prejudice

It was late on a cold and snowy New England evening in February 2017, and Newton North history teacher Isongesit Ibokette was venting at his keyboard about the new guidelines for avoiding bias in teaching. They had been sent out by Newton North’s principal that morning, prompted by the general ill will among teachers for the new occupant of the White House.

The guidelines asked teachers to remain objective while teaching about historical and current events; and to treat all students, regardless of political opinion, with respect. Teachers were told: “For current controversial issues (health care, immigration, environmental policies, gun laws), teach students that there are different perspectives and present the reasoning of those who hold those different perspectives.”

Ibokette was having none of it. He typed this reply: “I am concerned that the call for ‘objectivity’ may just inadvertently become the most effective destructive weapon against social justice,” and sent it to the members of Newton North’s history department.

Ibokette was responding to an email from another Newton North history teacher, David Bedar. Bedar was same teacher who hosted the anti-Semites at Newton North, and has played a significant role in the years-long controversy over anti-Jewish bias in the public schools of the heavily Jewish suburb.

Earlier that February day, Bedar sent an email to fellow Newton North history faculty, accusing President Trump and his supporters of “nativism, xenophobia, homophobia, etc.,” and objecting to the following “don’ts” that the Newton North principal had asked teachers to avoid:

• “Assume that all students agree with us. . . .”
• “Assume that all students feel comfortable disagreeing with us. . . .”
• “Present facts or logic that support only one side of a current controversial issue. . . .”
• “Present our own personal opinion on a current controversial issue as more right than another viewpoint. . . .”

These guidelines seem like Pedagogy 101, and are foundational to correctly applying logic and reason. Yet Bedar, who holds a master’s in teaching from the prestigious Duke University, admitted to his colleagues:

Personally, I’m finding it really difficult in the current climate to teach kids to appreciate other perspectives. . . [T]he ‘other viewpoint’ might not really be an argument ‘about which reasonable people can disagree’ and might not lead to any kind of intellectual, policy debate; it might just be blatantly racist. . . . [I]t feels wrong to not call out ideas that I know will offend many of my students and create a hostile and potentially unsafe environment. . . . I’m worried that as a school we’re so focused on making all kids feel safe and being PC that we’re not showing enough concern for [immigrant] students whose very rights to attend this school and receive an education are being seriously threatened. . . . I don’t feel good about protecting [a nativist] student’s right to a so‐called ‘political’ view. . . Do I really have to avoid saying ‘I think nativism is bad?[‘] The eugenics movement was based in large part on immigrants destroying our country.

Bedar’s strawman argument is fallacious. Trump administration immigration policies and the Americans who support them have nothing to do with eugenics. To claim without evidence and by tenuous association that they do is repugnant.

Don’t Fire Me for Being a ‘Liberal Propagandist’

Much worse yet is Bedar’s display of extreme political intolerance toward the views of millions of his fellow Americans, among whom are, presumably, a number of his own students. Support for immigration law enforcement is by no means a fringe political perspective, even in Massachusetts. It is certainly not some sort of taboo that must be expunged from classroom debate, and Newton North guidelines explicitly tell teachers to teach about the reasoning behind different perspectives on immigration.

Yet, in remarkable language, Bedar demanded that the school allow him to propagandize against it, and to do so without any professional consequences: “I have an obligation to teach civic duty and teach kids right and wrong, and about social justice. . . . This will probably be an unpopular opinion, but I don’t actually think we should have the option of not discussing [social justice] issues. I feel responsible for doing so. . . . We can help kids interpret the lessons of the past better than anybody. I feel like a phony when I’m not doing that. . . . But..this is hard. I don’t want to get fired for being a liberal propagandist” (emphasis added).

Bedar is, of course, wrong on multiple levels. A master’s degree in teaching is risibly inadequate to qualify anyone as the arbiter of right and wrong, and a history teacher’s basic obligation is to teach history accurately and objectively. A sine qua non of that obligation is to avoid propaganda of any kind.

Unfortunately, Bedar does not seem to be very good at the actual basics of teaching history, much less at interpreting the lessons of the past, shortcomings for which he compensates by being a reasonably good propagandist. For example, Bedar’s erroneous belief to the contrary notwithstanding, the early twentieth-century eugenics movement was based less in conservative nativism than in the same New England progressivism Bedar preaches today. The eugenicist Immigration Restriction League was founded in Boston by three Harvard progressives. As The Guardian well puts it, eugenics is “the skeleton that rattles loudest in the left’s closet.”

Propagandists Simplify Very Complex Events into Slogans

Indeed, if common cause with the eugenics movement is Bedar’s litmus test for approved opinions in the classroom, then opinions supporting deficit spending and birth control should be as forbidden there as nativism seems to be. Left-wing economist John Maynard Keynes called eugenics “the most important, significant and, I would add, genuine branch of sociology which exists,” and believed its implementation would “be a great moment in the progress of civilization.” Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger was an inveterate eugenicist who believed that “the campaign for Birth Control is not merely of eugenic value, but is practically identical in ideal, with the final aims of Eugenics.”

All of this is not to argue over birth control, deficit spending, and which ideologies are responsible for what travesties. Rather, it is to say that history, politics, and ideology are complicated things. Yet, in the history lessons they teach, propagandist teachers like Bedar insist on reducing all of this complexity to a Manichean struggle between “right and wrong,” the essence of which they insipidly correlate with “Democrat and Republican.”

In that kind of lurid light, where no shades of gray can possibly exist, people who lack the “right” politics must pose, in Ibokette’s words, a “real, immediate, and present danger” to human progress, and to all that is right and good. Men who light up the world in such stark contrast fill history books with their crimes.

This Is Like My Childhood Education in the Soviet Union

The year after the Soviet Union fell, I entered fifth grade at State School No. 8 in the Siberian city of Tomsk, where I was born at the beginning of the end of that evil empire. Usually, Soviet children started learning the history of Russia in fifth grade, but my teacher told the class that she had nothing to teach us anymore.

“The old history books are useless now,” I distinctly remember her telling us. “They were full of Communist Party lies.” Just like that, the entire monument of official Soviet history, built upon an ideological foundation of lies and held together by despotism, crashed as soon as the coercive power that had kept it upright for 74 years disappeared in an instant.

Left-wing activists are dug in at all stages of the American educational process from preschool to graduate school.

Undaunted by the failures of their comrades in the Soviet Union and other socialist hell-holes, left-wing activists are dug in at all stages of the American educational process from preschool to graduate school, where they seek to replicate the Soviet Union’s abuse of its children’s minds with lurid lies.

Even science education is facing a hostile takeover by progressive luddites with scientific degrees who insist, as one biology PhD student did recently, that “to think there are universal truths perpetuates a particular kind of able bodied white cisgender male logic.” The result of all this left-wing obscurantism is a brainwashed Generation Z that inhabits a false reality colored in stylized black and white by leftist dogma—the same false reality that Soviet school and preschool battered into me as a child.

The Teachers’ Administrators Back Them Up

After Bedar complained that he didn’t want to get fired for being a “liberal propagandist,” his fellow history teacher, Ibokette, wrote back: “David, if you get fired for doing exactly what history teachers, and indeed all rational and ethical‐minded adults should indeed be doing, I will be right behind you.”

I wish this would happen, not because I want them punished, but because I think the way they teach history is a form of child abuse. But Bedar and Ibokette’s superiors, all the way up the ladder, are fully on board with this abuse. Bedar’s direct supervisor, Newton North history department chair Jonathan Bassett, replied to his revolt against reason with this: “David: Your ‘essay’ is very good, and raises a lot of the questions that we are all dealing with. . . . We are in unprecedented times, and we are all struggling to do good.”

The Left is abusing American high school education in its struggle—not to do good, but to gain and retain political power. The ongoing trend of growing political intolerance and ideological bigotry among the newest American adults will continue, and nothing good will come of it. In the Soviet Union, I’ve seen what young people could be turned into, what I myself could be turned into. Trust me, America hasn’t seen anything yet.

Ilya Feoktistov is a member of the board of directors of Americans for Peace and Tolerance.

Photo U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Cary Smith/Released

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Copyright © 2018 The Federalist, a wholly independent division of FDRLST Media, All Rights Reserved.

Cries on deaf ears at the turnaround of a dead-end street

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There should be a test called “What represents a crime, and what represents a not-crime, and which is worse?”  It should be against the rules to lie on the test or write off the test answers as “relative” and therefore unnecessary to waste time on.

An obvious problem with the test is one of generationally-ingrained blind partisanship.  There are now too many people of voting age who have been conditioned by parents and/or mentors to believe that if you can get away with it, then it’s a not-crime, and if it’s contrary to your partisan belief-system, then it’s a crime–even when it’s truthfully not.

Somewhere along the line, truth was kicked in the ass down a dead-end street.  Most people now thrive, at least politically, at the intersection of partisanship and relativism.

Hillary and Bill are criminals relative to whether or not they got caught, and if caught, whether or not they got indicted.  They each have broken numerous laws over the decades, but with the exception of Bill, they weren’t convicted of any.  Crimes?

Trump is a criminal relative to whether you’re partisan to the Democrats or to the Republicans.  Trump has broken no laws, at least, it has yet to be proven.  Not-crimes?

A dilemma, these cries on deaf ears at the turnaround of a dead-end street.

by S.A. Bort  10 October 2016

photo from:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_end_(street)

Orwell as oracle

In the following article, the author displays an anti-American prejudice.  For example, he notes that he owns a “prized book . . .  that recounts the glory of Saddam Hussein’s victory over the United States in 1991.”  Later, he notes “four incidents [contrasted to the Benghazi incident of 2011], [in which] those committing the acts of brutality were wearing an American flag on their shoulder.”

On the other hand, the alleged lies and cover-up of the Benghazi incident (which the author at least acknowledges) by the Obama administration is a case-in-point.  Who profited by Benghazi?  Who is the victor who will write the history books?  Who will care?

The ten Orwellian quotes hold truth for all–not just for haters of America.  Politics begets partisanship which begets prejudice.  The quotes, from whatever partisan or non-partisan worldview one holds, apply to all and are worthy of reflection by all.  –SB

http://www.thedailysheeple.com/10-george-orwell-quotes-that-predicted-life-in-2014-america_092014

THE DAILY SHEEPLE / Wake the Flock Up!

10 George Orwell Quotes that Predicted Life in 2014 America

Justin King
The Anti-Media
September 22nd, 2014

^[1]

George Orwell ranks among the most profound social critics of the modern era.  Some of his quotations, more than a half a century old, show the depth of understanding an enlightened mind can have about the future.

“In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics.’  All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.”

Though many in the modern age have the will to bury their head in the sand when it comes to political matters, nobody can only concern themselves with the proverbial pebble in their shoe.  If one is successful in avoiding politics, at some point the effects of the political decisions they abstained from participating in will reach their front door.  More often than not, by that time the person has already lost whatever whisper of a voice ^[2] the government has allowed them.

“All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.”

Examining the nightly news in the run up to almost any military intervention will find scores of talking heads crying for blood to flow in the streets of some city the name of which they just learned to pronounce.  Once the bullets start flying, those that clamored for war will still be safely on set bringing you up-to-the-minute coverage of the carnage while their stock in Raytheon ^[3] climbs.

“War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.”

It’s pretty self-explanatory and while it may be hard to swallow, it’s certainly true.  All it takes is a quick look at who benefited ^[4] from the recent wars waged by the United States to see Orwell’s quip take life.

“The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world.  Lies will pass into history.”

My most prized books are a collection of history books from around the world.  I have an Iraqi book that recounts the glory of Saddam Hussein’s victory over the United States in 1991.  I have books from three different nations claiming that one of their citizens was the first to fly.  As some of the most powerful nations in the world agree to let certain facts be “forgotten, ^[5]” the trend will only get worse.  History is written by the victor, and the victor will never be asked if he told the truth.

“In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

Even without commentary, the reader is probably picturing Edward Snowden or Chelsea Manning.  The revolutions of the future will not be fought with bullets and explosives, but with little bits of data traveling around the world destroying the false narratives with which governments shackle their citizens.

“Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed:  everything else is public relations.”

Make no mistake about it; if an article does not anger someone, it is nothing more than a public relations piece.  Most of what passes for news today is little more than an official sounding advertisement for a product, service, or belief.

“In real life it is always the anvil that breaks the hammer…”

In every conflict, it is not the side that can inflict the most damage, but the side that can sustain the most damage that ultimately prevails.  History is full of situations in which a military “won the battles but lost the war.”

“The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.”

Haditha.  Panjwai.  Maywand District.  Mahmudiyah.  These names probably don’t ring a bell, but it is almost a certainty that the reader is aware of the brutality that occurred in Benghazi.  The main difference is that in the first four incidents, those committing the acts of brutality were wearing an American flag on their shoulder.

“Threats to freedom of speech, writing and action, though often trivial in isolation, are cumulative in their effect and, unless checked, lead to a general disrespect for the rights of the citizen.”

Everyday there is a new form of censorship or a new method of forcing people into self-censorship, and the people shrug it off because it only relates to a small minority.  By the time the people realize their ability to express disapproval has been completely restricted, it may be too late.  That brings us to Orwell’s most haunting quote.

“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.”

Once the people are indoctrinated with nationalistic beliefs, and the infrastructure to protect them from some constantly-changing and ever-expanding definition of an enemy is in place, there is no ability for the people to regain liberty.  By the time all of the pieces are in place, not only is opportunity to regain freedom lost, but the will to achieve freedom has also evaporated.  The reader will truly love Big Brother.

Delivered by The Daily Sheeple ^[6]

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Contributed by Justin King of The Anti-Media ^[7].

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Article printed from The Daily Sheeple: http://www.thedailysheeple.com

URL to article: http://www.thedailysheeple.com/10-george-orwell-quotes-that-predicted-life-in-2014-america_092014

URLs in this post:

[1] Image: http://www.thedailysheeple.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/1984.jpg

[2] whisper of a voice: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007392

[3] stock in Raytheon: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/360218

[4] benefited: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/07/rand-paul-says-dick-chene_n_5104391.html

[5] forgotten,: http://theantimedia.org/google-implements-right-to-be-forgotten-and-begins-censoring-history/

[6] The Daily Sheeple: http://www.TheDailySheeple.com/

[7] The Anti-Media: http://theantimedia.org/10-george-orwell-quotes-that-predicted-life-in-2014-america/

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Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language.”

This 1945 essay by George Orwell, most famously the author of the novels 1984 and Animal Farm, has been read and revered in university classrooms, as well as in writing programs, very near as long as it has been in print.  Today, in the year 2013, our world is under 196 flags and twenty-four time zones.  Orwell’s essay is as essential toward clarity in the speaking and writing of the English language today as it has ever been in both a political and economic sense.  –SB

[Please note that I’ve added bold text where needed to highlight Orwell’s key passages.  This allows for a quick read of his main thesis, but also allows the reader to then read the entire post, knowing, while doing so, Orwell’s meaning in his examples and expansions of thoughts.

Orwell, when he wrote this essay fifty-eight years ago, wrote extremely long paragraphs, as was acceptable then, when readers had the patience to read through them carefully.  Perhaps it highlights Orwell’s message somewhat that today, in this age of emails, Facebook chats and tweets, people have less patience for reading lengthy passages.  So, I’ve taken the liberty to break up his long paragraphs, and I’ve indicated those breaks with the symbol “~.”

Finally, through the use of ellipses, I’ve redacted certain words and clauses, of least importance, again for ease on the patience of today’s readers.  It is my sincere hope that through reading and understanding this post, the reader will then take the next step of locating Orwell’s essay and reading it in its entirety.]

“Politics and the English Language” / George Orwell

. . . the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it.  Our civilization is decadent and our language—so the argument runs—must inevitably share in the general collapse. . . . any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light . . . Underneath this lies the half conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes.

. . . the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes:  it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer.  But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form and so on indefinitely.  A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks.  It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language.  It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.  The point is that the process is reversible.

~

Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble.  If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration . . . the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers. . . .

. . . two qualities are common . . . The first is staleness of imagery; the other is lack of precision.  The writer either has a meaning and cannot express it, or he inadvertently says something else, or he is almost indifferent as to whether his words mean anything or not.  This mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence is the most marked characteristic of modern English prose, and especially of any kind of political writing. . . . the concrete melts into the abstract and . . . prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated henhouse.

Dying metaphors.  A newly invented metaphor assists thought by evoking a visual image . . . a metaphor which is technically “dead” . . . has in effect reverted to being an ordinary word and can generally be used without loss of vividness. . . . in between these two classes there is a huge dump of worn-out metaphors which have lost all evocative power and are merely used because they save people the trouble of inventing phrases for themselves. . . . and incompatible metaphors are frequently mixed, a sure sign that the writer is not interested in what he is saying.

~

Some metaphors now current have been twisted out of their original meaning without those who use them even being aware of the fact.  For example, toe the line is sometimes written tow the line. Another example is the hammer and the anvil, now always used with the implication that the anvil gets the worst of it.  In real life it is always the anvil that breaks the hammer, never the other way about . . .

Operators or verbal false limbs.  These save the trouble of picking out appropriate verbs and nouns, and at the same time pad each sentence with extra syllables which give it an appearance of symmetry.  Characteristic phrases are render inoperative, militate against, make contact with, be subjected to, give rise to, give grounds to, have the effect of, play a leading part (role) in, make itself felt, take effect, exhibit a tendency to, serve the purpose of, etc. etc.

~

The keynote is the elimination of simple verbs.  Instead of being a single word, such as break, stop, spoil, mend, kill, a verb becomes a phrase, made up of a noun or adjective tacked on to some general purpose verb such as prove, serve, form, play, render.

~

In addition, the passive voice is wherever possible used in preference to the active, and noun constructions are used instead of gerunds (by examination of instead of by examining). . . .

Pretentious diction.  Words like phenomenon, element, individual (as noun), objective, categorical, effective, virtual, basic, primary, promote, constitute, exhibit, exploit, utilize, eliminate, liquidate, are used to dress up simple statements and give an air of scientific impartiality to biased judgments.  Adjectives like epoch-making, epic, historic, unforgettable, triumphant, age-old, inevitable, inexorable, veritable, are used to dignify the sordid processes of international politics, while writing that aims at glorifying war usually takes on an archaic color, its characteristic words being:  realm, throne, chariot, mailed fist, trident, sword, shield, buckler, banner, jackboot, clarion.

~

Foreign words and expressions such as cul de sac, ancien regime, deus ex machina, mutatis mutandis, status quo, gleichschaltung, weltanshauung, are used to give an air of culture and elegance.  Except for the useful abbreviations i.e., e.g., and etc., there is no real need for any of the hundreds of foreign phrases now current in English.  Bad writers, and especially scientific, political, and sociological writers, are nearly always haunted by the notion that Latin or Greek words are grander than Saxon ones, and unnecessary words like expedite, ameliorate, predict, extraneous, deracinated, clandestine, subaqueous, and hundreds of others constantly gain ground from their Anglo-Saxon opposite numbers.

~

The jargon peculiar to Marxist writing  (hyena, hangman, cannibal, petty bourgeois, these gentry, lackey, flunkey, mad dog, White Guard, etc.) consists largely of words and phrases translated from Russian, German, or French; but the normal way of coining a new word is to use a Latin or Greek root with the appropriate affix and, where necessary, the -ize formation.  It is often easier to make up words of this kind (deregionalize, impermissible, extramarital, nonfragmentary and so forth) than to think up the English words that will cover one’s meaning.  The result, in general, is an increase in slovenliness and vagueness.

Meaningless words.  In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning.  Words like romantic, plastic, values, human, dead, sentimental, natural, vitality, as used in art criticism, are strictly meaningless, in the sense that they not only do not point to any discoverable object, but are hardly ever expected to do so by the reader.  When one critic writes, “The outstanding feature of Mr. X’s work is its living quality,” while another writes, “The immediately striking thing about Mr. X’s work is its peculiar deadness,” the reader accepts this as a simple difference of opinion.  If words like black and white were involved, instead of the jargon words dead and living, he would see at once that language was being used in an improper way.

~

Many political words are similarly abused. . . . The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice, have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another.  In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides.  It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it:  consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning.

~

Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way.  That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different.  Statements like Marshal Petain was a true patriot, The Soviet press is the freest in the world, The Catholic Church is opposed to persecution, are almost always made with intent to deceive.  Other words used in variable meanings, in most cases more or less dishonestly, are:  class, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality.

I am going to translate a passage of good English into modern English of the worst sort.  Here is a well-known verse from Ecclesiastes:

I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to

the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to

the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, not yet

favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to

them all.

Here it is in modern English:

Objective consideration of contemporary phenomena compels

the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities

exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity,

but that a considerable element of the unpredictable

must invariably be taken into account.

. . . The beginning and ending of the sentence follow the original meaning fairly closely, but in the middle the concrete illustrations—race, battle, bread—dissolve into the vague phrase “success or failure in competitive activities.” . . . The whole tendency of modern prose is away from concreteness.  Now analyze these two sentences a little more closely.  The first contains forty-nine words but only sixty syllables, and all its words are those of everyday life.  The second contains thirty-eight words of ninety syllables:  eighteen of its words are from Latin roots, and one from Greek.  The first sentence contains six vivid images, and only one phrase (“time and chance”) that could be called vague.  The second contains not a single fresh, arresting phrase, and in spite of its ninety syllables it gives only a shortened version of the meaning contained in the first.

~

Yet without a doubt it is the second kind of sentence that is gaining ground in modern English. . . . This kind of writing is not yet universal, and outcrops of simplicity will occur here and there in the worst-written page. . . .

. . . modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer.  It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug.  The attraction of this way of writing is that it is easy.  It is easier—even quicker, once you have the habit—to say In my opinion it is not an unjustifiable assumption that than to say I think.  If you use ready-made phrases, you not only don’t have to hunt about for words; you also don’t have to bother with the rhythms of your sentences, since these phrases are generally so arranged as to be more or less euphonious [pleasing or agreeable to the ear]. . . .

~

By using stale metaphors, similes, and idioms, you save much mental effort at the cost of leaving your meaning vague, not only for your reader but for yourself.  This is the significance of mixed metaphors.  The sole aim of a metaphor is to call up a visual image.  When these images clash—as in The Fascist octopus has sung its swan song, the jackboot is thrown into the melting pot—it can be taken as certain that the writer is not seeing a mental image of the objects he is naming; in other words he is not really thinking. . . . People who write in this manner usually have a general emotional meaning—they dislike one thing and want to express solidarity with another—but they are not interested in the detail of what they are saying.

~

A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus:  What am I trying to say?  What words will express it?  What image or idiom will make it clearer?  Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?  And he will probably ask himself two more:  Could I put it more shortly?  Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly? . . . It is at this point that the special connection between politics and the debasement of languages becomes clear.

In our time, it is broadly true that political writing is bad writing.  Where it is not true, it will generally be found that the writer is some kind of rebel, expressing his private opinions and not a “party line.”  Orthodoxy, of whatever color, seems to demand a lifeless, imitative style.  The political dialects to be found in pamphlets, leading articles, manifestoes, White Papers and the speeches of undersecretaries do, of course, vary from party to party, but they are all alike in that one almost never finds in them a fresh, vivid, homemade turn of speech.

~

When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases—bestial atrocities, iron heel, bloodstained tyranny, free peoples of the world, stand shoulder to shoulder—one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy:  a feeling which suddenly becomes stronger at moments when the light catches the speaker’s spectacles and turns them into blank discs which seem to have no eyes behind them. . . .

~

A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology has gone some distance toward turning himself into a machine.  The appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved as it would be if he were choosing his words for himself.  If the speech he is making is one that he is accustomed to make over and over again, he may be almost unconscious of what he is saying, as one is when one utters the responses in church.  And this reduced state of consciousness, if not indispensable, is at any rate favorable to political conformity.

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. . . . political language has to consist largely of euphemism [a mild term for one considered offensive], question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. . . . 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 a certain curtailment of the right 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.”

The inflated style is itself a kind of euphemism.  A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outlines and covering up all the details.  The great enemy of clear language is insincerity.  When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.  In our age there is no such thing as “keeping out of politics.”  All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia.  When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer. . . .

. . . if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.  A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation, even among people who should and do know better.  The debased language that I have been discussing is in some ways very convenient.  Phrases like a not unjustifiable assumption, leaves much to be desired, would serve no good purpose, a consideration which we should do well to bear in mind, are a continuous temptation, a packet of aspirins always at one’s elbow.

~

Look back through this essay, and for certain you will find that I have again and again committed the very faults I am protesting against. . . . This invasion of one’s mind by ready-made phrases . . . can only be prevented if one is constantly on guard against them, and every such phrase anaesthetizes a portion of one’s brain.

. . . the decadence of our language is probably curable.  Those who deny this would argue, if they produced an argument at all, that language merely reflects existing social conditions, and that we cannot influence its development by any direct tinkering with words and constructions.   So far as the general tone or spirit of a language goes, this may be true, but it is not true in detail.

~

Silly words and expressions have often disappeared, not through any evolutionary process but owing to the conscious action of a minority.  Two recent examples were explore every avenue and leave no stone unturned, which were killed by the jeers of a few journalists.

~

There is a long list of flyblown metaphors which could similarly be got rid of if enough people would interest themselves in the job . . . to reduce the amount of Latin and Greek in the average sentence, to drive out foreign phrases and stayed scientific words, and, in general, to make pretentiousness unfashionable. . . . The defense of the English language implies more than this, and perhaps it is best to start by saying what it does not imply.

. . . [defense of the English language] has nothing to do with archaism, with the salvaging of obsolete words and turns of speech, or with the setting up of a “standard English” which must never be departed from.  On the contrary, it is especially concerned with the scrapping of every word or idiom which has outworn its usefulness.  It has nothing to do with correct grammar and syntax, which are of no importance so long as one makes one’s meaning clear, or with the avoidance of Americanisms, or with having what is called a “good prose style.”

~

On the other hand it is not concerned with fake simplicity and the attempt to make written English colloquial.  Nor does it even imply in every case preferring the Saxon word to the Latin one, though it does imply using the fewest and shortest words that will cover one’s meaning.  What is above all needed is to let the meaning choose the word, and not the other way about.  In prose, the worst thing one can do with words is to surrender to them.

~

When you think of a concrete object, you think wordlessly, and then, if you want to describe the thing you have been visualizing you probably hunt about till you find the exact words that seem to fit it.  When you think of something abstract you are more inclined to use words from the start, and unless you make a conscious effort to prevent it, the existing dialect will come rushing in and do the job for you, at the expense of blurring or even changing your meaning.

~

Probably it is better to put off using words as long as possible and get one’s meaning as clear as one can through pictures or sensations. Afterward one can choose—not simply accept—the phrases that will best cover the meaning, and then switch round and decide what impression one’s words are likely to make on another person.  This last effort of the mind cuts out all stale or mixed images, all prefabricated phrases, needless repetitions, and humbug and vagueness generally.  But one can often be in doubt about the effect of a word or a phrase, and one needs rules that one can rely on when instinct fails.  I think the following rules will cover most cases:

(i)  Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

(ii)  Never use a long word where a short one will do.

(iii)  If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

(iv)  Never use the passive where you can use the active.

(v)  Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

(vi)  Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

These rules sound elementary, and so they are, but they demand a deep change of attitude in anyone who has grown used to writing in the style now fashionable.  One could keep all of them and still write bad English . . .

I have not here been considering the literary use of language, but merely language as an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought. . . . one ought to recognize that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language, and that one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end.  If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy. . . .

~

Political language . . . is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.  One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one’s own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase . . . into the dustbin where it belongs.

[Please note that the first graphic is from The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language Fifth Edition (2011), and the remaining four graphics are from The World Almanac And Book Of Facts 2013 (2013)]

[Orwell’s text is from:  McCallum, John Hamilton., Ed.  Prose And Criticism.  New York:  Harcourt, Brace & World, 1966.]

Please also see:

A Spoonful Of Effort Helps Competent Grammar Go Down  (10 September 2013)

Rachel Jeantel and Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language.”  (28 June 2013)

Four maxims on habit formulation, or:  “accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, latch on to the affirmative and don’t mess with mister in-between”  11 January 2012

Deja Vu: Dark Shadows all over again

Angelique and Barnabas

Tim Burton and Johnny Depp could have chosen numerous ways to approach their remake of Dark Shadows.  The original show was absolutely loved by all who followed it, and it’s still a cultural document that characterizes the pivotal period between 1966 and 1971.  Yearly conventions have been held since the show went off the air.  Books are still being written about it.

Dark Passages by Kathryn Leigh Scott

Instead of translating that love into what holds people together during dire circumstances and fears and supernatural questions and frights–maybe the path that The Sixth Sense took, or even the Twilight Series, or anything with a serious framework, Burton and Depp chose the absolutely most innane approach possible–to make silly fools of the characters and of the whole 1970s culture that followed the demise of the show.

Why they would choose to poke fun at what was a revolutionary concept at the time–a soap opera about vampires, witches, werewolves?  This was almost 50 years before Twilight and Underworld, and it was scheduled on TV for exactly the time when kids got out of school.  That’s right, I said kids.  Here was a show with fangs and blood and murder and stakes driven in hearts, and kids were running home from school to watch it on public TV (there was no cable at the time), and most parents not only let us but watched it with us.  There were no videotapes or DVR’ing then; it was a time of the day we lived for–not for a laugh-fest, but to communally immerse ourselves into it.

School’s out!  Rush home to the TV little kiddies.

There was nothing campy about it to us.  At the age of 11 – 16, I and others saw it as an alternative universe to the one we lived in–the one in which Malcolm X was shot to death in a church a year earlier in 1965 by the Nation of Islam with both a sawed-off shotgun and two handguns for preaching unity between blacks and whites; the one in which the terrorist SDS (Students For A Democratic Society) were crafting improvised explosive devices  (IED’s) and razor blade studded potatoes to ethnically cleanse the “blue meanies” of society that they hated, in the name of peace, love and happiness.

Dark Shadows at least made sense in that Barnabas was evil because of a curse placed on him by Angelique.  Why was the Nation of Islam evil?  They weren’t cursed by Angelique.  Why were the SDS supposedly fighting for peace, love and happiness, and yet they were killing and maiming innocent people.  They weren’t cursed by Angelique, were they?  Maybe I missed something back then.  The world of Dark Shadows made sense in a way that our own screwed-up world didn’t.

You would think that Burton and Depp would have had the vision to put two-and-two together to make an important statement instead of a silly juvenile laugh-fest.

On February 21, 1965, in Manhattan’s Audubon Ballroom, Malcolm X began to speak to a meeting of the Organization of Afro-American Unity, when a disturbance broke out in the crowd of 400.  As Malcolm X and his bodyguards moved to quiet the disturbance, a man rushed forward and shot Malcolm in the chest with a sawed-off shotgun.  Two other men charged the stage and fired handguns, hitting him 16 times.  Shabazz was in the audience near the stage with her daughters.  When she heard the gunfire, she grabbed the children and pushed them to the floor beneath the bench, where she shielded them with her body.  When the shooting stopped, Shabazz ran toward her husband and tried to perform CPR.  Police officers, and Malcolm X’s associates, carried him to a stretcher, and brought him to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.  Angry onlookers caught and beat one of the assassins, who was arrested on the scene.  Eyewitnesses identified two more suspects.  All three men, who were members of the Nation of Islam, were convicted, and sentenced to life in prison.

[see my blog: Malcolm X’s “The Ballot or the Bullet” for more.]

The Nation of Islam supposedly stood for God and yet they were shotgunning those who veered from the party line–those like Malcolm X who saw a nation inclusive of blacks and whites.  The SDS supposedly stood against war and for peace and yet they were bombing and maiming their opposers.  “Helter Skelter” and “Gimme Shelter” indeed!  Sorting it out then was almost impossible.  Who were the good, the bad and the ugly?  In Dark Shadows, you knew the answers.

Tribune Archive Photo – October 9, 1969: Chicago Police Sgt. James Clark shows one of the weapons used by [SDS] demonstrators [during their “Bring Home the War” Days of Rage], a potato studded with razor blades.

Sorting it out now leads one into the territory of political incorrectness, because it’s the remnants of the SDS who largely advise our government now [ see http://www.city-journal.org/2008/eon0629df.html ] and who still desire to ethnically cleanse the “blue meanies” of opposers to their political agendas in the name of peace, love and happiness.  Members of the 1960s SDS/Weather Underground, Bernardine Dohrn, Mark Rudd, Bill Ayers and Jeff Jones have all served in giving advice within the President Obama administration.  Frances Fox Piven, involved with the 1960s SDS, now advises the direction of the Occupy Movement.

[see my blog: Spring 2012: Lucifer Rising and Other Sound Tracks? for more.]

Ron Paul says:  “Truth is Treason in the Empire of Lies.”  That has never been more true as now.  He also quotes Psalms 120: 6-7, “Too long have I had my dwelling among those who hate peace.  I AM FOR PEACE but when I speak, THEY ARE FOR WAR.”

Barnabas was cursed by Angelique, making him a good guy who was cursed to do evil things.  Angelique was evil, but so dang tempting and seductive, and those eyes of hers–mama mia!  Anyway, in Dark Shadows, people acted contrary to their inner goodness, and people without goodness may have succeeded for awhile, but they ultimately got their just desserts.

Angelique (Mama mia!)

Burton and Depp were major fools to choose to make clowns of these characters instead of relating their fictional otherworldly existence to the reality of the otherwordly existence of the late 1960s and then to take it a step further to our current otherworldly existence in this most bizarre (and deja vu) election year of 2012.  (Perhaps they’re cowards to appear “politically incorrect”–or worse…)

Just like Barnabas and Angelique, fated lovers, here we are again in a battle of lies, deceits and struggles for worldly power, eternal power–or eternal death.

But, there will be no eternal rest for Barnabas:

131 disc (1225 episodes) Complete Series (1966-1971) in nickel-hinged coffin case. Spines of DVD cases when lined up in box show image of Barnabas lying in the casket: Includes Jonathan Frid’s autograph: $431.99.

Living Cheaply with Style

 

SB

The following excerpts from [Callenbach, Ernest.  Living Cheaply With Style.  Ronin Publishing, 1993.] resonate with my own attempts at expressing who I am.  One of my favorite words has become enough:  “sufficient to meet a need or satisfy a desire; adequate.”  Callenbach is definitely writing from within a specific political “box” (which is more than evident in later passages of his book), and I like to keep as far away as possible from partisanship, but much of his voice rings true for me.  –SB

 from: Living Cheaply With Style:

 

Dedication

 

To all who think for themselves and stay conscious of the choices that shape their lives . . .

 

To all who know in their bones that enough is enough, and want to figure out how much that is . . .

 

To all who understand that thrift, ingenuity, and resourcefulness mimic nature and help preserve the Earth . . .

 

To all who wish to survive with grace, humor, imagination, and a little help from their friends . . .

 

Introduction

 

The aim of the book is to equip you to live a better life–more relaxed, more confident, more resilient, more loving, more thoughtful, more satisfying, more genuinely stylish–than you could possibly have with a lot more money.  It’s not easy to live in America today, and for many of us it’s getting steadily harder.  But if we learn to live smarter and with less dependence on the money economy, we can tap a rich potential for sustaining healthy, productive, and happy lives–lives with real personal style.  This book will both provide you with the knowledge and suggest the change in attitudes that can enable you to escape from the mental oppression of our commodity-crazed society, and to focus on what’s really important in life:  our human relationships both inside and outside the family, our communities, our physical and mental health, our contributions to the world, and the infinite pleasures and delights life can offer that are not dependent on cash.

 

Style.

 

You live with style when you live in a self-determined and original way that is authentic for you, when you do things you enjoy because you enjoy them and not because you read about them somewhere or heard that somebody famous and rich enjoys them.  You live with style when you keep your mind free to invent ways of thinking, feeling, and doing that suit you, rather than some corporate marketing department.  You live with style when you rely on your own practiced judgment rather than somebody else’s pronouncements.

 

Thus style is a matter of independence, even rebellion; we’re not talking here about fashion, which is a matter of commercially fostered fads.  America offers a paradoxical living environment, because on the one hand we praise independence of spirit, but on the other hand we are a nation of sheep in our consumer behavior, regularly duped by advertisers.  In our commercial life and in our political life, we have become a nation of chronic liars.  Living with style means turning away from lies, being your own person–though also realizing that as human beings we are social and sociable animals whose safety and serenity inevitably depend heavily on others.  Part of the pleasure of living cheaply with style is to share your tricks and achievements with others, to build a counter-culture in which human beings can live more comfortably and satisfyingly, and to help make American life saner and more humane.