Many of us may not have seriously thought about the relationship between language and politics: how politics influences language and how language shapes political discourse. Ignoring this simple fact, we expect that good governance can be established by the individual efforts of a charismatic leader. But this is only partially true. For good governance, we need to cultivate a political culture that promotes politeness in language that shapes positive thought and behaviour. George Orwell, in his 1946 essay "Politics and the English Language” argued that politics corrupted the English language.
In his view, political language is built to "make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind". Nothing can be a stronger claim than this about political thought and behaviour. Orwell further argued that our civilisation is decadent, and our language must inevitably share in the general collapse. It suggests that the decline of a language must ultimately have political causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer.
Linguistic determinism
Beyond the arguments put forward in his 1946 essay, he wrote a novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, published in 1949, to argue that totalitarian politics would obliterate Oldspeak (conventional language) and design Newspeak (alternative forms of language) to control democratic thought, which would reduce the language to thinking only in totalitarian terms. This argument also leads to the understanding that politics abuses language. But there are contrary arguments about the language-politics relationship. In contrast to the popular assumption that language only reflects our thought, it nevertheless has immense power to influence our way of thinking. Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf hypothesised that language determines our thought (linguistic determinism). In a weaker argument, they also stated that language influences how we think (linguistic relativity).
Words do have illocutionary force; they can make people do something or prevent them from doing it. Words can have meaningful effects on the listeners. In this respect, words have the power to heal; words have also the power to hurt. While some words heal the wounds rather slowly, some other words worsen the wounds twice as quickly. In this respect, some words are medicine, but words can also be poison. But Karl Sornig (1989) argues that words themselves have no power, but they become powerful when they are used by powerful users. As he says, "Words can, in fact, be used as instruments of power and deception, but it is never the words themselves that should be dubbed evil and poisonous, as has become the fashion . . ." This suggests that words are not good or bad in themselves, but it is the power of the user who uses them.
The issue of the language-politics relationship is crucial to understanding how a particular form of language is used in a discourse and how it shapes our thoughts and behavior. Orwell (1946) also argued that poor language makes it easier to hold foolish or dishonest thoughts, and foolish thoughts lead to lazy, imprecise language. There is an interplay between language and politics. Just as language and politics are related, language and media have also inextricable links. In this sense, if one is constructive, the other follows, and on the contrary, if one is destructive, the other also becomes the same. In the context of the growing influence of media on politics and culture, media impacts politics seriously.
The modern means of communication have changed the world more than someone might ever have imagined. The whole world today has become so narrow that people can communicate through electronic means and exchange their views and experiences about things and events. But these means can also be misused. Just as language is used to manufacture political discourse – constructive or destructive – it can also be used to manufacture media discourse, which many people take for granted without examining whether the claims are true or not.
When the language of media becomes more political, it can be more disastrous. The disaster occurs when the language of politics defames the opponents (but not their views) with filthy and offensive language. For a few years, Nepal has been suffering from plagued politics, with unfounded blame on other political groups to win people’s favour. The criticism targeted against potential power holders gratifies the one who blames but ultimately leads to a degenerate political culture. Any political group or actor has every right to criticise the other on genuine issues, with valid arguments, using decent language. But even the top leaders seem to fail to persuade the people to follow their cause.
Derogatory form
These days, the pages of social media are filled with derogatory forms of language to denounce their opponents. The worst thing is that we have the habit of ad hominem criticism, aiming to weaken opponents and gain benefits, instead of promoting a high political culture. This trend began more overtly since political consciousness arose in the Nepalese political landscape, especially in the wake of the democratic and republican movements. When democracy was established in 1949, the political actors, not to name them individually, for their honour, engaged in criticising each other by using demeaning words, which weakened democracy, leading to the King’s takeover in 1960.
Even after the 1990 restoration of democracy and the 2006 Republican setup, language has not improved to common decency. It appears that it has become more offensive. Even now, the political forces have misused the media. Cadres from both the ruling and the opposition parties are abusing each other with massive use of abusive language through social media. When the language of politics is offensive in the media, it degenerates political culture and ultimately affects the entire civilization, leading to decadence. Let this not happen,
(The author is the chairman of Molung Foundation. bhupadhamala@gmail.com)
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