In light of the issues presented by United States v. Jones, questioning the technological ability of the government to track movement through GPS, not to mention through cellphones, and the ubiquity of video cameras, the word “Orwellian” has become a mainstay of much discussion, and many court decisions.  While listening to oral argument in Jones, Orin Kerr  counted 5 references to Orwell’s 1984.

But as Marc DiGirolami notes, Big Brother’s ability to see and hear people at all times wasn’t the point.

I don’t believe that the term “Orwellian,” assuming it is used as a reference to 1984, is principally about government monitoring of private citizens.  It’s true that Winston Smith has to deal with the telescreen at home, and that there are hidden microphones everywhere to allow the government to spy.  I understand the allusion.  But I believe it to miss the point.

I agree. Government monitoring was a trapping, a backdrop to the point Orwell was trying to make. Government was allowed to take advantage of its populace because of his core concern, and the focus on the trappings rather than the root of the problem now is, frankly, pretty disturbing.  This is why things went so horribly wrong in 1984, and our attention to the symptoms without recognizing the disease suggests that we’re headed in the same direction.

The real aim of this monitoring has to do with knowing and controlling what is in people’s minds, not only to prevent “thoughtcrime” from occurring but to eradicate the possibility of thoughtcrime altogether (this is the upshot of Smith’s experience in the Ministry of Love (Miniluv), where he comes to “love” Big Brother after a series of physical and mental tortures, culminating in Room 101).  The point is not merely, or even primarily, about watching people.  It is about controlling their minds and compelling abject adoration by dominating their thoughts.

Orwell was focused on language, not technology.  Newspeak.

Even more than this, 1984 is about the inexorable degradation of language by its close association with the state (“political” writing was not Orwell’s favorite).  I am not the first to believe that if the book were written today, its target might not have been the state, but linguistic degeneration through the influence of biz-speak or tech-speak, consultant-speak and text-speak. 

The appendix to 1984 is a discussion of how it is that language can be deliberately simplified and boiled down, and that it was perceived to be the great advance of Newspeak that, unlike all languages before it, it was continually shrinking.  Linguistic style, its complication and variety, is connected with human individuality and uniqueness of thought.  It is the aim of the state in 1984 to crush that individuality by removing all shades of meaning, all nuance, all manner of degree and particular flavor in vocabulary.  By this systematic linguistic impoverishment, people become more docile, as single and ever-contracting words come to signify two opposite meanings (doublethink).

By eliminating that aspect of language that allows people to adequately think about and communicate subversive ideas, Big Brother was able to eliminate the underlying ideas, which in turn allowed the domination of thought.

Marc’s point, that the degradation of language is happening all around us, and largely led not by government but by “biz-speak or tech-speak, consultant-speak and text-speak,” really strikes home.  Spend any time reading the crap that passes as content on the internet and, if you’re still capable, give just a bit of thought to the meaning of the words.  What we find with unacceptable frequency are strings of words that convey vague impressions with utterly no discernable meaning. 

This phenomenon isn’t limited to mommy blogs or tin-foil hat societies, but lawyers and law firms whose marketing copy reflects a wholesale absence of actual thought.  It’s become common in court decisions where rhetorical gymnastics are substituted for definitions and rationales. 

Indeed, in  the discussion of #Occupy Wall Street’s purpose, what’s become sadly clear is that people will cling to vague slogans, platitudes and notions that convey the impression of meaning when there’s nothing there.  Everyone can take their own personal comfort in the movement’s purpose, without having any capacity to know whether anyone else in the movement actually agrees with them or shares that purpose.  We embrace vaguely inspirational expressions, and don’t seem to realize that they don’t actually say anything.

And yes, it’s become a staple of political rhetoric, from the absurd acronyms used to warm us to overreaching laws (USA PATRIOT Act) to the acceptability of having TSA protectors insert their fingers into women’s vaginas “for our own protection.”

DiGirolami takes the argument one step beyond where I would, however, when he asserts:

“Orwellian” is an apt description of the new orthodoxy of “simple,” “plain,” “direct” written expression that passes under the Newspeaky term, “good writing,” or in legal circles, “effective legal writing.”  The next time somebody insists that you ought not use a word because it is too ornate, difficult, antique, complex, or unfamiliar, tell them that they are being Orwellian. 

The point Orwell made was that language needs to satisfy the ability to think and convey specific and nuanced meaning.  This doesn’t mean that it’s somehow more intellectual to use more complicated, prolix or faux sophisticated language when a simple, plain or direct word does the job.  The point of communication is to communicate, not show how many fancy words are in your repertoire.

Of course, when a particular word, even one rarely used and whose definition was forgotten immediately after taking the SATs, is the one that expresses precisely what you mean to say, then that’s the word to use. The idea is that we need to keep all the words in our arsenal available, as we can’t afford to lose the ability to express any idea, but, like force, use them only when needed and justified.

If we can think and convey ideas with precision through simple words, then that’s the way to go.  It’s the precision of our language, not the number of syllables, that matters.  And if you can’t explain in meaningful concrete terms what some string of words means, then chances are they mean nothing and you’re being treated like Winston Smith.  That’s Orwellian.