Analytical/Political Rhetoric - Essay Example

It is in this regard that I agree with George Orwell’s argument that all political language is designed to disguise the truth or to defend indefensible political actions. As observed in nearly all political writings or speeches, they all have an attribute of contemporary English prose. As Orwell notes, the diminished state of consciousness is at any level favorable to political orthodoxy. I agree with Orwell’s argument that political language is “largely the defense of the indefensible” (Orwell 2), which makes political language principally engross of absolute gloomy vagueness, question-begging and euphemism.

In essence, politicians have used words such as pacification, transfer of population and elimination of reliable elements to mean different things. Orwell reveals that pacification is used to refer to pelting of vulnerable villages and machine-gunning livestock, transfer of population is used to refer to compelling millions of country men to flee while their farms are impounded by the government, and the elimination of unreliable elements used to mean imprisonment for years without trial, or assassination (Orwell, 5).

As also noted by Lutz, politicians tend to use a language that aims at making the bad look good, horrible appear eye-catching and negative appear positive (Lutz 1). Lutz regards the political language as double speak and identifies euphemisms as the primary characteristic that aims at deceiving and misleading the public (Lutz 2). In addition, many politicians employ inflated, esoteric or pretentious jargon to provide an atmosphere of authority, profundity and prestige in their speech to hide embarrassing or ugly realities.

Euphemisms are indirect phrases used in substitution to the direct phrases considered offensive. However, politicians use euphemisms wrongly in their political language. They use the indirect inoffensive phrase to deceive or mislead the public on obnoxious realisms. For instance, when the United States assailed Libya in 1986, bombs were hurled towards Tripoli city, resulting to death of innocent civilians, including children and women. The White House press secretary spoke and referred the deaths as ‘collateral damage’.

This was because ‘collateral damage’ does not hit hard as much as “killed innocent women and children” would have hit. If it had been put blatantly that innocent people were killed in retaliation for killing innocent Americans, the public would not be so willing to support the government actions. A murder for a murder is the truth, but the truth is too ugly to face. In this regard, political language is employed to soften the truth, or to conceal the truth which we would not stomach. In many occasions, political language is characterized as a dull emotive language frequently employed which does not stimulate the public to think about or act on what is said.

For instance, during the Vietnam War period, the phrase ‘friendly fire’ was used to refer to the killing of their troops or friends by mistake. Additionally, Idi Amin, Ugandan former president, referred his murder squad as the ‘public safety unit’. These euphemisms, which constitute the political language, are frequently set forth in efforts to benumb the force of what the phrases imply and to make tolerable what otherwise might be nauseating. This is evident when nuclear war is referred as “the ultimate high intensity warfare”, illegal activities referred as “