The Power of Language

The editorial page of the Washington Post this morning has two interesting columns about language and politics.  Michael Gerson writes defending the role of the Presidential speech writer, noting that only Lincoln had no need of one and edited his own speech writers’ language to make it sing.  Gerson notes astutely, as always, that the value of rhetoric is that  “history is not shaped or moved by mediocre words.”  Yet Gerson is not always right on that.

Charles Lane writes about how sick he is of the overuse of the word, “war”, in politics.  Everything these days is a war by someone on something.  He notes that the goal of politicians is to fire up their base by getting them to think of others with differing views as enemies, but that this has an increasingly corrosive effect on the whole society, widening our differences and making us less able to work together in a common cause.  He’s right about that; I’ve started deleting without reading fund raising emails from political causes I support because of the constant vitriol they contain.

War wasn’t always that pejorative a word.  I recall fondly a little book from the 1960’s I really enjoyed, titled, “The Report from Iron Mountain on the Feasibility and Desirability of a Permanent Peace.”  It was a satirical functionalist analysis of the productive uses of war from an anonymous author, supposedly but not really leaked from the Iron Mountain think tank on the Hudson River, and noted things like the use of war to keep troublesome young people off the streets, stimulate medical technology innovation, reduce industrial unemployment, etc.  It concluded that permanent peace was neither feasible nor desirable, and suggested that military war be replaced with things like a war on poverty.  The analysis was almost, but not quite, persuasive, but the final suggestion was a good one.

It’s that Mark of Cain dogging us again.  We like the stimulation, the adrenaline rush that comes when the word “war” is used.  War empowers us.  And politicians, and speech writers, know that.  They use the word prolifically to manipulate our attitudes.  The important thing to remember is that war can either divide us or unite us; a declared “War on Religion” divides us, while a “War on Poverty” can unite us.  If we could get that adrenaline rush from a war on ill health or poverty or poor education, the world would be a far better place.  It’s time to tell the politicians to start waging the right wars, or we’ll stop listening to their rhetoric.