A Vast Tapesty of Lies

Had some drinks last night with friends which led to the usual: 90 decibel debates where getting a point across depends on how long you can carry a sentence or two at top volume. I felt like I made some good arguments, but after waking up this morning, I had to change my mind.

The discussion started when someone brought up Esperanto. Esperanto is an artificial language that was created as a simpler language without all of the quirks and idiosyncrasies of other languages like English that could be used universally. It never caught on.

I suggested that a universal, artificially-created language never would catch on. Language is a reflection of society and is created organically, not artificially. People won’t adopt a universal language because they are not universally the same. Since language controls thought, the character and origins of a language have great impact.

My assertion that language controls thought (not an original idea by any means) was widely disagreed with, which bumped the conversation up by another 10 decibels. Which I find odd, since I know that I think in English, at least when it comes to conscious thoughts. (I was subsequently urged to explore “thinking without language”, but this came from a self-confessed Reverend of the Universal Church in California who later performed a “reading” on my bewildered neighbour, so I’m taking his advice with a grain of salt.)

To see how effective language is at controlling thought you only need to look as far as politics and public relations, which is pretty much the same thing these days. Public relations a step further is the new field of “perception management”, a step beyond that and we get to psychological warfare. In all of these, language is the tool that shapes thought – not by informing or communicating, but by confusing and controlling. Not by telling the truth, but by lying.

This morning’s issue of the New York Times reported on the speech of playwright Harold Pinter as he accepted a Nobel Prize for his work. I’d never heard of Pinter until today, but apparently he’s quite famous. I have no clue what his plays are like, but he definitely knows how to deliver a speech. Speaking via video from his wheelchair, Pinter, who has cancer of the esophagus, blasted the use of language as a tool of power:

So language in art remains a highly ambiguous transaction, a quicksand, a trampoline, a frozen pool which might give way under you, the author, at any time.

But as I have said, the search for the truth can never stop. It cannot be adjourned, it cannot be postponed. It has to be faced, right there, on the spot.

…

Political language, as used by politicians, does not venture into any of this territory since the majority of politicians, on the evidence available to us, are interested not in truth but in power and in the maintenance of that power. To maintain that power it is essential that people remain in ignorance, that they live in ignorance of the truth, even the truth of their own lives. What surrounds us therefore is a vast tapestry of lies, upon which we feed.

His speech was also a full-on, fiery broadside against the United States, and the language theme kept popping up:

I put to you that the United States is without doubt the greatest show on the road. Brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless it may be but it is also very clever. As a salesman it is out on its own and its most saleable commodity is self love. It’s a winner. Listen to all American presidents on television say the words, ‘the American people’, as in the sentence, ‘I say to the American people it is time to pray and to defend the rights of the American people and I ask the American people to trust their president in the action he is about to take on behalf of the American people.’

It’s a scintillating stratagem. Language is actually employed to keep thought at bay. The words ‘the American people’ provide a truly voluptuous cushion of reassurance. You don’t need to think. Just lie back on the cushion. The cushion may be suffocating your intelligence and your critical faculties but it’s very comfortable.

The full text of his speech is definitely worth reading.