It's Time for Plain Talk

Statue of George Orwell outside BBC headquarters - the wall behind is inscribed 

with the words "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people 

what they do not want to hear," from his proposed preface to Animal Farm.

by Matt Brown, MattFromLondon is licensed under CCA 2.0 Generic.

Augustus Saint-Gaudens, an American sculptor of the Beaux-Arts generation, once remarked that "...it's the way a thing's done that makes it right or wrong."

When it comes to public talk, I believe we're long overdue for some plain talk about what we should accept as right. 

Too many public conversations now (obviously, tweets too) are just, well, unacceptable, wrong, off, or cringeworthy. Take your pick, or waste energy on expletives and likely you'll be closest to right.

Here, I'm not referring to comments like someone who described an opponent as "simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up." With variants tracing back to at least 1966, the endurance of this artful and possibly apt gibe might be welcome for many to hear (except the latest target).

Doublethink

No, what we need plain talk about is what George Orwell's description of Newspeak helped spotlight, namely "doublethink," "doubletalk," and that close relative "doublespeak." 

This is "a process of indoctrination whereby the subject is expected to accept as true that which is clearly false, or to simultaneously accept two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct, often in contravention to one's own memories or sense of reality." (Wikipedia)

Why then are there not more of us carrying out Orwell's urging to jeer "...loudly enough, [to] send some worn out and useless phrase–some...lump of verbal refuse...into the dustbin where it belongs."

Fact-checks

For example, there are good reasons to believe that fact-checking, as it's mostly done, is a fool's fantasy. 

Firstly, once prejudices are established and continuously reinforced, including through the mail, media, or social media, the "tribe" will not believe criticism from any source about a tribal leader's corruption or malfeasance.

Secondly, it is clear that so-called fact-checking, or otherwise restating a message by repeating it (even in the negative), just reinforces the original propaganda. 

Both the believers and the undecided will focus on the original false message and ignore that little word "NOT" or other negation that the fact checker inserts. The negative is as invisible as the cyclists whom car drivers genuinely don't see on the road.

To Counter

There are right ways to counter the emergence of the ideological offspring of Joseph Goebbels and Leni Riefenstahl. These include:-

1. Ignore any verbal refuse designed to distract, deny, or delay–by all means, counter with the truth but, please, oh please, stop repeating the words of the original–you're just being a megaphone for what you oppose.

2. Listen up, friends in the media, there's not much that a bad actor fears more than being ignored–at the very least, please: stop using or repeating a bad actor's name; stop repeating direct quotes in the lower thirds of the television screen; and, stop showing "B-Roll" or photos of a bad actor, instead of doing your job to paraphrase any comments, if needed at all.

3. Encourage leaks of sensitive information that expose lies and fraud.

4. Reverse any serious lie right back onto the liar–use words more like the graffiti artist who sprays a mustache, beard, or horns onto a propaganda poster.

5. Exponentially grow networks of person-to-person communications, especially through personal emails and personalized tweets.

Finally, if you believe you can win doing it right, and you put in the effort to communicate vigorously and well, you will win.

Violent Rhetoric

The Hon. Peter Lalor MLA, Speaker of the 

Legislative Assembly of Victoria, 1880–1887

 by Ludwig Becker (1808?-1861). This image is in the Public Domain {{PD-US-expired}}

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Peter_Lalor.jpg

Not a new phenomenon.

How about, from Patrick Henry: "Give me liberty, or give me death." (in 1775)

Or, from Australia's Peter Lalor at the Eureka stockade: "We swear by the Southern Cross to stand truly by each other and fight to defend our rights and liberties." (in 1854)

Yet, hearing a broadcast anchor today object to the "violent rhetoric" of the crowd that worships AR-15’s and oversized engines to impose their egos on others still felt new.

What's common among these cases is that the disputants do not allow for solution, other than by winning. What's new is that some of us thought violence was supposed to be contained in civilized society.

Norms & Laws

When propagandist self-dealers rule by sweeping aside norms and laws, all the hand-wringing in the media will only do so much to advance a nation's self-correction. Voting might only do so much too. 

Pundits still talk as if norms and laws are going to spring back, resuscitated and freed from the grip of bad actors. IMHO, no laws and certainly no norms by themselves, even assuming they are diligently and actively executed, will truly control the bad actor whose smarts are every minute pursuing crooked actions. 

National Self-correction

Some political theorists still claim that oversight committees and whistleblower public servants, who see their professional lives destroyed, provide "relentless public scrutiny" and "transparency." 

Unless national self-correction is backed, as appropriate, with punishment, intervention/therapy or disregard of bad actors, then representative democracy faces a rocky road ahead. 

    

Of course, joining the AR-15 crowd, who want to copy the most infamous barbarians before and since Xerxes crossed the Hellespont to conquer Athens back in 480 BC, might be attractive to barbarians. 

No sane person wants a repeat of the human history that saw loss of lives in battles on a scale equivalent to what COVID-19's short trajectory has caused already. Mostly, some of us would like the pitch of public talk tamped down. We'd like the promises of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness assured.

After all, don't we expect the people we elect to deliver peace of mind? Isn't that why our forebears risked so much to demand better of tyrants?

Imagine

The Great Dictator (1940) poster

by United Artists, retouched by Brandt Luke Zorn. 

This image is in the Public Domain {{PD-US-not renewed}}

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Great_Dictator_(1940)_poster.jpg

Alexander Hamilton warned in The Federalist, Number 8, 20 November, 1787: 

"...the continual effort and alarm attendant on a state of continual danger will compel nations the most attached to liberty to resort for repose and security to institutions which have a tendency to destroy their civil and political rights. To be more safe, they at length become willing to run the risk of being less free."

Although Hamilton was commenting on the effect of chaos from war upon a nation, this is also the clue to why a propagandist stimulates continual chaos.

The foremost writer on this subject, the French philosopher, Jacques Ellul warned long ago that the propagandist needed:

"...continuous agitation... [that was] ...produced artificially even when nothing in the events of the day justifies or aroused excitement. Therefore, continuing propaganda must slowly create a climate first, and then prevent the individual from noticing a particular propaganda operation in contrast to ordinary daily events."

Almost 40 years ago in an address to a Royal Society gathering focused on public information, I drew on Ellul to urge awareness about how we are all propagandized. As the most educated, intelligent people in the community, my audience was the most propagandized, because they:

(1) absorbed the largest amount of second-hand information;
(2) felt some compulsion to have an opinion; and
(3) considered themselves capable of "judging."

When our world view is so dominated with one leader's name, with the media conducting endless analysis and regurgitation of that leader's statements or views, we are being abused.

It's time to imagine a better way.

One lesson from the Covid-19 experience is that social distancing works–by analogy, we should separate ourselves from a propagandist's messages and the "busy work" of reacting to them. You can keep the virus known as propaganda at a distance too.

The actor Peter Finch, in the film Network [here], satirically modeled a first step along these lines when he declared:

"I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore..."

Otherwise, as Ellul also warned, each of us can become:

"...suited to a totalitarian society, ...not at ease except when integrated in the mass, ...reject[ing] critical judgment, choices and differentiations because... [we] ...cling to clear certainties... assimilated into uniform groups and want it that way."

Internationally, peaceful protests have shown one way to divert such a dismal future. It's time to imagine,  among the many choices, how you will deploy your talents in 2020.

Is there nothing you can do? What will you do?

Speaking Out

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. giving his "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington, D.C., on August 28, 1963

by Rowland Scherman (1937-) National Archive. This image is in the Public Domain {{PD-US-Gov-USIA}}

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Martin_Luther_King_-_March_on_Washington.jpg 
  

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." 

Democracy has a long association with communication. In Montesquieu’s view, the durability of free government depends on a nation’s capacity for self-correction. 

Citizens judge political events from the reports of electronic media, newspapers, or politicians themselves. We have few guidelines for assessing the value of such reports. 

As from the earliest times, improved understanding of what makes public talk effective will empower future rhetors to speak out, as the best assurance that democracy will thrive. 

Educational curricula need much revision to ensure effective teaching of civics. 

Concurrently, it is important to develop in individuals key virtues of western civilization, including justice, temperance, courage, and wisdom.  

The teaching of writing and public talk must develop the responsible principles learned from a rich legacy of thoughtful speakers and commentators. 

Conscious of the resonant comment from George Orwell that "political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable," a public who listen and speak out is the root of democracy.

Face Up to Absurdity

 Facing the absurd

 Vae Victus by Arthur Szyk (1894-1951) is licensed under CC-BY-SA-4.0 International

With each passing day, the absurd harm to lives and livelihood worldwide from the Covid-19 pandemic continues with little check.

How leaders of countries, regions and localities protect citizens will be long remembered. Now is the time to face up to any added absurdity of any leader's behavior, and keep calling it out.

Intriguing Discussion

Ongoing events remind me of an intriguing discussion with the man credited to first describe the theater of the absurd. Decades ago, when I called Stanford University’s “communication group” to seek an appointment with an appropriate faculty member, I was directed to Martin Esslin. 

The authority on the theater of the absurd, Esslin had just returned to serve as professor of drama. He graciously welcomed a visit, with the length of the visit stretching as he probed my interest in propaganda. 

Counter Propaganda

He shared insights on his work after 1943, when he had participated in counter-propaganda radio broadcasts. This was for the British propaganda broadcaster during World War II that pretended to be a radio station of the German military broadcasting network. 

The Nazis required people in occupied countries to listen only to German radio broadcasts. After the broadcast of Hitler’s speeches, Esslin and others from the BBC, under the guise of Soldatensender Calais, would broadcast in German an immediate analysis of Hitler’s speeches that was unfavorable to the Germans. 

Dealing with the Absurd

I have ever since wondered how much Esslin's time in this involvement impacted his later critical thinking to describe the theater of the absurd. He was keen that I shift my Master of Arts research to focus on the radio station’s files, which he believed were still untouched at the BBC archives. He was prepared to facilitate my access for a study that he felt could be groundbreaking. 

It was intriguing and wonderful advice that I was too young in perspective or wisdom to follow. The project might have defined a different personal future. Instead, I returned to Australia to pursue other initiatives which were life-changing in other ways.

To Defeat a Bad Actor

An enduring lesson from this discussion with Esslin is the extraordinary effort needed to face and defeat an unfit leader.

"Aotearoa"

The Remarkables Reflected in Lake Wakatipu 

Queenstown, New Zealand

by Nick Bramhall is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 Generic

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Remarkables_(1126885451).jpg

… is often translated from the Māori to describe New Zealand as the “land of the long white cloud.” 

Although New Zealanders see the unwelcome pall of Covid-19 drifting away for now, they might feel like their All Blacks rugby team just after many a match–elated at a win and yet to recover from the effort.

First Sunrise

Alternate translations of Aotearoa are “long bright world” or “land of abiding day.” 

As a recent writer for Politico put it “the first major country to see the sun rise every day, may also be the first to get a good look at life after Covid-19.”

A Leader Matters

Certainly, the decisive statements and actions of Prime Minister Ardern seemed to do the trick, expecting the best of New Zealanders, who delivered.

It's a great case for what happens when you can trust your government.

Whatever quibbles or more that the future brings as we learn more about this virus, what we learned for now and then is that a leader can matter to head off mass suffering. 

People Matter Too

In some other countries, I’m just hoping that a version of Leo Tolstoy’s thoughts on great military leadership results. 

At the close of War and Peace, he claimed great military successes resulted from something like an infectious collective action among the troops, in concert with unfolding events, rather than any great value in what a leader said or did.

In many places, with medical staff, other first responders, state governors, local officials, and individuals increasingly taking actions that are often complementary, thankfully it’s starting to look like Tolstoy was onto something.

The “troops,” that is, local leaders, workers, and other citizens are making progress.

The Sudden Change Continues

Seattle Policemen during Spanish Flu Epidemic, December 1918

National Archives. This image is in the Public Domain {{PD-US-expired}}

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Spanish_flu_in_1918,_Police_officers_in_masks,_Seattle_Police_Department_detail,_from-_165-WW-269B-25-police-l_(cropped).jpg

In some ways akin to the personally piercing shaft of memory each of us has for when 9/11 occurred, we will all recall our own instant of realization for the danger that Covid-19 posed.

For us, it was my wife's return from a monthly luncheon with friends very early in March, where no one offered anyone the customary American hug in greeting.

Since then, like many others, we remain homebound.

Family Re-run

In 2019, some newspapers were running stories about the centenary of the Spanish influenza epidemic of 1918-19. No one guessed then that the world would soon fall victim to the highly infectious and deadly pandemic of COVID-19.

The 1918 Spanish Flu retrospective stories were only highlighted personally because I'd recently discovered that my grandfather had traveled from New Zealand to the west coast of the U.S.A. in mid-1919, to live and work, initially in Seattle. Nana and my dad (aged three) remained in New Zealand for almost a year before joining him, presumably awaiting confidence on the passing of the flu.

Face Masks 

A starkly iconic image that I googled showed the U.S. Army 39th regiment, in late 1918, marching down the main street of Seattle in surgical masks, prior to departing for France. Another photo in Seattle (above) showed a group of policemen wearing masks.

Who could guess that we all would soon enough be wearing protective masks, amid unimaginable loss of life and economic disaster. 

Changes

To state the obvious, this one has changed the world in so many yet-to-be-seen ways, well beyond the initial health and economic impacts. Certainly, we are seeing only the beginnings of how public communication will keep evolving.

In the short run, we see other changes. For example, a former nationwide bakery chain has moved to distributing groceries. At least in the United States, as individual enterprise drives forward new ways to earn a living in the changed world, the competition in many industries will be fierce, even as delivery modes change. 

After some trial fits and starts, I believe much education at all levels might be mainly online, maybe for a long time. These concerns will persist, underpinning the more immediate worries about life and death in 2020.

Some "Bennies"

Among the few benefits of the isolation are the increased interactions (remotely) with friends. As one friend put it, some of us have friends "with friends, who are bored," who help ease the isolation by finding and emailing more jokes, cartoons, and satire. Many of these are very funny. 

A special benefit too is to hear more often from friends who were so often on planes–now safely working from home and emailing great memes!

Much thanks to all! May public and personal communications increasingly thrive.

With warmest wishes - be safe!