What Orwell Didn't Know: Propaganda and the New Face of American Politics

by Orville Schell (Editor), Orville Schell (Introduction)

Propaganda. Manipulation. Spin. Control. It has ever been thusknow. Their responses, framed in pithy, focused essays, range far and wide: from the effect of television and computing, to the vast expansion of knowledge about how our brains respond to symbolic messages, to the merger of journalism and entertainment, to lessons learned during and after a half-century of totalitarianism. Together, they paint a portrait of a political culture in which propaganda and mind control are alive and well (albeit in forms and places that would have surprised Orwell). The pieces in this anthology sound alarm bells about the manipulation and misinformation in today's politics, and offer guideposts for a journalism attuned to Orwellian tendencies in the 21st century.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, History, Essays, Political Science, Philosophy, Anthologies

272 pages, Paperback

First published November 5, 2007

About the author

Orville Schell is the Arthur Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at Asia Society in New York. He is a former professor and Dean at the University of California, Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. Schell was born in New York City, graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard University in Far Eastern History, was an exchange student at National Taiwan University in the 1960s, and earned a Ph.D. (Abd) at University of California, Berkeley in Chinese History. He worked for the Ford Foundation in Indonesia, covered the war in Indochina as a journalist, and has traveled widely in China since the mid-70s.

Reviews

[K.D. Absolutely · Rating 3 out of 5]

Twenty American writers convened on November 7, 2007 at Columbia University in New York to honor the 60th anniversary of George Orwell's classic essay on propaganda: Politics and the English Language,

George Orwell was a British but his works were known all over the world so this did not stop many Americans to read, analyze and short of venerate his works. Some find them to be prophetic. I am not an American but after reading 4 of his book Down and Out in Paris and in London, 1984, Animal Farm and A Collection of Essays, I cannot blame these 20 American writers. I, too, believed in that Orwell was one of the brilliant novelists of our 20th century. He deserved all the attention or even accolades of the people generations and generations after his death. His works are deathless. His understanding of English language and its scope and influence to people are so astounding that a mortal being like me cannot readily understand it.

In the above-mentioned essay, 64 years ago, he said that English as a language impacts the political system and the political system likewise impacts or influences the English language. It is similar to the drunkard man. He drinks because he is lonely but the more he drinks, the more he gets lonely. Then he openly criticized some phrases taken from lecture notes or writings of some English professors from big universities in England. From there he suggested 6 Rules for Writers:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use a passive voice where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

Then each of the 20 writers in the conference reacted to these 6 rules citing examples of what Orwell did not know that would happen 60 years ago. Their responses, written in essays range far and wide: from the effect of television and computing, to the vast expansion of knowledge about how our brain respond to symbolic messages, to the merger of journalism and entertainment, to lessons learned during and after a half-century of totalitarianism.

Some of the writings are very cerebral and I had quite a difficult time understanding them. Some are more heartfelt using American leaders like President Bush ordering the attack in Iraq as something that Orwell would have approved because it was anti-totalitarianism. On the other hand, some of them said that Orwell would not approve it since Bush practically did a doublethink by saying that there were weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq. Also, the way some Americans behave in Iraq was intrusive could be a violation of their human rights.

I guess the bottom line is that it all depends on what you believe as a person regardless in which country you are a citizen of. Orwell was a great writer but nobody could really predict what would happen tomorrow, next week, next month, year, decade and obviously 60 years after today.

But if I were George Orwell and the book that I've written 60 years ago was still being discussed, that's proof enough of how brilliant I was. And I would be smiling from heaven's above.

[Stewart · Rating 5 out of 5]

An insightful and thought-provoking series of 18 original essays, published in 2007, on propaganda, politics, and the media in the U.S., with George Orwell's 1946 essay "Politics and the English Language" as the touchstone. Among the essayists are Francine Prose, David Rieff, Frances FitzGerald, and George Lakoff. There's food for thought on almost every page.
"Americans enjoy open access to an astonishing array of information; yet they are bombarded with so many messages, and diverted by such mesmerizing amusements, that millions tune out from politics altogether."

[Richard Subber · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection by Andras Szanto was published before the Obama presidency, and before Trump’s 2016 victory accelerated the obvious decline of our representative, constitutional form of government.
Essays by Martin Kaplan, Victor Navasky, and Geoffrey Cowan, in particular, illuminate these insightful, topical revelations about media failure to communicate truths.
George Orwell’s well-known essay, “Politics and the English Language,” is still useful and challenging, almost 75 years after he wrote it.
An excerpt:
“…the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language…Political language…is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind…”
It is a terrifying reality that this statement sounds like it was written yesterday.
Read more of by book reviews and poems here:
www.richardsubber.com

[Wiktor Dynarski · Rating 4 out of 5]

"What Orwell Didn't Know. Propaganda and the New Face of American Politics" has an interestingly misleading title as many of the reflections incorporated in this anthology, are not about the US alone and sometimes at all. Konstanty Gebert, for example, writes about the first time the right wing Law and Justice party ruled Poland and how its propagandist language shaped the Polish political and media discourse. It's an interesting read more than a decade later with history repeating itself.
📓
Some of the reflections are chilling, especially ones where a few commentators touch upon the problem of unskilled politicians and world leaders. If only they knew back then what was coming to the US. If only.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A concerning analysis of propaganda and politics which is still relevant 10 years after publication. Most of the contributors think the right is dominating politics and some overlook the way the left uses the same tools they criticize the right for using, but their analysis of political power and deception is incisive and clear.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Especially worth reading in the Trump age -- there's a very clear lineage from the spins and lies of the Bush administration, and from the failings of the "infotainment" media complex to the catastrophe that occurred in November 2016.

The essays themselves vary in quality -- perhaps the most interesting is Orwell's, "Politics and the English Language," which you can find online. The best ones after that are the ones that critique Orwell: Lakoff's explanation of political framing, Kaplan's criticism of the "infotainment" industry which Orwell did not predict, Fassihi's report on the impossibility of war reporting in the age of jingoistic spin, and George Soros's re-examining of "open societies," knowing what we know now about the Enlightenment's blind spots.

It all reads as ominous, being published back in 2007, before Trump's presidency was even conceived of, but it's worth reading to put some context on the current moment anyway.

[Marissa Morrison · Rating 3 out of 5]

These essays focus on recent happenings, including the war in Iraq and the start of the 2008 presidential campaign. Regarding Bush's egregious use of verbal propaganda, the writers have little to say that anyone who thinks about the news doesn't already know. Examples include the preposterously named "Clear Skies Act" and misuses of words like freedom, liberty, and democracy. I was, however, struck by two ideas--(1) that the unwarranted attack on Iraq was itself propaganda (just as the 9/11 attacks served as propaganda for Al Qaeda), and (2) that no matter how ridiculous a statement is, hearing it over and over again alters the human brain in a way that is difficult to undo.

[Jesse · Rating 2 out of 5]

What Orwell didn't know: that his work would be the occasion of such an unenlightening collection of essays. That none of them would have much of anything interesting to say. That "Politics and the English Language" is not that great an essay, frankly. That, once you've gotten beyond calling the Clear Skies Act, which loosened controls on polluters, "Orwellian," you've pretty much exhausted your store of insights. That George Lakoff remains as uninteresting and tendentious a writer as he has previously been.

Not worth the time.

[Will · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting collection of left-leaning essays:"All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia."

[Mlg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book of essays about the distortion of language in politics.