Hugh McLachlan: If yes is no then no is yes

According to Orwell: “Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble.”

He concludes optimistically: “If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration…”

Orwell believes that language “…becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.”

Corrupt thought can lead to a degeneration of language which, in turn, has a corrupting effect on subsequent thought in Orwell’s view.

He writes: “The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.”

Politicians and political commentators typically use a range of recurrent terms in a conceptually distorted way. For instance, they sneer at what they call “negative” campaigning.

However, so-called negative arguments are, inherently, no less rational or preferable than are so-called positive ones. For instance, there are several good negative reasons for my eating muesli, refraining from smoking, from adultery and from drinking alcohol. They trump any positive reasons that might be suggested for my acting otherwise.

Similarly, one might well quite reasonably accept a negative case for leaving or for remaining within the union and voting accordingly in the referendum.

“Homophobia” and “Islamophibia” are other clear examples of terms that stifle debate about debatable issues.

Phobias are medical conditions. If people are suffering from a phobia about, for instance, homosexual people or homosexuality or, say, about Muslims or Islam, we should be sympathetic towards them and be prepared to offer them any available help and treatment. We should not blame them or castigate them any more than we should criticise someone who has, for instance, influenza or a morbid fear of and anxiety about spiders.

If people do not suffer from the relevant medical condition, we should not apply the medical term to their views. We should not call people “homophobes” or “Islamophobes”, merely because we disagree with what they think or because we find their views repugnant. We should not use an apparent medicalisation of their position as an excuse for failing to consider their arguments.

Not all people who have objections to, for instance, homosexuality will hate or dislike homosexuality or hate and dislike homosexuals. Some of them will have such hatred or dislikes but they will not necessarily have homophobia. Not all dislikes and hatreds are medical conditions.

In any case, whether an argument is a good one and whether the person who puts it forward is a good person are quite separate questions. Good arguments can be presented by bad people for dubious motives. We should act on the basis of good arguments whatever their provenance.

Staleness of imagery and lack of precision are features which Orwell associates in particular with the use of tired, carelessly used metaphors. One of his suggested rules of writing is: “Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.”

In this regard, we should, I think, be suspicious of such clichés as “glass ceiling”; “level playing field”; “seat at the top table”; “control of the levers of power”. They add little if anything to our understanding and explanation of the issues in question. They can be positively misleading.

States, societies and economies are not like ships or vehicles that can be controlled mechanically by the manipulation of accelerators, brakes and steering wheels.

Politicians can exercise authority. They can pass laws. They can formulate and implement policies. By their strategies, they can have effects on the economies and on other institutions of the countries in which they have political jurisdiction but causation is not the same as control.