Language is never neutral. Or at least it is very difficult to be neutral. In 1994 Newt Gingrich on behalf of Tea Party, the radical right wing of the Republican party at the time, hired Frank Luntz, considered by many to be a genius of a wordsmith. For example, he persuaded Republicans to refer to estate tax as death tax. It sounded more ominous.  One thing is clear, Frank Luntz is sharp. Luntz professionalized framing language to get a desired message across.

Thanks to work like Luntz’s, and others with his skills, conservatives talked about “energy exploration” rather than “drilling for oil.” Instead of talking about poor people they talk about “the takers.” Or even “parasites.” Or “enhanced interrogation techniques” instead of “torture.” Instead of “rich people” say “the job creators.”

Words are important. So is spin. And of course, both the left and the right do this. There is no monopoly on shenanigans.

George Orwell, that brilliant political thinker and writer said, in his book 1984, “It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.”  I think he was being ironical, for who would say that? Another brilliant and more modern writer, Robert Macfarlane said that words are critically important to our ability to understand the world. No words, no thinking. Macfarlane feared that if we no longer knew the exact words for plants or animals we would not be able to find spaces for them in our imaginations. As Carol Off recounted in her wonderful book At a Loss for Words, he told her in an interview that “to name something is to know it a little more clearly. And maybe to care for it a little more.”

As a life long seeker for truth about things in the natural world, particularly wild flowers and wild birds, I must say I disagree entirely.  Therefore, I don’t really like spin doctors like Luntz. Political operatives like him, whether of the left or the right, are trying to mesmerize us in order to manipulate us into supporting those who are paying him for that manipulation.

Off said in politics “we keep the word, but the idea it represents is lost.” I think the best current example of that is the word “freedom.”  I think people like truckers in the Convoy movement of Canada have lost the meaning of the word completely.  They mean the freedom of themselves to do anything they want, no matter what effect that has on others. That means freedom all right, for them, and misery for the rest of us. Freedom for wolves; not so much for sheep.

As Orwell might have said, abuse of language is the beginning of fascism.