Hello again, and welcome to the first blog assignment for the semester.  Let's take a look at a few quotes from George Orwell, from Politics and the English Language:

"Each of these passages [that Orwell cites on 128-129] has faults of it's own, but quite apart from avoidable ugliness, two qualities are common to all of them.  One is staleness of imagery, the other is lack of precision.  The writer either has a meaning and cannot express it, or he inadvertently says something else, or he is almost indifferent as to whether his words mean anything or not.  This mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence is the most marked characteristic of modern English prose, and especially of any kind of political writing."  (129, emphasis mine)

"When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases...one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy: a feeling which suddenly becomes stronger at moments when the light catches the speaker's spectacles and turns them into blank disks which seem to have no eyes behind them.  And this is not altogether fanciful.  A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology has gone some distance towards turning himself into a machine.  The appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved as if it would be if he were choosing his words for himself.  If the speech he is making is one he is accustomed to make over and over again, he might be almost unconscious of what he is saying, as when one utters the responses in church.  And this reduced state of consciousness, if not indispensable, is at any rate favorable to political conformity." (135-136)

And of course:

"Political language - and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Anarchists to Conservatives - is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." (139)

Orwell's essay is a critique of a certain style or mode of political speech, which he suggests is at the root of the intractability of certain political conflicts in his world.  Bad speech leads to bad thinking, he suggests, and bad thinking is bad (intolerant, ignorant, murderous) politics.  The basic question I want to put to the class for the first blog assignment is: where are these ideas relevant to 2016?  To complete this assignment, find an example of the sort of political speech (you might want to point to a TV program or network, a movie, a book, a politician, or any other cultural object) that Orwell is critiquing.  Use Orwell's quotes to analyze this cultural object.  Explain to your classmates, and to me, how Orwell's ideas can be used to help explain contemporary political discourse.  (Conversely, if you disagree with Orwell's analysis, try to explain why, using counter-examples.)  If you have any questions, please contact me.  Good luck, and have an excellent week!

Brendan