On Clarity in Writing
A Fulmination on Purposive Obfuscation
In my poorly titled essay from earlier this year, “I Like the English Language,” I referenced George Orwell’s “On Politics and the English Language,” in which Orwell castigates the practice of some writers (especially, but not exclusively, those writing about politics – which tends to bring out this practice more than some other subjects) to use their skill with words to obfuscate meaning, confuse readers, create false impressions, and otherwise shade the truth without actually coming out and lying. One of the examples he uses is the erosion of any consistent definition of the word “fascism” until it comes to mean whatever the writer wants it to mean. Keep in mind that he was writing this in the 1940s, when presumably most of his readers were at least familiar with what a fascist government looked like. Eighty years later, this word has largely ceased to mean what it originally meant, and now only serves as a general synonym for “tyranny” if it means anything at all.
Sometimes, this practice of muddying the waters involves the use of overly big words, such as in the subtitle to this piece. But sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it involves common, ordinary, everyday, ten-cent words you and I use in conversation all the time. Indeed, to the extent that pretending to be simple, plainspoken, and of the common folk has been a popular ruse by politicians dating back to the beginning of recorded history, some writers can manage to achieve the intended effect without using any big words at all. Academic jargon, although it is commonly used to confuse readers, isn’t always required.
I disagree with Orwell on the need for stripped-down writing (I admire prose stylists like Cormac McCarthy and Herman Melville) and on the need to embrace the ugliness of Anglo-Saxon words and ditch the Latin and German imports. But that’s a matter of taste – in my mind, borrowed words make English richer and more interesting. In particular, Latin words make English more euphonious and pleasing to the eye.
Indeed, a clever writer can manage to confuse and mislead readers without using any Latin words, or German words. A clever writer can do it with whatever words are at hand.
But a good writer, in Orwell’s opinion and in mine, uses language to clarify, rather than to obscure. Which often means eliminating vagaries and imprecision, and being direct. While I appreciate subtle writing, and I can read closely enough to pick up on some of the elisions by modern “sophisticated” (overly complicated to the point of losing meaning) writers, most readers don’t read carefully or closely. Especially online. Some readers mistake directness for lack of subtlety (lack of sophistication), but these days directness is often required to convey the correct message to the widest number of readers. Mistaking simplicity for simplemindedness and complicated arguments for intelligence is one of the oldest fallacies in the book.
I am gradually making my own writing more direct. This is to make the message clearer to readers. And it is also to avoid wooly-headed, muddled thinking. The hallmark of “complicated” or “sophisticated” writing, is wooly-headed, muddled thinking. A talented writer can construct pretty edifices of language in order to hide the shoddy arguments inside.
Note that I am not speaking of disinformation, misinformation, outright lying, or falsehoods. A clever liar never has to tell a direct lie, and a clever writer can make very weak arguments sound strong. What I am instead talking about is sophistry. According to one definition of sophistry, it involves “tricking someone by making a seemingly clever argument.” A skilled sophist can manage to convince someone of something untrue without ever saying anything false. Typically, this involves making arguments one does not believe in order to advance one’s career, or win some debate, or achieve some other end.
There is plenty of sophistry in politics (or in health and fitness, or nutrition, etc.), just as there was in Orwell’s time. But there is more wooly-headed thinking by people who are unclear of where their arguments are going and are unaware of the contradictions inherent in them than there is outright sophistry. From here on out (as Orwell did), I intend to provide several examples of this. I’m not accusing any of the writers of making willful misrepresentations or of being wooly-headed. However, I am saying that each of these examples is illustrative of the general trend, and that its effect – intended or not – is tangential or directly opposed to truth and clarity.
In February of this year, Adrienne LaFrench wrote a cover story for The Atlantic in which she unpacked Marc Andreeson’s “Techno-Optimist Manifesto.” While I had my reservations about Andreeson’s manifesto when I first read it, I found parts of this cover story tendentious and misleading, especially for uncareful readers who hadn’t read the manifesto themselves and didn’t know the intellectual history in question. I submitted a letter to the editor, which was not published, so I posted the text of that letter as a thread on Twitter and a post on Notes (with minor revisions.
LaFrench’s article hinges on the word “technocracy,” a word which Andreeson never uses. He does mention in passing one Italian futurist who is associated with technocracy and fascism,1 however he namechecks many more libertarian and classically liberal thinkers, and the ultimate vision he puts forth resembles lightly-regulated laissez-faire capitalism more than it does totalitarian rule by a bureaucracy of technical experts (i.e., technocracy).2
The article purports to define for the reader “technocracy” and to explain what it is, but it also goes a long way towards muddying the water. Without ever coming out and saying this, it relies on the misconception the average reader will have that “technocracy” has something to do with “Big Tech” or “technology,” which in the original etymology it doesn’t. A very common mistake, exploited to no ends by writers on both sides of the political aisle, is the conflation of two words which sound alike and may even derive from the same basic root, but which have entirely different meanings.
The word “technocracy” comes not from the word “technology” but from the word “technical,” as in “technical expert.” Both of these have their root, it is true, in the Greek techne, however the words “liberty” and “deliver” both derive from the Latin word liber and yet have meanings which are tangential to each other. “Technocracy” was coined to refer to the bureaucratic rule by technical experts, who would plan a society according to scientific principles, managing the economy and directing social and technological development.
Andreeson’s “techno-optimism” on the other hand refers to a posture of eager anticipation for a future made better by technological progress. Throughout his manifesto, he emphasizes the decentralized, chaotic, unexpected nature of this progress, in direct contrast to the literal description of technocracy.
But because the word “technocracy” is tossed around in association with Silicon Valley, LaFrench allows the reader to draw his or her own conclusions without explaining the obvious differences between Andreeson’s vision of the future, and a technocratic one. Instead, she introduces the word, then jumps to tell a story about Fillipo Marinetti, and then comes back to offer warnings about Big Tech (which is not a monolith and of which Andreeson only has a small stake) and corporate power.3 In the end, despite any lack of a direct challenge to Andreeson’s actual vision, she has managed to discredit him and it in the eyes of most casual readers.
Similar to technocracy is the word “corporatism,” which most people use as though it meant “rule by corporations,” when in fact it means something closer to, “the government tells corporations and labor unions what to do.” Like technocracy, corporatism is associated with fascism, because all three words were invented around the same time to refer to similar things. Mussolini actually said that fascism was corporatism, and although some on the left today will take this as evidence that fascism was about big business, Mussolini meant that corporations and unions would take their direction from the state, which would ensure that “all the oars of society” were “pulling in the same direction.” In other words, society would be a single, coherent, all-encompassing, holistic whole which would solve the radical atomization and alienation of free countries, plagued as they were by infighting and oars pulling in different directions (i.e., unions and businesses which wanted different things).
Both “corporatism” and “corporation” come from the same root, the Latin corpore, meaning body, however like “liberty” and “deliver” they arrived in the modern lexicon via very different paths. “Corporation” refers to the new legal entity which is created via incorporation, a process which establishes a fictional legal person which will assume debts and liabilities (i.e., the owners of the corporation will not have their houses impounded if their business goes bankrupt) among other things. That legal entity bears the risk, but also gets the reward (majority owners can’t take all the profit for themselves, but must share it with other shareholders who may wish some of it to be invested back in the company).
Corporatism refers to “one body” as in “all of society is one body” (rather than a collection of disparate individuals), and bears resemblance to older, premodern ideas about society as a single organism. Everything in society would be encompassed by the government, such that no individual or group would be left behind. However, the only way to do that was to subsume all activity to the will of the state, which would be led by people who knew what was best (i.e., technical experts who practiced scientific planning, or thugs who marched on Rome and commandeered the nation, or the church in the case of the Catholic social thought from which some of these ideas derived).
Since we are on the topic, into this category of misused words, we might put the word “liberalism” at least as used in corners of the New Right (specifically the “the Enlightenment was a mistake” crowd), by figures who know the difference between “classically liberal” and “liberal Democrat,” but who toss around “liberalism” in such a way as to fool readers who don’t.
Another example I encountered was in The Week in an article about the rightward shift among Latino voters.
“And Trump is also a factor. His blunt speech and jingoism appeal to many Latino voters. Political demographer Ruy Texeira says Democratic activists have made a mistake in talking to working-class Latinos as ‘brown people who are oppressed.’ Those voters don’t buy that narrative and instead think, ‘I’m here to make a good life for my family… I’m American.’”4
While this paragraph gives the reader a plausible explanation for why Latino voters might vote Republican, it also introduces a reason into some readers mind to write that off. Insofar as some readers of The Week believe that voting for Donald Trump is a sign that someone is a bad person, learning that more Latino voters – formerly a solidly Democratic voting bloc – were considering Trump might lead them to reconsider that proposition.
However, the use of the word “jingoism” gives such readers a reason to dismiss those voters. “Like other Republican voters” the reasoning goes, “there’s something wrong with them.” Of course, a similar thing is done on the other side, where right-wing populists are confirmed by right-wing media in their beliefs that people who vote Democrat (or live in cities, teach at universities, etc.) have something wrong with them. But it is interesting to note how The Week was willing to introduce such an idea about a group for whom criticism would have been anathema among Democrats just ten years ago.
The word jumped out at me not because of this, but because of how inapt it is. Donald Trump is often accused of isolationism, which would appear to be something of an opposite to jingoism. Other than ordering the killing of Qassem Suleimani, his presidency wasn’t characterized by aggression abroad. Although he isn’t really an isolationist – more of an impulsive, reactive Jacksonian (to the extent that he has any policy at all beyond his own gut feelings) – that word is closer to his foreign policy than is the word “jingoism.” Yes, John Bolton served in his administration.5 But so did Stephen Miller. Donald Trump oversaw no rapid buildup of military capacity. Indeed, when he left office defense spending was at a lower share of GDP than any time since before World War II except for during his predecessor’s administration.
Note that this isn’t a defense of Donald Trump, in the same way that saying that Donald Trump isn’t a flesh-eating bat isn’t a defense of Donald Trump but a statement of fact. Perhaps the word The Week was going for was “machismo” which does have an appeal to some voters of all races, even as it connotes a bombastic, belligerent, largely-empty posturing. “Machismo” is a better word for Donald Trump than “jingoism.” “Chauvinism,” or “brashness,” might also have worked.
Another example is the overuse of the word “new” as in “New Right,”6 or “new politics of class/race/gender/etc.” Nowhere is this truer than in the realm of economics, where genuinely new ideas are vanishingly rare. Usually, the “new idea” put forth by a politician, think tank, pundit, or journalist is… that the government should intervene more in the economy. This is probably the oldest idea in the history of economics. Almost every proposed intervention, even when cloaked in new terms and jargon and when proposed in reference to “new” situations, has been tried before. These interventions were not new when they were implemented by Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover, FDR, LBJ, or Richard Nixon (whether we are talking about “hipster” antitrust, industrial policy, protectionism, rent controls, price controls, wage controls, Keynesianism, economic planning, “worker-owned” factories, shareholder values, etc.). Or, for that matter, when they were implemented by Hammurabi and Diocletian and the Han Dynasty.
The Time for Debate is Over:
There is another variety of dishonest argument found throughout political life which is commonly expressed by phrases such as, “It is unfortunate that my opponents are politicizing this issue,” or “This issue should be taken out of the realm of politics.” If an issue is hotly debated, by definition it will be political, even if you or I wish that it weren’t. Those who lament the politicization of the issue often fail to acknowledge their role in that. It isn’t an original insight to me, but nobody ever says, “It is so unfortunate that this issue has become so politicized and that we can’t find a compromise. So, in the spirit of compromise, I am going to give up everything I believe and accept the other side’s position so that this country can move on.”
No, instead we get people who complain an issue has been politicized and who blame the other side as solely responsible and who insist that in order for there to be compromise, their opponents must give up everything they believe so that the speaker can get everything he or she desires (which is naturally, the “compromise,” or the “nonpolitical,” or the “de-politicized” position).
An example of this was the statement this year by the surgeon general that gun violence is a public health problem (as opposed to a law enforcement problem) and that therefore the issue should be “out of the realm of politics and [placed in] the realm of public health, the way we did for smoking more than half a century ago.” He called for a series of measures which would require legislation, in other words, measures which by are political since they are to be decided through the political process.
Whatever your or my views on these measures, or on the approach of treating gun violence as a public health problem, American citizens have strong disagreements on the issue of gun control. Strong disagreements are, in fact, what politics is for. Except when disagreements can be worked out via the market, the only alternative method human beings have found for resolving such disagreements is coercive force. This is, unfortunately, the preferred method throughout human history.
If a contentious issue is to be taken out of politics without a resolution of the underlying disagreement, unless there is some sort of payment involved, a solution will have to be forced upon one side via coercion.
Surgeon General Murthy argues that gun violence should be depoliticized, and dealt with by competent, experienced, intelligent, educated, administrative experts. Speaking of technocratic fascism, if this were 1922 that is the term we would use to describe this idea. Setting aside all historical baggage and associations with jackbooted antisemites, by the original literal definition of the term “technocratic fascism,” this is it. We forget that the cultural program of fascism was only one piece of an ideology which began as a movement to take decisions out of the realm of politics and place them in the hands of administrators who would organize society in a rational and scientific way.
Not every person who says an issue should be “de-politicized” is a fascist. But not every fascist was a “fascist” if we are using that word to signify its modern connotation.
The basic impulse that “the other side should give up their contentious disagreement and agree with me” is an age-old human one. What’s dishonest is pretending there is anything high-minded or intellectually sophisticated about it. Thorny political issues will remain thorny political issues and solving them will continue to require the hard work of building coalitions. Which is unsatisfying. It’s much more satisfying to force your opponents to do what you want, especially if you get to pretend you have scientific credibility in doing it.
Motte and Bailey Comparisons:
This essay is already long, but I’ll close with one final style of rhetoric which destroys clarity and exists to sow doubt and misimpression in readers’ minds. The motte and bailey comparison. Motte and bailey refers to the rhetorical technique of wildly exaggerating a claim upon which one’s opponents will pounce, only to retreat to the relative safety of a reasonable claim in order to pretend that one’s opponents are being the unreasonable ones by attacking it. Some examples:
“The Democrats have been conspiring for years to smuggle in nonwhite citizens to create a new progressive supermajority,” is the wild, conspiratorial claim. “For years, Democrats have celebrated the growing racial diversity of American society and claimed it will lead to a new progressive majority coalition,” is the obvious and uncontroversial version.
“Women are more threatened by a man in the woods than by a bear,” will be familiar to Twitter users. Obviously, this is false. However, the claim will then be, “We didn’t mean for people to take it literally; we just wanted to draw attention to abusive men.”
When caught in an obvious exaggeration, the motte and bailey technique is often to claim that, “Well, yes, of course it was an obvious exaggeration,” as if only fools would have taken the original claim literally. However, in every case the original claim is meant literally (even in bad faith) and there is nothing in the original claim which qualifies it or makes clear that it is an intentional exaggeration. The hope is that people will fall for it. It is only after this fails that the author admits not meaning it literally. In all likelihood, Donald Trump’s claims following the 2020 election were meant to be a motte and bailey, and it was only because so many people fell for the obvious initial whopper that he never gave up and retreated to more reasonable ground.
A recent example of this hyperbole was Niall Ferguson’s article in The Free Press comparing the United States to the Soviet Union. The comparisons fall so far short of demonstrating equivalence as to be difficult to take seriously.
Our Navy is underfunded, behind schedule, plagued by chronic inability to streamline procurement and shipbuilding, and woefully small. I agree. This doesn’t support the claim that we are living in “Late Soviet America.”
American life expectancy has begun to tick down. Why does that make us like the 1980s Soviet Union, where the life expectancy was far lower?
Evidence which doesn’t support the underlying argument is often used to cover up for a weak theory. Proponents will accuse their critics of ignoring, disbelieving, downplaying, or misunderstanding the evidence, while the real problem is that the evidence doesn’t support their theory. You and I may both agree that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, and yet we don’t believe that this is evidence that the Earth is flat. However, flat-earthers will tell you that this is exactly what the sun’s path means.
Ferguson, who is otherwise a talented writer, makes an obviously extreme claim and then refuses to back down.
I could continue to give examples of motte and bailey arguments, or of other logical fallacies in contemporary punditry, but I will stop now. Originally, I was planning to add a section about semantic debates (i.e., “true freedom,” “true communism,” “true equality,” etc.), but that would only make this essay far more complicated and far longer, especially since many semantic arguments aren’t entirely semantic and therefore don’t fit in neatly with the rest of this essay. However, in a nutshell the bit that does fit can be summarized thus: people use the same word to mean different things, which means we often have arguments over the meaning of a word, rather than the underlying principles. Such arguments can be confusing, which is why clear labeling matters in arguments over politics and religion.
But it’s a constant fight because as soon as you pin down a clear label, someone will come along and intentionally or unintentionally misuse it, with the result of confusing everyone else. And then we will either spend a century fighting about a label, or we will come up with a new label. Or probably both.
As in, the political philosophy of Benito Mussolini and the Italian fascisti.
Andreeson lists Fillipo Marinetti in a long list of “Patron Saints of Techno-Optimism” which includes prominent scientists, historical figures, and a high number of free market economists (conservatives, libertarians, “neoliberals,” and at least one anarcho-capitalist). If one such inclusion were enough to indict Andreeson as guilty-by-association with problematic historical thinkers, how should we consider The Atlantic’s publication of an article dedicated to resurrecting the legacy of Woodrow Wilson, a member of the KKK who sent jackbooted thugs to kick in doors, weaponized the justice system for his own use, and sent political rivals to jail without due process? Marinetti’s futurism cannot be understood without his fascism, but neither can Wilson’s progressivism be understood apart from his illiberalism. Wilson is quite literally the closest this country has come to fascism, and while Andreeson merely mentioned Marinetti in passing as part of a longer list, The Atlantic published an article dedicated to refurbishing Wilson’s reputation.
In general, I find this style of article in which the author introduces an idea or a debate, and then jumps to tell a related but somewhat tangential story which often takes place in the past, and then jumps back to tie it all up in a bow – employed by The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and others – to be quite irritating because it is so often used to disguise holes in arguments and to raise concerns in readers’ minds which a logical and straightforward explanation wouldn’t. Again, I emphasize logic and straightforwardness not because I have any great need for fastidiousness (though some readers will accuse me of that), but because it can be used to create very misleading narratives. Telling a story can be useful, but when it distracts from flaws in one’s argument, too often it is a cheap way to fool readers. A similar comment applies to relating key events out of order. Jumping around in time often suits a narrative, but it can also fit the facts to the narrative, instead of the other way around. Generally, except when otherwise necessary, it is best to relate facts and events in order, not out of fastidiousness, but because that is the best way to ensure readers (who don’t always read dates carefully) know what really happened.
I seem to have misplaced the citation and can’t find the original article online, as I don’t subscribe to The Week’s digital platform and can’t search their archive. If I come across it, or if enterprising readers can find the original article from this past spring, I will amend the missing citation.
A point of clarification. I am not implying that John Bolton is a jingoist. However, his unabashed hawkishness might better fit with that charge, and Bolton has been called a jingoist over the years by some. For the record, I do not believe that he is. My point is to contrast his hawkishness with Trump’s irrational dovishness punctuated by outbursts of irresponsibility.
Some individuals are fond of using the word “new” when they mean to say “new to me.” It’s cute when a small child tells us that she just discovered this new band called the Beatles. It’s far less cute when an adult tells us they have some new insight which is in fact well known. The “New” in “New Right” is not meant to refer to this phenomenon. However, the movement seems to be characterized by individuals who have stumbled upon arguments from decades or centuries ago, in some cases entirely unaware that those arguments aren’t new. What is in fact “new” about the movement is that it advances a series of arguments (mostly, but not entirely, about economics) which have been commonplace on the left for many years, but which are new in the mouths of people claiming to be on the right.