Language - Part 3 - Politics

Political discourse is all but extinct. This year, it has gone through three phases in election advertising in my area.

In the summer, commercials ran reminding voters that one of the candidates had given money to candidates in other parties to weaken the opposition. The political tricks had been well documented at the time. Still, people complained to the station who aired the commercials forcing it to explain it was required to carry any valid political announcement. It is not clear if the complaints actually came from offended listeners, or were orchestrated by the accused politician, as an attack on anyone who dared recall hard facts.

About a week ago, the political ads aired by that radio station descended to parody with outrageous accusations against candidates from an unknown environmental group, followed by a disclaimer by a better-known group. Since no reputable political group would accuse a politician of selling horsemeat to the French or playing tapes of wounded wolves, I suspect a Machiavellian stealth campaign to build sympathy for the attacked candidate and antipathy for environmentalists.

Now we’re in the final stage of campaigning, and the commercials never mention the party affiliation of the candidates and are produced by unknown organizations, identified only by web addresses. As I head for the poll Tuesday, my head is filled with names disassociated with any useful information.

When the public arena is filled with noise signifying nothing, disquieted voters are left in a state of ennui. Since I left the academic world, I have rarely heard a political comment from any but those who repeat their daily doses of blogs. No doubt, it’s a matter of politeness, an internalized belief that one does not discuss politics or religion in public.

This year it’s different. Several friends have brought up politics, not so much to promote a candidate, but to indicate they’re uncomfortable with what’s going on and really don’t know what to do. I even had a customer begin to express anxiety about the election, until she remembered her manners and apologized.

So far the conversations have gone no farther than initial expressions of anxiety, perhaps because I haven’t made encouraging noises. I suspect I would need to act as a therapist, encouraging them to talk, like the friend who listens to the abused wife or alcoholic grope for her or his first public confession. I’m not that patient about something I care about, and I know, if I said anything, I’d more likely lapse into a diatribe which would harm the friendship.

The destruction of political discourse has gone beyond the public arena to inhibit the private one. When language is neutered so people do not understand what is going on, when any attempt to speak the truth is brutally attacked, they fall back on pre-linguistic verbal tools that express their mood without putting anything directly into words. Unconscious concerns bubble up through the reserves of articulate people and what is alluded to is more potent than words would be.

But language is our means of understanding, and without it we’re incapable of rational acts.