Rhetoric: George Orwell
George Orwell [1903-1950] Few writers have understood the dangerous elasticity of language as sharply as George Orwell. In his world, words are never innocent. They are tools, shaped, sharpened, and even poisoned, by those who wield power. Rhetoric at its best is the art of persuasion. It gives language rhythm, force, and emotional resonance. It can inspire revolutions, comfort the grieving, and mobilise societies. Mark Antony used rhetoric effectively to turn the entire Roman rank and file against Brutus who had been their hero hitherto. We have some remarkable rhetorician-politicians now. These politicians remind us that rhetoric has a darker twin. When it ceases to illuminate truth and begins to obscure it, rhetoric becomes resounding propaganda: language emptied of honesty and filled instead with ulterior motives . Orwell saw this transformation with disquieting clarity. in his 1946 essay, Politics and the English Language , he warns how political language is “designed...
