January 20, 2005
2002…2003…2004…1984?: Democratic Education in a time of Doublespeak
Steve Parks
Eileen Schell,
Syracuse University
We are, admittedly, “reality� freaks.
Of course, it is difficult to maintain a commitment to reality in the current national climate. Thanks to media outlets, such as Fox News, a large portion of the electorate believed that Iraq had direct links to 9/11/01 as well as that weapons of mass destruction had been found in that country. (Not True.) Other media outlets, such as ABC, NBC, and CBS, consistently used the red/blue electoral map to conclude that the country could be neatly split into one section that supports traditional conservative values and another which supports progressive liberal values (Not accurate). Numerous polls indicated that “values� (undefined) were also a key factor in an individual’s voting decision. This led to the initial conclusion that Kerry voters lacked values. (Not true or useful.) Clearly, it would be possible to live in this world of untrue, inaccurate, undefined and unusable media culture.
We remain, however, reality freaks.
Indeed what is so troubling about the recent rhetorical moves by the Bush administration and its conservative allies is the extent to which they have actively participated in creating this “otherworld� of facts and conclusions. After years of being told by the Right that ‘truth is truth’ and that we need to return to a “spin-free zone,� we find ourselves in a world where most conservative politicians and pundits are arguing reality is mutable, unstable, and open for rewriting. More than that, the Bush Administration and his allies are openly questioning the value of studying reality as a basis through which to judge its own policies. As a Bush aide recently stated, “That’s not the way the world really works anymore…We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors….and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.�
This is a challenging time, then, for those charged with teaching students how to understand and act within a democratic society. How do we explain the need for considered well-researched judgments in a world where falsehoods are acted upon as if they are true? How do we justify the need for carefully drawn conclusions when inaccurate broad strokes are the order of the day? Most importantly, how do we ask our students to base their beliefs in reality, when reality seems to no longer be an important category for decision-making?
At such a moment, it might be useful for teachers to remember George Orwell’s 1984. As part of a national effort, the National Council of Teachers of English is sponsoring events where Orwell’s novel is publicly read and debated. The novel itself tells the story of Winston Smith, who lives within a totalitarian society organized around “Big Brother.� Smith’s job is to consistently rewrite history to insure that the pronouncements of Big Brother and the “Party� are never wrong – literally going back and altering newspaper accounts, doctoring photos, and erasing the life histories of political opponents.
As teachers of rhetoric and writing, we cannot help but see parallels between the current moment and Orwell’s portrayal of how a government rewrites history to suit its immediate ends of staying in power, denying its mistakes, and crafting a language which justifies it’s leaps in logic. We cannot help but see the role the media, such as Fox News, plays in rewriting reality to suit political ends. In the words of Orwell, the nation is being asked to engage in “doublespeak� – a situation where the listener recognizes the words don’t match reality but is told to believe them anyway.
Of course, it is too simple to equate Bush, the Republicans, and Fox News with “Big Brother.� Unlike Big Brother, Bush appears to actually exist. There is also no need to alter previous newspaper accounts since Cheney simply denies ever making certain statements despite proof to the contrary – such as his claim that there is a connection between 9/11/01 and Iraq. And while Fox news might claim to be fair and balanced, it is hard to believe even they would even claim to be in the business of reporting “objective reality.�(Nor should it be assumed that Democrats are somehow immune from such practices; they are merely less effective.)
Still as an interpretative tool for students to consider the current moment, it is useful to consider how the logic of the Bush administration works within the principle slogans of Big Brother. What might our students learn by contrasting the key slogans of 1984 with the rhetorical and political practices of the Bush Administration?
War is Peace
Within the novel, the Party argues that the continual war being waged against Eurasia (and then Oceania) is the ultimate guarantor of peace. Today we are continually being told that the War against Terror will be victorious at the same time we are being told it will never end: “I’m not sure you can win the war on terror,� Bush has said.
Freedom is Slavery
Since 9/11/01, the Bush administration has imprisoned over 5,000 foreign nationals (convicting none), allowed the torture of Iraqi prisoners, and allowed the FBI to lead a “door to door� investigation of those planning to protest the Republican convention. The Patriot Act gives law enforcement the ability to conduct searches, monitor phone and Internet communication, and provides access to personal medical, financial, mental health, and student records with little judicial oversight. An expanded version of terrorism laws under the Patriot Act also allows for an investigation of “domestic terrorism,� which could potentially submit political organizations to surveillance, wiretapping, harassment, and criminal action for political advocacy. We are safer, it seems, by enslaving others and eroding our own civil liberties.
Ignorance is Strength
Smith lives in a world where the “party line� is to withhold information for the safety of citizens. Similarly Bush has withheld from the public the results of a congressional investigation into Saudia Arabia’s relationship to the September 11, 20001 attack; it has withheld the records of Cheney’s Energy Task Force; it is has spent $120 to classify documents for every $1 spent to declassify them. Under the Patriot Act, for instance, it is possible for law enforcement officials to demand that librarians must supply your library records for scrutiny without your consent. We are stronger, it seems, for what we do not know.
In such a world where words mean their opposite, what can our students grasp onto as a basis from which to make decisions? What is the foundational principle that is being offered to guide their actions? Once again, Orwell’s novel is again instructive.
As Smith endures torture and brainwashing to make him love Big Brother (see Abu Gharid), he invents a new slogan: “God is power.� Having accepted this final precept, Smith “accepted everything. The past was alterable. The past never had been altered… He remembered remembering contrary things, but those were false memories, products of self-deception. How easy it was. Only surrender, and everything else followed.� Ultimately, Bush and the Republican Right wants us to discover “God,� to replace reason and reality with faith and doublespeak. (Witness the recent attempts by the Religious Right to replace evolution with “intelligent design.)
Only time will tell if the Bush Administration and the Republicans will be successful in their efforts. Smith was frightened into accepting Big Brother and the logic of doublespeak by the threats of rats eating his face. He endured daily “two-minute hate� sessions where the enemy was projected on a telescreen (evening news) and encouraged to show their patriotism by shouting slogans and physically demonstrating their disgust and loathing for the other (conservative talk radio). Today, we are constantly told gay marriage, illegal immigrants, multi-color threat alerts, and “liberals from Massachusetts will eat away at the foundations of our society. Will these “threats� lead us to find “religion�?
As teachers, we cannot wait to find out the answer. We must work to repair a national discourse that has been weakened and distorted by conservative attack dogs and politicians. For this reason, we would argue that as rhetoricians and educators our classroom should become a site to restore the power of language as a descriptive tool for the world around us. We should engage our students in the critical analysis necessary to understand how attempts are currently being made to alter the fundamental landscape through which we understand the world. Once equipped with the necessary critical skills, we should challenge our students to intervene for the protection of their own rights.
This does not mean turning the classroom into a workshop on “Bush-hating;� the left has certainly produced its share of misinformation and doublespeak. (Although without the power of all three branches of government, its rhetoric clearly has less traction.) Any good classroom would ask students to move beyond the immediate analogies between Bush and 1984 sketched here; it would ask them to weigh and consider other readings. Indeed, the role of educators at this time is to create classrooms that are informed with the traditional ideas of civic culture – an engaged public having an informed debate based on a large set of evidence and facts. In other words, our classrooms should become places where ‘reality’ not ideology is the basis of our rhetoric and analysis.
Such classrooms will not be value free. Imaging a citizenry who has ultimate control over their society means endorsing traditional democratic values. Believing in the concept of informed debate will necessarily put the classroom at odds with much political rhetoric today. If education is the incubator of democracy, however, it must develop citizens who can base their decision on reality, not ideological spin. As educators, we must restore meaning to the concepts of “fair and balanced.�
It is because we believe in truth, reality, and democracy that we cannot endorse a world where some “create reality� and others study it. As educators, we understand that to have students study reality is to create a citizenry who will not accept their own disenfranchisement. Democratic education defeats Doublespeak. It expands collective power. It enfranchises everyone to participate in crafting the future.
Our classrooms seem very small spaces to begin such work. In one of Winston Smith’s first attempts to step outside of Doublespeak and reclaim a connection with reality, he puts pen to paper and writes, “Freedom is the Freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.� Creating a classroom where students put pen to paper and move from ideology to reality is one place to begin.
Let us see what happens.