Echo
Language and the state
What happens to sentences when power needs them. The thread runs from a newspaper accusation to the manuals of the twentieth century.
1 · Émile Zola
I accuse.Orwell watches political language do the opposite of Zola: it makes murder sound administrative.
2 · George Orwell
Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.In the novel, the same trick is applied to memory. Who holds the present holds the past.
3 · George Orwell
Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.Arendt, writing about total terror, notices the few who do not comply. Language is one of the places they refuse.
4 · Hannah Arendt
Under conditions of terror most people will comply but some people will not.