Unspeak: How Words Become Weapons, How Weapons Become a Message, and How That Message Becomes Reality [Paperback]

Steven Poole (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 10, 2007

What do the phrases “pro-life,” “intelligent design,” and “the war on terror” have in common? Each of them is a name for something that smuggles in a highly charged political opinion. Words and phrases that function in this special way go by many names. Some writers call them “evaluative-descriptive terms.” Others talk of “terministic screens” or discuss the way debates are “framed.” Author Steven Poole calls them Unspeak. Unspeak represents an attempt by politicians, interest groups, and business corporations to say something without saying it, without getting into an argument and so having to justify itself. At the same time, it tries to unspeak — in the sense of erasing or silencing — any possible opposing point of view by laying a claim right at the start to only one way of looking at a problem. Recalling the vocabulary of George Orwell’s 1984, as an Unspeak phrase becomes a widely used term of public debate, it saturates the mind with one viewpoint while simultaneously makes an opposing view ever more difficult to enunciate. In this fascinating book, Poole traces modern Unspeak and reveals how the evolution of language changes the way we think.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Politicians are held in such low esteem these days that most people assume they are lying or twisting the truth until proven otherwise. Now, as if to confirm that bit of popular wisdom, Guardian contributor Poole (Trigger Happy: Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution), addresses "unspeak," his term for politically loaded language in which a sound bite implies an entire unspoken political argument. With ample outrage and barbed wit, Poole unpacks some of the most prevalent—and politically charged—expressions animating today's political and media discourse, from "intelligent design" to "global warming," "collateral damage" to the "war on terror." His targets are staples of liberal complaint against current ideology, with much of the book—and his contempt—devoted to disentangling the propaganda that has been marshaled on behalf of the "war on terror" and the war in Iraq. Poole's goal is not only to shed light on how politicians manipulate language to justify their actions but also to shame the media into rejecting the official line rather than parroting government talking points. This book takes no word at face value, which will anger some and enlighten others, just as a book of social and linguistic commentary should. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Addressing the politics of language in excoriating fashion, journalist and author Poole (Trigger Happy: Video Games and the Entertainment Revolution, 2000) scrolls through ubiquitous terms such as war on terror, pro-life, and Operation Just Cause, labeling these phrases as unspeak for their attempt to silence any possible opposing viewpoint by casting an issue in only one light. Arguing that such phrases are not neutral but "smuggle in political opinion . . . in a remarkably efficient way," he proceeds to analyze the implications of an ongoing effort by politicians and interest groups to manipulate our language, for example, substituting global warming with climate change as a way of recasting the debate about environmental pollution in less-frightening terms. Similarly, what was once referred to as creationismis now called intelligent design by fundamentalists intent on passing off their religious beliefs as scientific theory. Furthermore, Poole maintains that journalists often parrot terms handed to them by corporations and politicians, aiding in passing these phrases into mainstream usage. Thought-provoking analysis of an insidious trend. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press; First Trade Paper Edition edition (May 10, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802143059
• ISBN-13: 978-0802143051
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 0.7 x 8.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #476,066 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Steven Poole is an English writer, and the author of You Aren't What You Eat, Unspeak, and Trigger Happy.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A very important book May 29, 2006

By A Reader From NYC

Format:Hardcover

This is one of those books I've been waiting for: a calm but clever look at politicians' language. Poole doesn't take what politicians say at face value and then whine about it, and nor does he simply dismiss as lies everything politicians say. Instead, Poole listens carefully to political language to show how meanings are smuggled into certain terms and phrases and, in particular, how these terms or phrases insinuate that people holding an opposing position are wrong (think "Friends of the Earth": you don't support them? Well, then you must be an "Enemy of the Earth"!) The book is full of examples from both sides of the Atlantic, including charged terms like "ethnic cleansing", "terrorist suspect" and "climate change". Even with such important and difficult subject matter, Poole is entertaining as well as convincing. And it doesn't matter what your political bent is because, as Poole shows, no political party has a monopoly on Unspeak. Every journalist and blogger who does not want to be a simple relay between politician and public, or an uncritical purveyor of careful political manipulation, should become familiar with this book. And if you read this book, you will pay attention to news and the blogs in a whole new way.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Ferocious, elegant & riveting May 20, 2007

By Scriblerus

Format:Paperback

I'd recommend Unspeak as: (a) The highest form of escapism - a vital polemic so engagingly and elegantly written that it wipes out everything else you might have been thinking or worrying about when you opened it. Since it has something important to say about most of the most critical wrangles of our time, it is virtuous escapism. (b) A gift to please or flatter any recipient who is or wants to be considered intelligent.

***
This is the rarest kind of book that reflects a monumental concentration of thought and creative energy - a striking contrast to most books today, which are written fighting the distractions of the author's other work, or as a "night job". I don't know how Poole pulled off this feat - or if Unspeak actually had the benefit of his undivided attention - but that's the way his book reads.

Reviewers who have only skimmed the text are making two serious mistakes in their descriptions of Unspeak. Contrary to what Nick Beard (customer review, below) says, the book is not remotely a magazine article on stilts. True, its big idea, though subtle, can be swiftly summarised as "a style of language that attempts to smuggle in an unspoken argument by insinuation." But the Socratic method can also be shrunk to a nugget, yet learning how Socratic dialogue works requires exposition, examples - and practice.

The worse mistake is casting the author as a prisoner of left-wing thinking. In fact, what Poole demonstrates - often with lacerating wit - is that the Left is just as adept at Unspeak's creepy manipulations, as in . . .

** . . . US and UK politicians' use of the word "community" in ways that, on close examination, add up to a "mental anaesthetic, novocaine for the soul...." Clinton, says Poole, often "let the word stand alone, using it in a tremblingly phatic way that was emptied of all specific meaning." (Was there ever a better encapsulation of Clintonian rhetoric?)

**. . . or . . .an excoriation of a police report about the accidental murder by men in uniform of the Brazilian electrician, Jean Charles de Menezes - taken for a terrorist without any evidence at all - on a London Underground train in 2005. The report is crammed chock-full with the mentality of Unspeak. Dissecting it, Poole tells us that "[a]ccording to the first theoretician of tragedy, Aristotle, the tragic hero must be doomed by his own tragic error, or hamartia." He continues: "And they were clearly only spectators, since there was no mention of their having killed Menezes, who instead somehow mislaid his health without outside help. Tony Blair subsequently corrected this unfortunate implication with the most passive, no-blame language possible, referring to `the death that has happened,' as though, perhaps, it had been the result of natural causes."

Along the way, as Poole tackles language used in discussing laws to control social behaviour, debates about immigration and asylum-seekers, environmental battles, military operations in the Middle East and the politics of counter-terrorism, he shows us how much fascinating subtext most of us miss as we race through news reports. For instance: "Contests of Unspeak," like the one in which the barrier Israel began building in 2002 was referred to by Israeli authorities as a "security fence," but as a tool of "apartheid" by the Palestinians shut out by the structure - which included electrified steel-and-barbed-wire and a concrete wall. Agence France Presse, Poole tells us, resolved the giant fuss about whether the thing should be referred to as a wall (the Arabs' choice) or fence by calling it, tongue firmly in cheek, the "concrete fence." Poole concludes: "The designation's eventual evolution into `'separation barrier' was something of an improvement, even if the phrase was a crude tautology." Indeed. Read more ›

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant account of our rulers' lies June 19, 2007

By William Podmore

Format:Paperback

In this insightful book, journalist Steven Poole shows how our rulers abuse language to promote and disguise war, torture and corporate interests. Words have consequences: as he observes, a jury deciding whether a crime was murder or manslaughter is not conducting a linguistic exercise. Similarly, when `freedom is on the march' (Bush), governments can describe murderous and illegal invasions as benign `regime change' and `humanitarian intervention'.

Poole brilliantly contrasts reality and deceptions across many different areas. The phrase `faith communities' defines the people referred to as united monolithically and for ever by their beliefs. `Human nature' is code for misanthropic pessimism about human affairs, so war is said to symbolise `the depravity of human nature'.

On climate change, Greenpeace's chief scientist preferred the frightener `climate meltdown'. Corporations, religious and commercial, use advertising slogans like `Intelligent Design' (more accurately, Implicit Deism), `sound science', `natural' gas and `organic' produce.

Operations Merciful Angel (Kosovo), Just Cause (Panama) and Iraqi Freedom - such cute names! - `serviced' targets and `delivered' force packages: hardly killing people at all. NATO's weapons are always `smart' and `surgical'. NATO forces drop sweet little `bomblets' and playful `daisy cutters'. So the inevitable killings of civilians, women and children can only be `tragic mistakes', or not even the slaughter of civilians, women or children: as the US Army spokesman said, "If it's dead and Vietnamese, it's VC." By contrast, the enemy's weapons are nothing less than Weapons of Mass Destruction, with big capital letters, so they are much more frightening than our puny bombers and aircraft carriers and tanks....

Bush and Blair's `war on terror' is asymmetric warfare: `we' are fighting a war; `you' are not, so you cannot be prisoners of war, only `enemy combatants' and `terrorist suspects', so `we' can imprison you without trial and torture you. Donald Rumsfeld described as just `abuses' what even the US Army Manual defines as torture - mock executions, sleep deprivation and `stress positions'.

The FBI had to admit that what it acknowledged were `torture techniques' had produced `no intelligence of a threat neutralization nature to date'. In English, the torture has been pointless, as well as immoral. Still, our guys sure have fun doing it, so let's not punish them, unless they're silly enough to admit it. Read more ›

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant penetrating analysis of modern propaganda April 7, 2010

By T. D. Welsh

Format:Paperback

If all citizens had Steven Poole's mental clarity, intellectual rigour, and intolerance of con-artistry, we would all have better governments and live better lives. Politicians (and corporations) would not be allowed to get away with spouting thinly-disguised propaganda, and using language deliberately chosen to convey certain opinions and prevent the very expression of contrary opinions. Voters would immediately spot meretricious arguments, intentional fallacies, and answers that beg the question. In the real world, unfortunately, we have to manage with a population that has mastered the English language well enough for everyday purposes, but mostly remain helpless suckers for skilfully camouflaged rhetoric.

Poole jumps right in by examining the familiar phrases "pro-choice", "tax relief", and "Friends of the Earth". He points out that choice, relief, and friendship are all considered good things under almost all circumstances, so these phrases are calculated to receive almost automatic approval before any process of analytical thought even begins. Often, indeed, they may completely foreclose the possibility of rational analysis, triggering knee-jerk emotional reactions (favourable ones in these three cases). You might feel, on consideration, that abortion is not always justifiable; or that taxes should not be cut; or that the Friends of the Earth may have done things that you would not approve of. But the names "pro-choice", "tax relief", and "Friends of the Earth" are calculated to stop you short before you do any considering. This is what Poole means by "Unspeak" - language that smuggles in a particular point of view and prevents alternative thoughts from even getting a foothold.... It's more subtle, and far more effective, than the crude "Newspeak" and "Doublethink" introduced by George Orwell in 1984.

Having made his pitch, Poole proceeds to analyse a number of common unspeak terms in considerable depth. Each gets a whole chapter to itself; they are Community, Nature, Tragedy, Operations, Terror, Abuse, Freedom, and Extremism. As you might expect, he gets a lot of mileage out of quoting people like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Tony Blair, and countless spokespersons for the UK and US governments. Some of the examples are quite extreme, such as the reaction of a senior naval officer to the news that three prisoners at Guantanamo had managed to hang themselves: "I believe this was not an act of desperation, rather an act of asymmetric warfare waged against us". The Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy called the suicides "a good PR move to draw attention". Once you have got over the almost incomprehensible callousness and cynicism of those utterances, you can clearly see the hidden agenda of implying that every single thing done by "enemy combatants" is aimed at harming or at least embarrassing the USA. The alternative view - that perhaps those men had done nothing wrong, had been captured and imprisoned by mistake, and killed themselves out of sheer despair - is ruled out before it can even enter the listener's mind.

Poole explicitly contrasts his idea of Unspeak with the view expressed by Orwell (and more recently Jamie Whyte, e.g. in "A Load of Old Blair") that politicians seek above all to say nothing meaningful. On the whole, his position has a lot of merit - the more so because Unspeak can sound a lot like gibberish to someone who sees through it, but does not adequately comprehend the agenda that it is designed to further. While its success cannot be taken for granted - and could be seriously undermined by really good mass education, for example - Unspeak holds out the promise of brainwashing entire populations, without their ever knowing what has been done to them. Read more ›