Sten Gazette

Words are fun! As Humpty Dumpty said scornfully to Alice, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master — that’s all.”

Words are unruly, but language evolves and what was an ignorant error a decade ago is often standard usage today. Such evolved usages can be frustrating and irritating to educated people. They are also relatively harmless.

Not so the deliberate misconstruction or twisting of a meaning to suit the writer or speaker’s purpose. If you believe today’s propaganda, George Bush was given a mandate to continue the decimation of the environment, to outsource good jobs to a third world and to give tax breaks to giant corporations like the one that has forced the Windoze(TM) operating system down our throats. In no particular order, let’s consider some examples of evolving word meanings and distortions.

DECIMATE. The meaning of this word has so thoroughly evolved that its misuse is merely a pet peeve of ours, but it is a good illustration of a couple of the language principles at work here. Indeed, it is no great loss– unlike some of the other words we’ll be talking about, “decimate” is almost incapable of being used with its original meaning, outside of its historical context. Originally decimation was the punishment meted out to a Roman Legion for desertion– one soldier in ten was selected by lot and executed. The decimation was deliberately calculated to inflict the maxium less while causing a minimal reduction in the unit’s ability to fight. Later the word evolved into parallel meanings, (a) to kill a large number of people and (b) to exact a tax of 10%. The secondary (b) meaning can be disregarded as it reflects the popularity of Latin in legal documents and there’s almost no chance you will hear it used with that meaning ever again.

That’s an example of what you might see in a dictionary, a relative indication of the acceptability and/or generality of a particular usage, or the evolution of a word’s meaning. You can observe the evolution of meaning over time, as a particular usage becomes more commonly accepted. First a usage appears in one or more dictionaries, often with a note (e.g. “colloquial” or “slang“), and over time it loses the note and creeps up the list of definitions toward the number one definition of the word.

In what will probably prove to be its ultimate evolution, the word “decimate” now seems to mean “to cause widespread destruction.” Example– “The town was decimated by the tornado, but thankfully no-one was killed.” In that sentence, gleaned from a TV report, the word “thankfully” is just plain wrong, and hurts the ears, but few would question the use of “decimated.” Even the dictionaries have agreed to disagree on this one. We often use the on-line American Heritage Dictionary for questions of current usage, and AHD begins its secondary definition of decimate with the note “usage problem.” At the bottom of the page the editors report a considerable amount of disagreement by the members of their own “usage panel.” By and large, the word seems to be a better fit when the subject is killing people, in quantity. And why stretch or alter the meaning of “decimate” when “devastate” is what is meant?

MANDATE. The dictionaries agree on this one; any way you look at it, the political meaning of the word is “A command or an authorization given by a political electorate to its representative.” The other meanings, including the primary meaning (simply an authoritative command or order) and the meaning in international law (the creation of a political entity by the League of Nations) are not relevant.

A mandate is given to a representative. A mandate does not appoint or elect the representative. There is simply no basis for a President to claim that he has a mandate to carry out any particular action, simply because he was elected to office. If an election were fought on a single issue, it might be reasonable for the elected official to claim that he is accepting a mandate in respect of that one issue. To use an example from current events, the President cannot reasonably claim that he has a mandate and in doing so he saying “The American people have told me to go right ahead and do whatever I want.” Not even this president could really believe that he has a mandate.

THE THIRD WORLD (or worlds). There was only ever one Third World, and technically it doesn’t exist any more, or perhaps it has moved up into second place. The term is a political one, a Cold War (1963) expression to categorize countries which were politically aligned with neither the Capitalist world nor the Communist world (the First and Second Worlds respectively when considered from a Western perspective). All Communist countries (including Cuba) were part of the “Communist Bloc” and all Capitalist countries (including South Africa) were part of the Western Bloc, sometimes called the “Free World” by those living under some of the less repressive regimes in it. Because most Third World or unaligned countries consisted of poor or “backward” peoples in Asia and Africa, the term has generally evolved to mean poor or “underdeveloped” countries. The term “Third World” was also related to (and often was confused with) the post-colonial concept of “emerging nations,” but in reality a majority of the emerging nations were thoroughly aligned with one side or the other.

In other words, “The Third World” started out as a purely political descriptor but evolved into an somewhat vague economic one. In our post-Soviet world, however, the remaining Communist countries cannot be considered a “Bloc.” The five that survive today are China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam. In many respects (economy, education, industrialization, etc) China is more closely aligned with the Western world than many of the poorer “democracies,” so the political and economic differentiation between a First and Second World is meaningless. There are only two worlds now. They are described quite simply as the Haves and the Have-nots. As these things go, however, SG won’t be surprised if “Third World” is resurrected to mean countries which are neither Christian nor Muslim.

OPERATING SYSTEM. We threw this one in because it’s another of our pet peeves, but it does serve to illustrate our point. Originally, and technically to this day, an Operating System is software that allows a computer to run programs, or “applications.” Windoze(TM) includes or is based upon an Operating System but it is not itself an OS, no matter how much propaganda the boys and girls in Redmond disseminate. What most people see as Windows is a graphical user interface (to the operating system), a multi-tasker (which allows the operating system to appear to do more than one thing at a time). Or has Microsoft redefined the term? Probably the vast majority of computer users today believe the MS party line that Windoze(TM) is an Operating System, so it must be so. You don’t have to look real hard to find other similarities between MS and Humpty Dumpty.

PROPAGANDA. We’ve saved the best for last. Propaganda has a pretty simple definition, but it has been given a reverse left-hand twist so that the word is almost universally misused to describe opinions you don’t happen to agree with. Which is a pity, because it is a pretty good word that doesn’t have an obvious replacement.

The dictionaries can’t quite agree on a definition, which is always a problem when there are conflicting usages. One man’s “news” is another man’s “propaganda.” Like obscenity, propaganda is in the eye of the beholder. We may not be able to define it, but dammit, we know it when we see it.

American Heritage doesn’t say “usage problem” with this one, but we think an analysis of their primary and secondary definitions is in order, and a better definition of the word is obtained by combining them. But before we do that (and yes there is a point to this!), let’s touch briefly on the origin and history of the word.

The etymology is New Latin. Propaganda was a short form of Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide or “Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith,” a Roman Catholic organization created in 1622 by Pope Gregory XV to propagate the Catholic faith to non-Catholic countries and attempt to reconcile the Orthodox and Roman Churches. In the Latin, propaganda is the ablative feminine gerundive form of the verb propagare, to propagate. In more modern English, propaganda is simply that which is propagated, no more, no less. The important point here is that the word propaganda originated as a process of distribution and in itself has absolutely nothing to do with what is propagated or how it is propagated.

The word had chiefly the religious connotation until the 19th Century, when for example propaganda techniques were used in the European revolutions of 1848, and it reached its full flower during the lead-up to World War II, under Stalin (USSR) and Goebbels (Germany). There is an interesting contrast in those two icons of propaganda. Stalin’s Soviet Union culturally submerged itself into its leader, so while the primary propaganda organ was the Ministry of Information, individual propagandists do not stand out the way Goebbels did in Germany. Stalin generally gets all the credit, and probably deserves most of it– his name “Stalin” was an adopted symbolic or “revolutionary” name, derived from the word for Steel and having a pretty high propaganda value.

Goebbels was a university trained psychologist (PhD Heidelberg, 1921). A hypnotic orator (second only to Hitler, it is said), his powers of persuasion, exercised through the propaganda arts, were arguably the critical factor in Hitler’s dominance of the Nazi Party and rise to power. There was nothing sneaky or covert about the man or his activities, and he gladly accepted the official title of Propaganda Minister in Hitler’s government. With the title he gained complete control over radio, press, cinema, and theater in Nazi Germany, manipulating all of them to further the Nazi agenda and later the war effort. During the rise of Stalin and Hitler, the West embarked on its own propaganda crusades, just as methodically and just as pervasively, while managing somehow to demonize “propaganda” as a tool of the totalitarian enemy.

Dare we compare Stalinist and Nazi propaganda to the activities of the Sacred Congregation? Consider: all three propaganda “ministries” were designed to promote a faith (Communism, Hitlerism, and Catholicism respectively), and to demolish opposing points of view.

And so we come to a viable definition of the term.

AHD says propaganda means:

1. The systematic propagation of a doctrine or cause or of information reflecting the views and interests of those advocating such a doctrine or cause.

2. Material disseminated by the advocates or opponents of a doctrine or cause: wartime propaganda.

For the record, the Pope’s Sacred Congregation is listed at number 3, which is poor lexicography because (a) the role of the Sacred Congregation is adequately described in the first definition, (b) the “material” that is propagated by it is covered in the second, and (c) it is doubtful that anyone in the world today thinks the word “propaganda” means the Sacred Congregation.

On the face of it, AHD is right to define the word as both the system of propagation and that which is propagated. But wait a minute– the second definition introduces a whole new domain of propaganda with the words “or opponents.” Propaganda can be positive or negative. And we know that’s correct, because we see constant examples of propaganda used to attack as well as to promote.

The exclusion of the negative or destructive or attacking uses of propaganda from the first definition is curious. There is also an implication that propagation of a doctrine (etc) is only propaganda if it is systematic. Could this be propaganda in action? Oh well, as we said, we consult AHD on modern usage, and recognize that the rest of the lexicography leaves a bit to be desired.

A better definition is provided by eliminating the first definition and modifying the second very slightly– let’s try :

propaganda 1. Systematic propagation of material advocating or opposing a doctrine or cause, and the material that is propagated.

Again and for the last time the validity of the doctrine or value of the cause, and the truthfulness of the material, are irrelevant to consideration of whether a particular bit of information is “propaganda.” What differentiates modern propaganda from other forms of communication is that the primary purpose is to influence public opinion or attitudes. Almost all of those attempts that we see every day– campaigning, lobbying, commercial advertising, and proseletyzing– can be considered to be propaganda. Why is it important to “identify” propaganda? Often what is said is far less significant than who is saying it, and why. We instinctively question most advertising, but willingly suspend our disbelief when we listen to politicians and clergymen. If for whatever reason we can identify a particular piece of information as propaganda, then we can infer that someone is trying to persuade us. Persuasion isn’t necessarily a bad thing (our court system depends on it utterly) but the responsible citizen will make every effort to distinguish between propaganda, logical persuasion, and news.

Stalin and Hitler have been dead a long time, and we only have to put up with Karl Rove for four more years, thankfully. The Sacred Congregation evolved into the sacra congregatio christiano nomini propagando, and it is still in business.

–SG

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 10th, 2004 at 12:47 pm and is filed under Propaganda, The President, Religion, Politics, Favorites. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.