Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Prepare For Maximum Orwell

The New Yorker suggests a change in language to encourage the proles to see cold weather as something far more nefarious:

A slight change in presentation, however, may shift attitudes in the direction of climate science and away from the vicissitudes of local weather. A study out this month, from the Cardiff University psychologists Stuart Capstick and Nicholas Pidgeon, found that periods of exceptionally cold weather in the United Kingdom had the opposite effect as they did in the United States: more people believed in the truth of climate change. The reason for the difference? The media had framed the weather within the context of climate change, emphasizing that it was unnatural, rather than simply cold. Perhaps if people here were told that it’s not just brutal out there, it’s unnaturally brutal, they, too, might jump to a different conclusion.

This reminds me of something that is credited to Confucius:

"If language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant; if what is said is not what is meant, then what must be done remains undone; if this remains undone, morals and art will deteriorate; if justice goes astray, the people will stand about in helpless confusion. Hence there must be no arbitrariness in what is said. This matters above everything."