I was at a national convention of speech communication professors a few years ago (we are a real exciting group, let me tell ya') at which the keynote speaker was Bill Moyers. During Q & A someone asked him what advice he would give to speech teachers who want to understand the true nature of political communication. Without missing a beat, he said "read George Orwell's Politics and the English Language." Good answer, Bill.
Sunday, February 05, 2006
Orwell Man
I was at a national convention of speech communication professors a few years ago (we are a real exciting group, let me tell ya') at which the keynote speaker was Bill Moyers. During Q & A someone asked him what advice he would give to speech teachers who want to understand the true nature of political communication. Without missing a beat, he said "read George Orwell's Politics and the English Language." Good answer, Bill.
"When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases -- bestial, atrocities, iron heel, bloodstained tyranny, free peoples of the world, stand shoulder to shoulder -- one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy."
ReplyDeleteSome kind of dummy, huh? Like a dummy who says "nucular" and looks like a chimp? (Uh, sorry Lance)