Manipulating Us with Words

There's a fellow I know who sometimes comments on my blog. Probably he has no idea how much thought one thing he wrote has provoked in me.

Let me hasten to state that this guy is intelligent and very able and I respect him. But I have not been able to stop thinking about a perhaps rather casual choice of words he made when he wrote about "school choice."

I actually had to stop a moment to figure out what that means. Then I realized he was talking about what are generally called school vouchers. And it was his using school choice rather than saying school vouchers that has caused me a lot of thought.

I already wrote that I consider that a euphemism. It's kind of like when the Republicans wanted to arouse opposition to the restoration of the estate tax (which, by the way, applies only to large estates—I think to those over $2.5 million). So they came up with the term "death tax." Now, put that way, who would favor a tax on death? Probably no one; but it's not really a tax on death per se.

Also similarly, those who oppose abortion call themselves pro life. Someone figured out that it's better to make yourself sound like you're in favor of something rather than opposed to something. And when that term is used, by implication your opponents are anti life.

When the term school choice is used, you are saying—again by implication—"My opponents—those bad guys—want to take my choice of schools away from me." Rather than saying, "I favor using tax dollars to support religious education," which to my mind would be the more honest way to state it.

I could go into how these sorts of tricks of language have been used by heads of state and other political figures over a long period of time, often with sinister objectives.

Let me hasten to add—always trying to be fair-minded!—that the types of rhetorical tricks I'm talking about are by no means the sole province of the Right or Republicans or conservatives. If you want to look at fund-raising letters—those mass mailings sent out by political and social-change organizations to try to get contributions—a letter from a left-leaning organization sounds an awful lot like one from a group on the other side, and the same types of devices and tricks are used. (For example, they're always trying to alarm you: "Give us money to help us fight this or that bad guy or dangerous movement"--gay marriage, whatever.) The people who write these things can, and probably sometimes do, move from a left- to a right-leaning organization, or vice versa, pretty easily.

What I find of real concern is that the general public may not be equipped to recognize what is going on. Rhetorical tricks like I'm talking about have been used in politics and in advertising (it's really basically the same thing, if you stop and think about it) for well over 150 years, and people have examined and criticized some of the tricks of advertisers probably for almost as long. (There was a notable 1957 book called The Hidden Persuaders by Vance Packard and it's again in print.) But consumers and voters need to be equipped—I'll even say armed—to deal with these tricks. And I don't think these things are commonly taught in our schools, and not even to all college students.

Copyright © 2012 by Richard Stein