Vague Language By George Orwell

In Orwell's essay he believes that our political system is flawed in the way that they talk and how they spread information. Political writing according to Orwell is bogged down in too many vague words and lies made to seem truthful. As this paper was written in the 1946 so, politics were a little different, but they were also very tense due to World War Two. Although it's been about 60 years since this piece was written Orwell's thesis still reins true to this day. Our news broadcasting in today's society are very controversial and has very highly criticized for the same reasons Orwell was in 46’. Political language has two major issues; vague and confusing language, and telling lies with the confidence that they are true. Vague and confusing
language is a huge issue in political language because it causes people who are watching the news to not fully understand what the person means. This can be seen most prominently with interviews of politics. They have a way of answering the question with either “well you need to ask so and so” or with doing circles around the answer. Both of these will leave questions unanswered and the audience confused. I have a personal experience with this; one of my classes at a state senator come in for us to discuss gun laws with him. As each of us went around and asked our question he would take our questions and start with “well” then move on to something else that vaguely had to do with the question. After every answer most of us were confused due to his vague language and not really answering the answer. This is one of the major reasons with today's political language. As politicians use language that can confuse their audience it leads people to not believe what they say and lose trust in our government. This idea is what Orwell was getting at in his essay meaning his thesis has stayed true. Next, Orwell talks about how political language has the ability to pass of lies as the truth. This has never been more prominent than in our modern politics. We even have a whole movement around it due to the internet making it even easier to lie and get away with it. Anybody who knows anything about politics knows the phrase “fake news” coined by our President Donald Trump. Through all the jokes and criticism that comes due to this statement. The meaning behind this phrase is true because there is a lot of news articles out there that take complete lies and use hyperboles and play to people's fears. These cause people to believe these lies, even if they have such little proof behind them. There are even websites dedicated to fake news articles, Snopes for example, is full of just articles that have no proof behind them. Pieces of writing like this are simply made to create tension, drama, and confusion. This can be seen in our last presidency; Obama was accused of not being a United States citizens due to people making accusations and fake articles. These make people already against Obama, just another reason to dislike him. As Orwell’s essay seems to be outdated due to it being written in the 1940’s his essay is still true today. As Orwell talks about vagueness and lies in politics in his time we can see the same in our politics. Although not everything is the same there are many of Orwells points that are true today. Orwell saw the issues that were starting to form before they even got to the point they are today. Orwell was able to predict how the English Language was going to affect politics in his time and our modern society.