In George Orwell’s novel, 1984:
… citizens of [a Soviet-like totalitarian society called] Oceania are monitored by cameras, are fed fabricated news stories by the government, are forced to worship a mythical government leader called Big Brother, are indoctrinated to believe nonsense statements (the mantra “WAR IS PEACE, SLAVERY IS FREEDOM, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH”), and are subject to torture and execution if they question the order of things.
Orwell’s book became one of those classic, iconic works of fiction that took hold of the human imagination and permanently affected the language we use to talk about the kind of totalitarian mind-set that Orwell described. That’s how the term “Orwellian” came into use — to refer to the pairing of concepts that by definition are mutually exclusive — like the Orwellian assertion that came out of the Vietnam war, “We destroyed the village in order to save it.”
It’s in this context that I point out a growing trend in public discourse toward using the word “Orwellian” in an Orwellian way. Public figures in both government and private settings, news organizations, opinion writers, and media pundits do this all the time now. Today, Joe Lieberman did it, in an interview on Fox News Sunday, as reported by TheHill.com:
Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) on Sunday called the administration’s proposal to avoid the term “Islamic extremism” in national security references “absolutely Orwellian and counterproductive.”
Lieberman revealed on “Fox News Sunday” that he had sent a letter to the president’s top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, saying in part: “The failure to identify our enemy for what it is, violent Islamist extremism, is offensive and contradicts thousands of years of accepted military and intelligence doctrine to know your enemy.”
The chairman of the Homeland Security Committee said the letter was the product of him growing “so frustrated” with the White House over the terminology issue. He said the Defense Department omitted references to “violent Islamist extremism” in its report on the massacre at Fort Hood.
Lieberman obviously is implying that “extremism” or “violent extremism” is “Islamic” or “Islamist” by definition. Just as obviously, “violent extremism” is not Islamic or Islamist by definition. Not unless James W. von Brunn, Timothy McVeigh, Andrew Joseph Stack III, Eric Rudolph, Scott Roeder, et al. (and the Army of God), or, going back a bit further, the thousands of people in Waco, Texas, in 1916, who either participated in or watched and cheered as 17-year-old Jesse Washington was tortured, lynched, burned, and mutilated for allegedly raping and killing a white woman, are or were all Islamic or Islamist. (By the way, this probably doesn’t even need to be said, but the color photo on the left in the Images link — the first hit that comes up for Jesse Washington — is a different Jesse Washington.)
Now, one might have thought that what we’re fighting today is extremist violence — whether it’s political ideology, religious belief, or nationalist or racial hatred that motivates that violence. I would not have thought that we are fighting only Islamic or Islamist violence. But if we are to believe Sen. Lieberman, that assumption is incorrect. More than incorrect, if we assume that violent extremism is a concept that includes, but is not limited to, Islamists, we are denigrating and insulting all Muslims everywhere and the entire Islamic faith (emphasis is mine):
“Clearly, from the record, [Nidal Malik Hasan] was motivated by Islamist extremism, and they didn’t mention that term there,” Lieberman said.
“This is not honest,” the senator said, adding that by dropping the clarification of extremism, “we disrespect the overwhelming majority of Muslims who are not extremists.”
Lieberman said that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were not carried out by “some amorphous group of violent extremists or environmental extremists or white supremacist extremists.”
“It’s absolutely Orwellian and counterproductive to the fight that we’re fighting at risk of great life every day to stop violent extremism of an Islamist base,” he said.
It’s not totally clear what Lieberman thinks is Orwellian — working to “stop violent extremism of an Islamist base” without attaching “Islamic” or “Islamist” to the phrase “violent extremism,” or telling the Islamic world that we know the vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists without making it clear that violent extremism is Islamic. The second is simply demented. If we don’t use the term “Islamic extremism,” we’re implying that everyone of the Islamic faith is an extremist? I mean, WHAT?
Either way, though, what’s truly Orwellian is Lieberman’s notion that NOT defining “extremism” as “Islamic” extremism is Orwellian.
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