![]() ![]() But the battle over words has taken another ominous turn for the world of science and public health policy. Orwell argued that imprecise, empty, and confusing language had been used “largely the defense of the indefensible.” His examples included “British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan.” “Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine‐gunned.…This is called pacification,” 1 he sardonically observed.Ĭertainly, Orwell would have seen some similarities in the use of language in the “defense of the indefensible” in today's political culture. Language and its misuse had become a tool to cover up, confuse, and mislead the population. I n 1946 george orwell wrote his damning essay “Politics and the English Language.” In it he argued that the “political and economic” interests of the moment had led to language's general debasement. ![]() The Trump administration is considering narrowly defining gender as a biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth, the most drastic move yet in a governmentwide effort to roll back recognition and protections of transgender people under federal civil rights law. ![]()
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