STEVEN MARCUS
635
process, one witnesses the creation of "safe havens," an Orwellian term
for extensive concentration camps, which are, to boot, safe to bomb at
will. It is difficult not to be reminded of N ewspeak and doublethink
forty years later. The lines of causal influence run in both directions. Bad,
sloppy, careless language is the vehicle of and conduces
to
careless, foggy,
imprecise and manipulated thinking, and both in turn make it easier to
do things and support causes that one would o therwise steer clear of, or
at least be more cautious in approac hing.
The current language of political "struggle" tends to anesthetize the
intellect. Out of thousands of examples, here is one chosen almost at
random from the writing of a student political leader. "It's about time
that we stop apologizing for being hostile, emotional, and militant. It 's
about time we take sweeping actions to send a message to the racist op–
pressors that we are tired of your sh it." On the one hand virtually every
word or phrase in these two sentences - including shit - is a cliche.
Terms such as racism, colonialism, sexism, and equality have tended to
lose most of their specific meanings; like fascism in the thirties and forties,
they only signifY something general that one feels entirely justified in dis–
approving of without qualification. On the other hand, such language
can be deployed in a tactical sense
to
useful destructive ends. If in some
familiar situation of academic dispute, an ancient fogy of a professor or a
dopey administrator rises up and suggests something to the effect that
reason and compromise are preferable to intimidation and coercion, such
vaguely incendiary expressions as I have quoted can be conveniently
brought out
to
shut him up. Reason and compromise are after all the
shit handed out by racist oppressors, and it is we, on the contrary, who
are being intimidated and coerced, even as we write and publish these
very utterances - indeed such utterances are themselves the proof and
warrant of our continued oppression. And there should be nothing sur–
prising in the circumstances that the broad context that originally gave
rise
to
such remarks happened to be a discussion about the curriculum .
Moreover, it is the curriculum that has provided occasions for some
of the better illustrations of politicizing language that has been put into
anesthetic slumber through overuse, misuse and displacement. Here, for
example, is part of a statement outlining the new aims of American
studies . "Freed from the defensive constraints of cold war ideology, em–
powered by our new sensitivity to the distinctiveness of race, class and
gender, we are ready to begin to understand difference as a series of
power relationships involving domination and subordination, and to use
our understanding of power relationships to reconceptualize both our
interpretation and our teaching of American culture." Apart from the
idea that American studies should henceforth have an overt politically–
driven academic agenda, thinking in such a passage is in a state of indefi-
