In last week’s G File, Jonah brought up a concept from Chinese political philosophy that I mentioned to him, the rectification of names. In short, the idea describes when a society reaches a point where its language no longer accurately represents reality. For example, a king has certain responsibilities, as well as Mel Brooks–like rights (“It’s good to be the king”); if he fails in those responsibilities badly enough, he cannot be called “king,” because the idea of kingship is indistinguishable from the role it must play in society. Or, to put it in a modern American political context, think of Kwame Kilpatrick, the former mayor of Detroit, now serving a 28-year sentence for gross corruption (not to mention his having had a sex scandal while in office and his blatant incompetence). Ancient Chinese would say that Kilpatrick was no “mayor,” and the system needed to purge him to return to what a mayor should be doing. In extreme cases, the rectification of names was used to justify revolution, usually by usurpers of the throne. They could much more easily justify their ambitions, and traitorous behavior, by claiming that a particular ruler or dynasty no longer aligned with the reality of rule, and therefore had lost the Mandate of Heaven. Yet as a philosophical concept, the rectification of names was a powerful tool to diagnose a society, a political system, or a ruler who had gone off track, and did not understand what its role should be or the responsibilities it must carry out. At its Soviet-style worst, the disconnect between words and reality means that people literally may not be able to understand the world they live in.
Which brings me, naturally, to John Kerry. Bear with me. This week, the Secretary of State testified before the House Armed Services Committee on President Obama’s new plan to attack (“degrade”) the Islamic State jihadist group. Kerry was asked a simple question: “Yes or no, is America at war?” Watch his tortured answer:
The takeaway from the meandering response is: ” . . . if you care about what you call it . . .” Call me old fashioned, but yes, I think, Mr. Secretary, we should care what we call it.
Like his boss, Kerry seems to revel in abstruse, lexicological, epistemological games that warp words out of their meaning to fit a preferred construction of reality. It’s not a war like Iraq, says Kerry, but it’s a war like that against al-Qaeda, etc., etc. This is the same mindset that propelled our president to say that the Islamic State was not Islamic, or that prevents U.S. officials even today from calling the Ft. Hood massacre a terrorist attack by a radical Islamist.
Words, we really should not have to spend time reminding our government leaders, have meaning. In fact they are what shapes meaning in our daily life. Some words have meanings that are benign, like “golf” or “windsurfing.” Others, like “war,” have meanings that instantly identify the gravity and importance of what they represent. If we do not understand, or do not care to understand, the meaning of the words we use, then we can never hope to be clear about what we are doing, how we shall go about doing it, and when we have achieved it (“Mission Accomplished”). When a people are intentionally confused or misled or lied to long enough, then they either are no longer free or they lose all faith in their system, or both.
That is why rectification of names is such an important idea. If you do it early enough, you can avoid much greater dislocation and even violence in the future. If you wait too long, and the upwelling demand for conforming words to reality sweeps away the prevaricators and those who cannot tell the difference, then a more rational future will have been bought at a terrible price. Americans may not ever go down the road of carrying torches and pitchforks into presidential press conferences, but the repeated abuse of the language (and Jonah brought up Orwell’s classic essay) is a danger that we too lightly ignore.
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