LANGUAGE AND POLITICS

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26094, 22 April 1950, Page 3

LANGUAGE AND POLITICS

PROFESSOR SYME’S LECTURE IA summary at the public lecture on "Language and Politics at Rome" given tn Cnnslchurch this week h„ Professor Ronald Syme, Camden Pro&^.f nCient at O&?d Asking me what this title meant a friend—perhaps a little disillusioned v ’ l ‘ h r £ b tl s s 7 SUf " Cs ted that it must , b d ian 8 ua 3 e - That man was right, I am going to have quite a lot to say about political invective, a mass of which is preserved in the orations of Cicero. Writing of Pisp, a Roman proconsul whom he disliked, Cicero described him as « a vu i ture ta uni . form. Of Piso when at Byzantium, s Cicero alleges, young women of the very best families, to escape from Lis vjle attentions, cast themselves into wells. IJat may or may not be true; wells “ a PP ens still to possess many .^, or ? e ' vere to take such statements at their face value one would arrive at an alarming picture of life in Rome in the last century of the Republic One would conclude, and some have so concluded, that such a society was ripe for destruction; that the calamities then ensuing in the civil wars, and the loss of political liberties were only too well deserved. But the last age of political freedom at Rome was an age of great splendour and vitality, an age that in literature could produce the oratory of Cicero and the poetry of Lucretius and Catullus. Test of Society As a test of a cultivated society I would suggest not the knowledge of the letters of the alphabet or the ability to read a standard text, but the level of wit and humour. Thus consider Cicero’s description of Piso—“a vulture in uniform”—or the comment of Lucullus when he was superseded by Pompey in his command: “Like a vulture settling on corpses that other persons had killed.” Or consider the definition of what at Rome constituted assault and battery (apparently might throw fruit at persons, but not harder objects.) When a Roman judge was asked whether pine cones could be defined as fruit he replied: “Yes, provided they are thrown at Vatinius’ (an unpopular Roman citizen). I have given examples of one type of “bad language.” The other type of “bad language” is not at all bad at first sight. It is noble language—terms like “democracy,” “peace.” “order,” “prosperity,” “welfare,” and so on. One* discovers, irf more ages of history than one, that men never speak ill of such terms. No, they are eagerly adopted by political parties, even by rival political parties: for who would refuse to advertise such prepossessing ideals as part of his political programme? This is bad language (pure invective need deceive no one, and may sometimes even have amused the victims), but this othe. type of bad language is a source of deception. If education is to have any value it should put us on our guard against being taken in by words and phrases. This “political language” can be studied in almost all ages where there was political literature or a political opinion that was worth appealing to. The history of the last 20 years can provide plenty of examples. Nq politician nowadays in Great Britain would like to commit himself to a policy of “deflation”: he talks instead of “disinflation.” No one advocating free enterprise would insist upon the virtues of “the profit motive”; instead, you wiP have talk of “healthy incentives” Two other recent terms in th’s class are “new deal” and “doctor’s mandate.” These “vogue-words,” as they are sometimes called, do not always retain their popularity and it is a mark of the out-moded to use outmoded terms. “Appeasement” was a fairly popular word until 1938; its passing makes one wonder how much Rng-’r “austerity.” “planning.” and “welfare” will last. (What a delightful word “welfare” is! It appeals both to comfort and morality). Rival Parties The rival Greek parties, the democrats and the oligarchs, professed “liberty and equality” on the one hand and “aristocracy and good sense” on the other, but Thucydides claimed that each was eager only for power ai 1 for the spoils of victory. That conception of Thucyuides was echoed later by Roman writetb in the civil wars. It would be instructive to observe how words behaved in this period—not just political invective, but tnose more important words of the second type. The “libertas” which different parties proclaimed was more like the privileges of each party’s own order, certainly not the privileges of the common man. The outcome of these wars—as of the English Revolution and the French Revolution—was monarchy. For the monopoly of power which he and his followers obtained Augustus chose the terms “pax augusta” and “libertas augusta,” which you find stamped on coins and Government proclamations. Augustus had combined a “revived Republic” with “centralised control,” a kind of compromise: you might almost say typically British compromise. To console the people for the loss of political liberty it was explained that political liberty -iieant anarchy. Romans could not be enslaved, so they submitted to some curtailment of their liberties. Liberty, but not licence; order, but not enslavement —these phrases, I suggest. have a certain general validity. Liberty, order, peace, stability, and welfare can be claimed as their object by either side in a political contest. It is one of the duties of anybody concerned with education, in this age as well as in earlier ages, to be very careful about using such terms themselves and to be duly suspicious when they hear them uttered.