But every word on the front page is contradicted by the facts,” I
objected. Edgar gave me a tolerant smile. “You still have the mechanistic
outlook, he said, and then proceeded to give me the dialectical interpretation
of the facts . . .
Gradually, I learned to distrust
my mechanistic preoccupation with facts and to regard the world around me in
the light of dialectical interpretation. It was a satisfactory and indeed
blissful state; once you had assimilated the technique, you were no longer
disturbed by the facts.
—Arthur
Koestler, Darkness At Noon in Diana West, “A Postmodern Guide to Shutting Down Speech, and the Truth.”
Full text
follows
In his contribution to the famous 1949 collection of essays by
ex-Communists titled The God That Failed, Arthur Koestler
carefully illustrates how set language binds thought to ideology at the expense
of evidence. Koestler, author of the unparalleled novel of Stalin’s show
trials, Darkness at Noon, describes a conversation he had early in
his Communist career with “Edgar,” his Party contact, in which they discuss the
front page of a Communist newspaper.
“But every word on the front page is contradicted by the facts,” I
objected. Edgar gave me a tolerant smile. “You still have the mechanistic
outlook, he said, and then proceeded to give me the dialectical interpretation
of the facts . . .
Gradually, I learned to distrust my mechanistic preoccupation
with facts and to regard the world around me in the light of
dialectical interpretation. It was a satisfactory and indeed blissful
state; once you had assimilated the technique, you were no longer
disturbed by the facts [emphasis added].
Here, recounting his
experience as a German Communist in the 1930s, Koestler is nonetheless
describing the post-Communist, postmodern, post-9/11 American condition. It is
the sinister overhaul of language and thought—so familiar!—that he personally
engaged in, and that was and is the primary tool of Marxist
and Islamic subversion. “Not only our thinking, but also our vocabulary was
reconditioned,” he explains. “Certain words were taboo.” Certain other words
became telltales by which to identify dissenters or enemies. Literary,
artistic, and musical tastes, he writes, were “similarly reconditioned” to
support the renunciation of independent thought and logic necessary to submit
to ideology.
We cast off our intellectual baggage like passengers on a ship
seized by panic, until it became reduced to the strictly necessary minimum of
stock phrases, dialectical clichés and Marxist quotations… To be able to see
several aspects of a problem and not only one, became a permanent cause of
self-reproach. We craved to be single- and simple-minded.
We crave this, too, or just go along with it, which is worse. And
the U.S. government itself is happy to oblige:
“Don’t Invoke Islam.”
“Don’t Harp on Muslim
Identity.”
“Avoid the Term ‘Caliphate.’
“
“Use the terms `violent
extremist’ or `terrorist.’ ”
“Never Use the Term ‘Jihadist’
or ‘Mujahideen.’ ”
These instructions are direct
quotations from “Words that Work and Words that Don’t: A Guide for
Counterterrorism Communication,” a guide put out by the National
Counterterrorism Center on March 14, 2008 – and yes, that was under President
George W. Bush. This crackdown on speech and, by extension, habits of thought,
and, finally, thought itself extends across the political spectrum. Naturally,
it has only gotten worse.
Such is the spawn of liberty’s
rendezvous with totalitarianism.
Diana West is
the author of American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation’s Character (St.
Martin’s Press), from which this essay is adapted.
