Where is the language of liberty

Abstract

In George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, the state of Oceania is devising a new language out of the old, pre-revolutionary English: Newspeak. “When Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten,” explains Orwell ([1949] 2008, 312), “a heretical thought . . . should be literally unthinkable.” Modern cog- nitive science provides fascinating evidence for the influence of our language on our thinking (Boroditsky 2017). Unlike Oceania’s Newspeak, our English is not the result of malicious (re-)design. But does it serve us well in thinking clearly and critically about matters of ethics, politics and economics?

The compilers of the Newspeak dictionary in Oceania’s “Ministry of Truth” first and foremost purge the old language of words for undesirable ideas (Orwell [1949] 2008, 312). Indeed, it is difficult to think about ideas for which we lack words. Even today, there are Amazonian tribes that do not have words for numbers. The speak- ers of an anumeric language fail even most simple arithmetical tasks (Caleb 2017). However, it seems that what they lack is not innate mathematical ability but a mathematical language—and culture—that we just take for granted (ibid.) Economic thinking needs cultivation no less than mathematical thinking. This means not only developing an adequate terminol- ogy but also avoiding a misleading one. Not only is it difficult to think without suitable words, but it is also difficult to think clearly and coolly with ambiguous and emotionally loaded words (Jevons [1888] 2010, 27; Salmon [1963] 1984, sec. 32). Most of all, it is difficult to think critically with words that carry hidden assumptions into our reasoning. Calling a substance “medicine” means taking for granted that its effects are beneficial, without explicitly stating and specifying this crucial premise. Thus, we may not only fail to prop- erly investigate the question, but to ask it in the first place.