Really brings to mind Arendt's description of Eichmann and his habit of speaking in cliches in "Eichmann in Jerusalem." For instance: "Whether writing his memoirs in Argentina or in Jerusalem, whether speaking to the police examiner or to the court, what he said was always the same, expressed in the same words. The longer one listened to him, the more obvious it became that his inability to speak was closely connected with an inability to think, namely, to think from the standpoint of somebody else. No communication was possible with him, not because he lied but because he was surrounded by the most reliable of all safeguards against the words and the presence of others, and hence against reality as such."
Cliché-mongering during a war was birthed in 'Nam by Gen. "Westy" Westmoreland & co. at the "Five O'clock Follies" press briefings held by MACV in a Saigon hotel, where all matter of tortured phraseology — "body-count", "hearts and minds" — were spooned out daily to an ever-incredulous press corps. It is the hallmark of a government and its military embroiled in an untenable and ultimately lost war venture, and a fallback position for US govt. spox since then.
As you noted, Orwell would have been proud to see his various theses on corruption of language and The Big Lie finding a cozy home within the trump regime.
Thanks for this one, John. It captures something I feel acutely in a job at a Fortune 50 firm, surrounded by thoughtless speech and continuously encouraged to use Copilot. Should quit and go work for Sherrod Brown’s campaign.
Great piece! I’m always impressed by JGs ability to boil it down to the core so quickly. Aside from the AI, I think he captured this moment well with “In the past, propaganda served the purposes of war; now war serves the purposes of propaganda. But the blood remains real.”
This post-truth regime put a Fox News host as head of the DoD and removed any critical reporting from the Pentagon.
I’m hoping, likely in vain, that there is more strategy than being shared publicly. Its clear they don’t intend to meaningfully inform the public regardless but maybe this has been thought through more than it appears.
It's honestly less "war by AI" or LLM and more like war by "Posts on X, the Everything App". Even that weird '1-2 sentences can be one paragraph' format that X users like so much fits perfectly with Hegseth and Caine's words:
"Flying over their capital. Death and destruction from the sky all day long.
We're playing for keeps.
Our warfighters have maximum authorities granted personally by the president and yours truly. Our rules of engagement are bold, precise, and designed to unleash American power, not shackle it.
This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight."
There's another aspect of this that I can't help thinking about daily: the fact that this war was launched almost exactly right after it became clear that very damning evidence was arriving, via the DOJ and FBI, that Trump did rape very young girls. Probably repeatedly. Trump's MO has always been: "If they catch me doing something bad, I'll do something worse to take their minds off that other bad thing." It's hard to imagine anything worse than raping girls, but this war has already killed a lot of girls, and boys, and men and women, and babies...
And so one is left pining to see "$8.99" on a gas station sign, just as some tangible acknowledgment that any of this is real
Over $5/gal. in North Puget Sound, and climbing...MAGA!
Really brings to mind Arendt's description of Eichmann and his habit of speaking in cliches in "Eichmann in Jerusalem." For instance: "Whether writing his memoirs in Argentina or in Jerusalem, whether speaking to the police examiner or to the court, what he said was always the same, expressed in the same words. The longer one listened to him, the more obvious it became that his inability to speak was closely connected with an inability to think, namely, to think from the standpoint of somebody else. No communication was possible with him, not because he lied but because he was surrounded by the most reliable of all safeguards against the words and the presence of others, and hence against reality as such."
Cliché-mongering during a war was birthed in 'Nam by Gen. "Westy" Westmoreland & co. at the "Five O'clock Follies" press briefings held by MACV in a Saigon hotel, where all matter of tortured phraseology — "body-count", "hearts and minds" — were spooned out daily to an ever-incredulous press corps. It is the hallmark of a government and its military embroiled in an untenable and ultimately lost war venture, and a fallback position for US govt. spox since then.
As you noted, Orwell would have been proud to see his various theses on corruption of language and The Big Lie finding a cozy home within the trump regime.
Thanks for this one, John. It captures something I feel acutely in a job at a Fortune 50 firm, surrounded by thoughtless speech and continuously encouraged to use Copilot. Should quit and go work for Sherrod Brown’s campaign.
Unimportant nitpicking: Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia/Eastasia. West Asia was not a country in 1984.
Right, but where is Iran?
Good memory! I couldn’t recall exactly but, it reads the same and the substitution is purposeful and real. Clever.
Great piece! I’m always impressed by JGs ability to boil it down to the core so quickly. Aside from the AI, I think he captured this moment well with “In the past, propaganda served the purposes of war; now war serves the purposes of propaganda. But the blood remains real.”
This post-truth regime put a Fox News host as head of the DoD and removed any critical reporting from the Pentagon.
I’m hoping, likely in vain, that there is more strategy than being shared publicly. Its clear they don’t intend to meaningfully inform the public regardless but maybe this has been thought through more than it appears.
It's honestly less "war by AI" or LLM and more like war by "Posts on X, the Everything App". Even that weird '1-2 sentences can be one paragraph' format that X users like so much fits perfectly with Hegseth and Caine's words:
"Flying over their capital. Death and destruction from the sky all day long.
We're playing for keeps.
Our warfighters have maximum authorities granted personally by the president and yours truly. Our rules of engagement are bold, precise, and designed to unleash American power, not shackle it.
This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight."
Control-Alt-Victory!
Thanks. And yes “Forrest Gump” was infuriatingly banal, (top 3 movie when it comes to ‘banalocity’).
We have entered The Twilight Zone.
Reminds me of Weil's 'The Power of Words'
There's another aspect of this that I can't help thinking about daily: the fact that this war was launched almost exactly right after it became clear that very damning evidence was arriving, via the DOJ and FBI, that Trump did rape very young girls. Probably repeatedly. Trump's MO has always been: "If they catch me doing something bad, I'll do something worse to take their minds off that other bad thing." It's hard to imagine anything worse than raping girls, but this war has already killed a lot of girls, and boys, and men and women, and babies...
Thank you.
Isn't war serving the purposes of propaganda a manifestation of fascism?