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Zvesper, John
1988.
Liberty and Nature.
Western Political Quarterly,
Vol. 41,
Issue. 4,
p.
675.
Article contents
The Problem of Liberal Rhetoric
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
Extract
Everyone knows that the art of political rhetoric has declined drastically in the modern world. Observers of the decline often measure and deplore it, but few pause to reflect that one of the reasons for the decline may be the acceptance of certain liberal principles which entail limits to the scope and power of political speech. Even such a clear-sighted observer of the interplay of language and politics as George Orwell argued that the simplification and purification of language went hand in hand with the liberalization of politics. Orwell was not mistaken when he coupled perverted speech with totalitarian politics. But it is dangerous to assume that excellent political speech is at home in liberal regimes, or that liberal speech can be as psychologically satisfactory as illiberal speech. Orwell recognized this point when he noticed in his review of Hitler's Mein Kampf that the liberal “hedonistic attitude to life” fails to satisfy some of the irrepressible longings of the human soul, and leaves room for the kind of appeal made by Hitler. There is an inherent weakness in liberal rhetoric which cuts it off from some of the sources of political conviction and community.
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