[wvns] Liberal Double-Talk & its Consequences

The Liberal Double-Talk and its Lexical and Legal Consequences
by Dr. Tomislav (Tom) Sunic
10/13/2007

Introductory remarks by David Duke – Dr. Tom Sunic and I had an
excellent meeting in Zagreb, Croatia not long ago. It was covered
quite fairly in the biggest newsweekly magazine in Croatia called
Globus. At that time Dr. Sunic went over with me the main topics of
his lecture in Australia on Liberal Double-Talk. I thought it so
valuable that with his permission and encouragement, the speech is now
made available to the readers of www.Davidduke.com. It is vital that
all of us around the world have a clear and fundamental understanding
of the use of language and focus in directing our perceptions of the
world. There is nothing more important than this understanding and the
clearing of our mind of these programmed attachments. To that purpose
I present here Dr. Sunic's fine paper, and I urge our readers to go to
Amazon.com and purchase his groundbreaking book, Homo Americanus which
as he told me in our taped interview could well be called Homo Judaicus.

===

Language is a potent weapon for legitimizing any political system. In
many instances the language in the liberal West is reminiscent of the
communist language of the old Soviet Union, although liberal media and
politicians use words and phrases that are less abrasive and less
value loaded than words used by the old communist officials and their
state-run media. In Western academe, media, and public places, a level
of communication has been reached which avoids confrontational
discourse and which resorts to words devoid of substantive meaning.
Generally speaking, the liberal system shuns negative hyperbolas and
skirts around heavy-headed qualifiers that the state-run media of the
Soviet Union once used in fostering its brand of conformity and its
version of political correctness. By contrast, the media in the
liberal system, very much in line with its ideology of historical
optimism and progress, are enamored with the overkill of morally
uplifting adjectives and adverbs, often displaying words and
expressions such as "free speech," "human rights," "tolerance," and
"diversity." There is a wide spread assumption among modern citizens
of the West that the concepts behind these flowery words must be taken
as something self-evident.

There appears to be a contradiction. If free speech is something
"self- evident" in liberal democracies, then the word "self-evidence"
does not need to be repeated all the time; it can be uttered only
once, or twice at the most. The very adjective "self-evident," so
frequent in the parlance of liberal politicians may in fact hide some
uncertainties and even some self-doubt on the part of those who employ
it. With constant hammering of these words and expressions,
particularly words such as "human rights," and "tolerance", the
liberal system may be hiding something; hiding, probably, the absence
of genuine free speech. To illustrate this point more clearly it may
be advisable for an average citizen living in the liberal system to
look at the examples of the communist rhetoric which was once
saturated with similar freedom-loving terms while, in reality, there
was little of freedom and even less free-speech.

Verbal Mendacity

The postmodern liberal discourse has its own arsenal of words that one
can dub with the adjective "Orwellian", or better yet "double-talk",
or simply call it verbal mendacity. The French use the word "wooden
language" (la langue de bois) and the German "cement" or "concrete"
language (Betonsprache) for depicting an arcane bureaucratic and
academic lingo that never reflects political reality and whose main
purpose is to lead masses to flawed conceptualization of political
reality. Modern authors, however, tend to avoid the pejorative term
"liberal double-talk," preferring instead the arcane label of "the
non-cognitive language which is used for manipulative or predictive
analyses." (1) Despite its softer and non abrasive version, liberal
double-talk, very similar to the communist "wooden language," has a
very poor conceptual universe. Similar to the communist vernacular, it
is marked by pathos and attempts to avoid the concrete. On the one
hand, it tends to be aggressive and judgmental towards its critics
yet, on the other, it is full of eulogies, especially regarding its
multiracial experiments. It resorts to metaphors which are seldom
based on real historical analogies and are often taken out of
historical context, notably when depicting its opponents with generic
"shut-up" words such as "racists", "anti-Semites", or "fascists".

The choice of grammatical embellishers is consistent with the
all-prevailing, liberal free market which, as a rule, must employ
superlative adjectives for the free commerce of its goods and
services. Ironically, there was some advantage of living under the
communist linguistic umbrella. Behind the communist semiotics in
Eastern Europe, there always loomed popular doubt which greatly helped
ordinary citizens to decipher the political lie, and distinguish
between friend and foe. The communist meta-language could best be
described as a reflection of a make-belief system in which citizens
never really believed and of which everybody, including communist
party dignitaries, made fun of in private. Eventually, verbal
mendacity spelled the death of communism both in the Soviet Union and
Eastern Europe.

By contrast, in the liberal system, politicians and scholars, let
alone the masses, still believe in every written word of the
democratic discourse. (2) There seem to be far less heretics, or for
that matter dissidents who dare critically examine the syntax and
semantics of the liberal double-talk. Official communication in the
West perfectly matches the rule of law and can, therefore, rarely
trigger a violent or a negative response among citizens. Surely, the
liberal system allows mass protests and public demonstrations; it
allows its critics to openly voice their disapproval of some flawed
foreign policy decision. Different political and infra-political
groups, hostile to the liberal system, often attempt to publicly
drum-up public support on behalf or against some issue - be it against
American military involvement in the Middle East, or against the
fraudulent behavior of a local political representative. But, as an
unwritten rule, seldom can one see rallies or mass demonstrations in
Australia, America, or in Europe that would challenge the substance of
parliamentary democracy and liberalism, let alone discard the
ceremonial language of the liberal ruling class. Staging open protests
with banners "Down with liberal democracy!, or "Parliamentary
democracy sucks"!, would hardly be tolerated by the system. These
verbal icons represent a "no entry zone" in liberalism.

The shining examples of the double-talk in liberalism are expressions
such as "political correctness", "hate speech," "diversity," "market
democracy," "ethnic sensitivity training" among many, many others. It
is often forgotten, though, that the coinage of these expressions is
relatively recent and that their etymology remains of dubious origin.
These expressions appeared in the modern liberal dictionary in the
late 70s and early 80s and their architects are widely ignored. Seldom
has a question been raised as to who had coined those words and given
them their actual meaning. What strikes the eyes is the abstract
nature of these expressions. The expression "political correctness"
first appeared in the American language and had no explicit political
meaning; it was, rather, a fun- related, derogatory expression
designed for somebody who was not trendy, such as a person smoking
cigarettes or having views considered not to be "in" or "cool."
Gradually, and particularly after the fall of communism, the
conceptualization of political correctness, acquired a very serious
and disciplinary meaning.

Examples of political eulogy and political vilification in liberalism
are often couched in sentimentalist vs. animalistic words and syllabi,
respectively. When the much vaunted free press in liberalism attempts
to glorify some event or some personality that fits into the canons of
political rectitude, it will generally use a neutral language with
sparse superlatives, with the prime intention not to subvert its
readers, such as: "The democratic circles in Ukraine, who have been
subject to governmental harassment, are propping up their rank and
file to enable them electoral success." Such laudatory statements must
be well-hidden behind neutral words. By contrast when attempting to
silence critics of the system who challenge the foundation of liberal
democracy, the ruling elites and their frequently bankrolled
journalists will use more direct words - something in the line of old
Soviet stylistics, e.g.: "With their ultranationalist agenda and
hate-mongering these rowdy individuals on the street of Sydney or
Quebec showed once again their parentage in the monstrosity of the
Nazi legacy." Clearly, the goal is to disqualify the opponent by using
an all pervasive and hyper-real word "Nazism." "A prominent American
conservative author Paul Gottfried writes: "In fact, the European
Left, like Canadian and Australian Left, pushes even further the
trends adapted from American sources: It insists on criminalizing
politically correct speech as an incitement to "fascists excess." (3)

The first conclusion one can draw is that liberalism can better fool
the masses than communism. Due to torrents of meaningless idioms, such
as "human rights" and "democracy" on the one hand, and "Nazism" and
"fascism" on the other, the thought control and intellectual
repression in liberalism functions far better. Therefore, in the
liberal "soft" system, a motive for a would-be heretic to overthrow
the system is virtually excluded. The liberal system is posited on
historical finitude simply because there is no longer the communist
competitor who could come up with its own real or surreal "freedom
narrative." Thus, liberalism gives an impression of being the best
system – simply because there are no other competing political
narratives on the horizon.

What are the political implications of the liberal double-talk? It
must be pointed out that liberal language is the reflection of the
overall socio-demographic situation in the West. Over the last twenty
years all Western states, including Australia, have undergone profound
social and demographic changes; they have become "multicultural"
systems. (multicultural being just a euphemism for a"multiracial"
state). As a result of growing racial diversity the liberal elites are
aware that in order to uphold social consensus and prevent the system
from possible balkanization and civil war, new words and new syntax
have to be invented. It was to be expected that these new words would
soon find their way into modern legislations. More and more countries
in the West are adopting laws that criminalize free speech and that
make political communication difficult. In fact, liberalism, similar
to its communist antecedents, it is an extremely fragile system. It
excludes strong political beliefs by calling its critics "radicals,"
which, as a result, inevitably leads to political conformity and
intellectual duplicity. Modern public discourse in the West is teeming
with abstract and unclear Soviet-style expressions such as "ethnic
sensitivity training", "affirmative action", "antifascism",
"diversity", and "holocaust studies". In order to disqualify its
critics the liberal system is resorting more and more to negative
expression such as "anti-Semites", or " "neo-Nazi", etc. This is best
observed in Western higher education and the media which, over the
last thirty years, have transformed themselves into places of high
commissariats of political correctness, having on their board diverse
"committees on preventing racial perjuries", "ethnic diversity
training programs", and in which foreign racial awareness courses have
become mandatory for the faculty staff and employees. No longer are
professors required to demonstrate extra skills in their subject
matters; instead, they must parade with sentimental and
self-deprecatory statements which, as a rule, must denigrate the
European cultural heritage.

By constantly resorting to the generic word "Nazism" and by using the
prefix "anti", the system actually shows its negative legitimacy. One
can conclude that even if all anti-Semites and all fascists were to
disappear, most likely the system would invent them by creating and
recreating these words. These words have become symbols of absolute evil.

The third point about the liberal discourse that needs to be stressed
is its constant recourse to the imagery of hyper-reality. By using the
referent of "diversity", diverse liberal groups and infra-political
tribes prove in fact their sameness, making dispassionate observers
easily bored and tired. Nowhere is this sign of verbal hyper-reality
more visible than in the constant verbal and visual featuring of
Jewish Holocaust symbolism which, ironically, is creating the same
saturation process among the audience as was once the case with
communist victimhood. The rhetoric and imagery of Holocaust no longer
function "as a site of annihilation but a medium of dissuasion."(4).

The Legal Trap

Other than as a simple part of daily jargon the expression "hate
speech" does not exist in any European or American legislation. Once
again the distinction needs to be made between the legal field and
lexical field, as different penal codes of different Western countries
are framed in a far more sophisticated language. For instance,
criminal codes in continental Europe have all introduced laws that
punish individuals uttering critical remarks against the founding
myths of the liberal system. The best example is Germany, a country
which often brags itself to be the most eloquent and most democratic
Constitution on Earth. This is at least what the German ruling elites
say about their judiciary, and which does not depart much from what
Stalin himself said about the Soviet Constitution of 1936. The
Constitution of Germany is truly superb, yet in order to get the whole
idea of freedom of speech in Germany one needs to examine the
country's Criminal Code and its numerous agencies that are in charge
of its implementation. Thus, Article 5 of the German Constitution (The
Basic Law) guarantees "freedom of speech." However, Germany's Criminal
Code, Section 130, and Subsection 3, appear to be in stark
contradiction to the German Basic Law. Under Section 130, of the
German criminal code a German citizen, but also a non-German citizen,
may be convicted, if found guilty, of breaching the law of "agitation
of the people" (sedition laws). It is a similar case with Austria. It
must be emphasized that there is no mention in the Criminal Code of
the Federal Republic of Germany of the Holocaust or the Nazi
extermination of the Jews. But based on the context of the Criminal
Code this Section can arbitrarily be applied when sentencing somebody
who belittles or denies National- Socialist crimes or voices critical
views of the modern historiography. Moreover a critical examination of
the role of the Allies during World War may also bring some ardent
historian into legal troubles.

The German language is a highly inflected language as opposed to
French and English which are contextual languages and do not allow
deliberate tinkering with prefixes or suffixes, or the creation of
arbitrary compound words. By contrast, one can always create new words
in the German language, a language often awash with a mass of
neologisms. Thus, the title of the Article 130 of the German Criminal
Code Volksverhetzung is a bizarre neologism and very difficult
compound word which is hard to translate into English, and which on
top, can be conceptualized in many opposing ways. (Popular taunting,
baiting, bullying of the people, public incitement etc..). Its
Subsection 3, though is stern and quite explicit and reads in English
as follows:

"Whoever publicly or in a meeting approves of, denies or renders
harmless an act committed under the rule of National Socialism… shall
be punished with imprisonment for not more than five years or a fine."

If by contrast the plight of German civilians after World War II is
openly discussed by a German academic or simply by some free spirit,
he may run the risk of being accused of trivializing the official
assumption of sole German guilt during World War II. Depending on a
local legislation of some federal state in Germany an academic,
although not belittling National Socialist crimes may, by inversion,
fall under suspicion of "downplaying" or "trivializing" Nazi crimes -
and may be fined or, worse, land in prison. Any speech or article, for
instance, that may be related to events surrounding World War may have
a negative anticipatory value in the eyes of the liberal inquisitors,
that is to say in the eyes of the all prevailing Agency for the
protection of the German Constitution (Verfassungschutz). Someone's
words, as in the old Soviet system, can be easily misconstrued and
interpreted as an indirect belittlement of crimes committed by
National-Socialists.

Germany is a half-sovereign country still legally at war with the USA,
and whose Constitution was written under the auspices of the Allies.
Yet unlike other countries in the European Union, Germany has
something unprecedented. Both on the state and federal levels it has
that special government agency in charge of the surveillance of the
Constitution. i.e., and whose sole purpose is to keep track of
journalists, academics and right-wing politicians and observe the
purity of their parlance and prose. The famed "Office for the
Protection of the Constitution" ("Verfassungschutz"), as the German
legal scholar Josef Schüsselburner writes, "is basically an internal
secret service with seventeen branch agencies (one on the level of the
federation and sixteen others for each constituent federal state). In
the last analysis, this boils down to saying that only the internal
secret service is competent to declare a person an internal enemy of
the state." (5)

In terms of free speech, contemporary France is not much better. In
1990 a law was passed on the initiative of the socialist deputy
Laurent Fabius and the communist deputy Jean-Claude Gayssot. That law
made it a criminal offense, punishable by a fine of up to 40,000
euros, or one year in prison, or both, to contest the truth of any of
the "crimes against humanity" with which the German National Socialist
leaders were charged by the London Agreement of 1945, and which was
drafted for the Nuremberg Trials. (6) Similar to the German Criminal
Code Section 130, there is no reference to the Holocaust or Jews in
this portion of the French legislation. But at least the wording of
the French so-called Fabius-Gayssot law is more explicit than the
fluid German word "Volksverhetzung." It clearly states that any
Neo-Nazi activity having as a result the belittling of Nazi crimes is
a criminal offense. With France and German, being the main pillars of
the European Union these laws have already given extraordinary power
to local judges of EU member countries when pronouncing verdicts
against anti-liberal heretics.

For fear of being called confrontational or racist, or an anti-Semite,
a European politician or academic is more and more forced to exercise
self-censorship. The role of intellectual elites in Europe has never
been a shining one. However, with the passage of these "hate laws"
into the European legislations, the cultural and academic ambiance in
Europe has become sterile. Aside from a few individuals, European
academics and journalists, let alone politicians, must be the masters
of self-censorship and self-delusion, as well as great impresarios of
their own postmodern mimicry. As seen in the case of the former
communist apparatchiks in Eastern Europe, they are likely to discard
their ideas as soon as these cease to be trendy, or when another
political double-talk becomes fashionable.

The modern politically-correct language, or liberal double-talk, is
often used for separating the ignorant grass-roots masses from the
upper level classes; it is the superb path to cultural and social
ascension. The censorial intellectual climate in the Western media, so
similar to the old Soviet propaganda, bears witness that liberal
elites, at the beginning of the third millennium, are increasingly
worried about the future identity of the countries in which they rule.
For sure, the liberal system doesn't yet need truncheons or police
force in order to enforce its truth. It can remove rebels, heretics,
or simply academics, by using smear campaigns, or accusing them of
"guilt by association," and by removing them from important places of
decision - be it in academia, the political arena, or the media. Once
the spirit of the age changes, the high priests of this new postmodern
inquisition will likely be the first to dump their current truths and
replace them with other voguish "self-evident" truths. This was the
case with the communist ruling class, which after the break down of
communism quickly recycled itself into fervent apostles of liberalism.
This will again be the case with modern liberal elites, who will not
hesitate to turn into rabid racists and anti-Semites, as soon as new
"self evident" truths appear on the horizon.

DR. TOMISLAV SUNIC

……………………….

This article is based on Dr. Sunic's speech at the Sydney Forum,
Sydney, Australia, August 25, 2007. Dr.Tom Sunic is a former US
professor in political science and author. His latest book is: Homo
Americanus: Child of the Postmodern Age (2007).

http://www.amazon.com/Homo-americanus-Child-Postmodern-Age/dp/1419659847
………………

Notes:

1. A. James Gregor, Metascience and Politics (1971 London:
Transaction, 2004), p.318.

2. Alan Charles Kors, "Thought Reform: The Orwellian Implications of
Today's College Orientation," in Reasononline, (March 2000). See the
link: http://reason.com/0003/fe.ak.thought.shtml

3. Paul Gottfried, The Strange Death of Marxism (Columbia and London:
University of Missouri Press, 2005), p.13.

4. Jean Baudrillard, The Evil Demons of Images (University of Sydney:
The Power Inst. of Fine Arts, 1988), p.24.

5. Josef Schüsslburner, Demokratie-Sonderweg Bundesrepublik
(Lindenblatt Media Verlag. Künzell, 2004), p. p.233

6. See Journal officiel de la République française, 14 juillet 1990
page 8333
loi n° 90-615.

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