Linguistics,science and new petty bourgeois superiority *

A brilliant contribution today from David Shariatmadari ('a Guardian editor and writer. His book Don't Believe A Word: The Surprising Truth About Language [was] out in August 2019') who evidently needs a bit of a plug. As a demonstration of the npb cultural skills necessary to work out what people 'really mean', 'in effect', it is masterful:

'Invisible mugger': how Boris Johnson's language hints at his thinking 

things aren’t readily accessible to the five senses [by plebs anyway] – whether abstract concepts like Brexit, or invisible pathogens – tend to get “translated”, via metaphor, into easily graspable images...That process, though, is not a neutral one. As linguists such as George Lakoff have pointed out [as if it wasn't already bleedin obvious], the metaphors we choose both reflect our prejudices and influence our approach to the world. With Brexit, no deal was either a “cliff edge” or a “clean break”, depending on where your sympathies lay....The “physical assailant” metaphor is one way to look at the challenge of coronavirus, but it is not the only one.

Shariatmadari himself, like a good Grundinist, does not like (physically) violent metaphors, (he probably thinks they cause violence -- see the review of his book below) and adds:

Some have taken to social media to complain that the idea of the “surprise attack” disguises the fact that the government had many weeks to prepare a better response to the pandemic than the one it has executed...People with cancer have long lamented the drawbacks of framing the disease process as a “battle”...And the prime minister’s idea that we “wrestle [coronavirus] to the floor” would seem at odds with the patient, precise work that will have to be done, over many months, to keep it at bay.

What more evidence do we need that the man's a brute and cad, and that Brexit was a terrible mistake? 

Shariatmadari's book was reviewed very favourably in the GRaun at the time, in a demonstration of how dog sometimes licks dog, at least if they live in the same kennel :

Shariatmadari’s general approach to language is pro-diversity and anti-pedantry....it is a meaty, rewarding and even necessary read. ...This book makes a good case for seeing linguistics as “the universal social science”...If life can be differently worded, it can be differently lived [that's the whole basis for 'political correctness' and thought policing, right there].

In a graun editorial:

The last 10 years have undermined the ability of the government to respond effectively and efficiently. As the UN rapporteur on extreme poverty told the Guardian, the “most damaging aspects of ‘austerity’ cannot and will not be undone” and represent “the fatal weakening of the community’s capacity to cope”....Even today ideology plays a bigger part in the government’s response than many insiders care to admit. A more proactive mindset might have seen the state mobilise an effort to track down those in need of a coronavirus test and offer it to them. Instead voluntarism remains the creed of the current government which opted for an online booking system for tests that was predictably overwhelmed within hours.

State mobilisation instead of voluntarism -- strange times for liberals. And here's the real anxiety:

A virus as communicable as Sars-Cov-2 means that the health of the richest is dependent on the health of the poorest.[As Victorian politicians learned during the London cholera epidemic of the 1830s]

There are more examples of the astonishing and entirely opportunist npb volte-face which we saw beginning with climate change scares, the Grun -- the Graun!! -- has a good word to say for 'science'.Surely science is deeply implicated in phallogocentrism and colonialism,not to mention human exceptionalism and a consequent exploitative stance to the natural world? The old folderol about feelings and emotions best captured by poetry or 'sensing' seems to have vanished in a classic binary flip to the other pole, ending in a naively positivist almost religious view of 'science'. Luckily, plebs won't know anything about science either, so it will be a chance to do some finger-wagging and demonstrate social superiority as usual.

These choices may be informed by science. But they will be guided by a particular political morality, which will not be as evidence based or as rational [!] as science.

Newsnight's Arts graduates and luvvies have also been smugly citing 'the science', or at least a few simple numbers and graphs dug up by precariously employed researchers, to rebuke the Government at every turn, of course. At first, it was about the shockingly low number of ventilators acquired for the NHS. Strong leadership was needed to instruct people to make ventilators, if not make the trains run on time.

Now, a Graun item might be of interest:

UK to halt several ventilator projects after fall in demand

Many available devices remain unused owing to lockdown and less invasive treatment