Showing posts with label doublespeak. Show all posts
Showing posts with label doublespeak. Show all posts

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Political Humor Gets Curiouser & Curiouser

   (Commentary posted by Roger Erickson)



UK Warns Scotland: Vote To Secede, Lose Common Currency

?? (raised eyebrows, all around)

"Lose" non-sovereign currency?

Drolls have escaped from the political ward again?

This is what happens when straightmen don't get their own comedian's jokes.

It reminds me of the story about the comedian's convention.
A tourist is walking by a bldg door, hears wild applause, & steps in to check it out. 
Finds himself backstage in a huge auditorium. 
One man walks on stage, views the crowd, and says "3" ...
(and the audience goes nuts; laughs so hard tears are streaming). 
Successive people run on stage & repeat, saying "9" and "11" - same result. 
The tourist nudges a stagehand as asks what's going on?
[It's a comedian's convention.]
So?
[They all know they material so well, they only refer to the jokes by number.]
Oh. 
The tourist thinks for a minute, then runs on stage before the next guy can, surveys the audience, and says "7." 
(The audience is silent, then slowly boos & hisses him off stage.) 
Tourist to stage hand: Where'd I go wrong?
Stagehand: It's all in the delivery!

Maybe proper delivery of ritual DoubleSpeak is how orthodox economics works too?
And, of course, political theatre as well.
They just refer to ritualized incantations by nickname?


Innocent, Active And Accidental Semantics

   (Commentary posted by Roger Erickson)



How Language Is Used to Deceive You: Politics, Business, World Events, Sports, and Law (1989)
We need another word in our language, to drive home the impact of semantics and self-parasitism, on our Aggregate OODA loop:

aggregate observations,
perceptions and paradigms,
policy orientation,
consensus and distributed decision-making, and
assessments of local and aggregate actions.

"Auto-immune" is well known.

Aggregate-self-parasitism should be just as well known as self-fraud, or even fraud.

This book is about the range of habits & tools used by the diversity of social parasites, working in diverse trades .... applied to the realm of human language.

Any suggestions?