Weaponizing Democracy and Human Rights in the Age of Doublespeak |
Image by Pyae Sone Htun.
If I’m completely honest, I can’t recall all the twists and turns of 1984. I probably read it in high school or maybe as an undergrad, somewhere alongside Animal Farm. They’re the kind of books teachers press into young hands to spark critical thinking, to push us to look beyond the surface, question the official story, and spot the sleight of hand in politics and power. What has stayed with me isn’t the fine detail of the plot, but the feeling it left behind: that the words on the page were not just fiction, but a warning, one I wasn’t sure I needed at the time, but which feels uncomfortably relevant now.
In 1984, George Orwell particularly warned us about the dangers of language twisted into a tool of control. His fictional Newspeak and doublethink have since morphed into what we now call doublespeak, the art of making lies sound truthful, brutality seem humane, and repression appear just and fair. In the U.S. and around the world, the language of democracy and human rights is often wielded not as a shield for the vulnerable, but as a weapon to serve political agendas and target those deemed expendable.
While this is hardly new, as history is littered with leaders who cloaked repression in the language of freedom, today the phenomenon is compounded by the reach and velocity of social media, 24-hour news cycles, and algorithm-driven outrage. These tools don’t just spread doublespeak; they normalize it, rewarding those who weaponize democratic ideals with likes, shares, and airtime until the distortion becomes the dominant narrative.
Words like democracy, freedom, justice, fairness, human rights, along with lofty invocations of........