You’ve perhaps heard it said that the simplest use of language is the most intelligent. Great writers such as Orson Welles have been quoted for their direction in trimming unnecessary word use too. And within a culture where the use of subtext allows many of us to make guesswork of messages that we could all too easily say, it might sound strange to suggest that this process could go too far.

Words are truly fascinating things. But we are experiencing times when simplification and the focus of broader meaning down into one or very few words – often for the purposes of marketing or political expedience – has created a cult of watchwords or polysemic terms which overtly mean just one thing, but do in fact hide a multitude of different meanings, which can be as diverse as the number of people reading or indeed using them.

It doesn’t sound like much of a problem when we think about the way we see the world, because its all too easy to assume that everyone uses the same words for the same things as we ourselves do.

The problem is that they don’t.

On a day by day basis, those differences may not be so big as to cause any great problem, and discussing the structural differences and the relative meanings of there, their and they’re, probably creates more humour than it ever will do some level of dangerous misunderstanding between two or many more people.

So what is it I’m trying to say so simply here?

Well, oversimplification of language and/or meaning is not only flawed, it is also fundamentally dangerous. That narrowing dialogue down in to terms which the speaker or author understands takes for granted that the reader or listener will do so too. That people with responsibility to communicate a message should be mindful that the words they use may not generate the same understanding for those who hear.

The profundity of what is becoming a menace, cannot be illustrated better than the use of the term ‘immigration’, and the significance that its use has and continues to have in relation to the debate over Brexit, our relationship with the European Union, and also the different lenses that we are all using to picture the political viewpoints of people across the political spectrum.

So let me ask the question; what do you think of when you hear the term immigration?:

• Welcoming refugees?
• Being burdened with unwelcome economic migrants?
• Creating cultural diversity?
• Destroying our National identity?
• Helping those who need our help the most?
• A source of cheap labour?
• The loss of British jobs?
• Long queues in A+E?
• The source of the housing problem?
• The reason its so difficult to get an appointment at the Doctors?
• No place for your children at your most local school?
• An opportunity for our children to learn other ways of thinking?
• An opportunity for us to learn other ways of thinking?
• We are importing terrorists?
• Being made to feel like a foreigner in your own country?
• Everything that is wrong about Europe?
• Everything that is right about Europe?
• That everything will change for the better if its stops?
• That everything will go wrong for us if it stops?

The chances are that it could be any one or perhaps more of these or many others., and almost without exception, there is a duality to the particular meaning that it may have, which depending on which side of the Brexit coin you may sit, will be conversely mirrored by someone who sits on the other side.

Knowing that immigration is a word with such diversity of meaning, and that it also makes people think as it is said was in some respects the greatest genius of the Leave Campaign message. However, it may also have been the most dark, bearing in mind that it is clearly the case that the use of a dog whistle of this kind has inadvertently let a rather large genie out of the bottle in terms of the broad misunderstanding of other people that we might previously have thought we understood.

For instance racism in its genuine, un-nuanced and non-pc promoted sense is thankfully rare. But immigration to those few amongst us has always represented the unwilling acceptance of difference within our communities and its end, the removal of all other kinds. These are the few who have shamefully found new confidence in their ignorance and bigotry, taking their vitriol to our streets and transport since the 23^rd of June to offend people who have done nothing to deserve such intolerance.

However for those looking on with the moral certainty that Remain was always the enlightened path, this intolerance of immigration must surely be representative of all people who voted Leave on the basis of the immigration question.

Call it being tarred with the same brush or death by association, the fear and frustration that the collapse in public services which has correlated with the arrival of mass immigration is seen as excuse enough to cast many people who want to do nothing more than go happily about their normal lives in safety in the light of thugs who desire no such thing. And all because these issues have been narrowed down into just one thing, which itself overlooks the reality of the role of the EU in immigration in the first place when the matter is correctly put into context by the role of Globalisation.

It seems there is a lot to be said about simplifying language into more accessible terms. But the access can itself can go too far, and the travesty is that simplification of this kind is not rare and is continuing within the government and media sphere all the time.

Take ‘hard Brexit’ and ‘soft Brexit’. What do these terms mean to you?

Whats about JAM’s (Just about Managing). Isn’t that the experience that most of us are having too?

The travesty of using terms like these, is the damage that their being misinterpreted or misunderstood creates. It is distinctly unintelligent to heap so many meanings into such basic terms and then expect everyone else to understand them.

They don’t. and social, demographic or political labelling of this kind is merely serving to create even greater distrust and disenfranchisement than that which shook the establishment with the No Vote in June.

People are never wrong when they understand things their own way, using the lense that their life experience has given them. Some of us would risk simplifying this to the term ‘living in the real world’ and until our leaders begin to respect the people they collectively represent and stop treating us all like an audience which is a seedbed for manipulation, the electoral shocks will continue to come.

Make the effort to put ideas, problems and policy into terms that are easy to understand. But please do us all a favour and stop being lazy as you do.

 

image thanks to source unknown

Dipping into the proceedings of the Supreme Court last week was hardly the emotionally charged experience that Leavers and Remainers had been conditioned by the media to expect. But should we really be surprised when case law is being used to define arguments that have never previously been made and do in fact need our Judges to make a judgement in the purest sense?

As with all too many arguments in the political sphere these days, there is no small amount of semantics in play. Labelling of one kind or another has progressed to a level where the very act of simplifying language has progressed beyond the point of being intelligent and really given the lie to the idea that one word really can and does mean the same thing to all people.

Never mind ‘hard Brexit’ this or ‘soft Brexit’ that. Judicial process is itself hiding the truth that case law did at one point or another have itself to be created. It was at these very moments that it was the objectivity of the Judiciary or other high-level-offices of responsibility upon which we have relied and trusted to make the decisions which would today become the precedents that the debate over parliamentary interest in the triggering of Article 50 has rested.

At a time when the level of public confidence in politicians can be generalised as being the core issue that brought Brexit about, we all need to see leadership within the system of law which reaches beyond the scope of sticking to what is considered safe, or fundamentally right, simply because it’s the way that it is expected to be done.

So when we look to the Judiciary for the impartial type of leadership which is sadly lacking from government, why have the Courts not focused on the chronology of events, and above all what cannot reasonably be disputed as the democratic will of the people?

The easy response would be to suggest that the Judges concerned are expressing views which have been informed by bias. Indeed many of our media outlets have gone to great lengths to explore the backgrounds and links of the Judges who sat on the case previously, as well as the 11 who have sat in the past week at the Supreme Court.

The upshot of this approach which is inherently linked to the Brexit camp, being the inference that a decision which goes against the perogative of the Prime Minister to trigger Article 50 directly and without further reference to Parliament is pro-Remain.

Be it right or wrong in terms of principle, the hardest pill to swallow for anyone looking in from the outside who supports Brexit is that the Judges have not done anything wrong by ruling the way that they already have. Nor will those sitting in the Supreme Court do so if they then uphold the previous ruling.

Yes, the Judiciary may well be hiding behind process and this could indeed give legitimised cover to the less objective members of a bench who might put personal or subjective views before what Brexiteers would see post 23^rd June as being clearly right. But that is their gift and we are unlikely to ever know the truth to this question and the fact is that the system does – as its stands – both allow and facilitate an intelligent form of responsibility-ducking which sadly permeates all forms of government today.

Technical truths are the harsh and uncompromising reality of a protectionist and self-serving age where taking responsibility is considered dangerous and actions are legitimately excused by reference to the precedents set by others rather than what experience tells us exists in front of our own eyes.

The objective view would recognise the democratic decision and therefore the mandate of the people above all else. Equally it would reference the fact that Parliament has already had its say when it passed the legislation for the Referendum in the first place and then made that choice directly subject to the will of the people. Ironically, it would also reproach the significant transfer of legislative power which has been undemocratically transferred to the EU beyond the previous mandate given by the British people for a common trading relationship, respectful of national sovereignty, which people on all sides of the argument still actually want.

It is possible that the Supreme Court will support the Government view and allow the triggering of Article 50 without any further debate. But it is unlikely.

Like it or not, we simply do not exist within a time of true leadership. If we had, we would not be anywhere near the constant two and fro of discussions surrounding our exit from Europe and the rise of a new American President whose arrival together in 2016 are being heralded as the turn of a populist tide.

We certainly wouldn’t find ourselves questioning what constitutes good judgement.