(by George, he predicted it all)
which is being used ruthlessly and more corruptedly by the Trumps and other dictators of the world, is that language manipulation and control are the keys to whatever con jobs they wish to foist on a relatively unsuspecting, otherwise distracted public.
This goes well beyond rhetoric and dog placement commercials, going directly to Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-four and his famous “Politics and the English Language” essay. The way to advance corrupt or money-grabbing moves is to obfuscate and lie openly (Trump is now approaching 15,000 lies on the Washington Post tracker).
Again, modern education has failed by not allowing studies of language control and manipulation, like Orwell’s Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-four or Huxley’s Brave New World or Atwood’s A Handmaid’s Tale, to be taught in senior high English.
Instead, works of political correctness, which represent a limited, limiting agenda are often taught instead. Granted that such things as imperialism and colonialism need to be shown, it strikes me as negligent and socially irresponsible that works with deeper, more relevant messages for our time, such as the ones above, have been allowed to slip away and be forgotten or unauthorized. In short, there is little in secondary curriculum that addresses the issue of language being in peril at the hands of dictators and wanna-be kings like Trump.
God forbid there should be any critical thinking in schools today! As is, kids today are ill-equipped to endure the language abuse wave that crashes over them of late as well as future sloganizing and agenda-izing, online trolling, ubiquitous advertising, and shamelessly deceptive politician-speak.
And so the great dumbing-down of the 21st century continues unchecked and unaddressed by and in schools–what were previously assumed to be civilized/civilizing institutions of North America. Now no less than the preservation of individualism and autonomous, critical minds are in immediate and ongoing peril. Yup, dumbing-down of youth relative to advertising and politics is firmly de rigeur in schools today.