Wednesday, May 04, 2005
Passive voice sneakiness
Since every writing course and style manual in the history of the world warns against the passive voice, professional writers who use it do so on purpose. Consider this report in an article about today's horrific suicide bombing in Kurdish Iraq:
Sectarian violence has worsened since the January 30 elections when the Sunnis — dominant under deposed dictator Saddam Hussein — were sidelined.
"Were sidelined"? Who "sidelined" whom? To the writer of the story, almost anybody could be responsible, up to and including the Americans or the Shiites. We know that the writer intentionally avoided assigning responsibility for this to the people actually killing innocent civilians because it would have been easy -- and even obvious -- to write the same sentence in the active voice, to wit:
Sectarian violence has worsened since the Sunnis -- dominant under deposed dictator Saddam Hussein -- boycotted the January 30 elections.
The writer used the passive voice because he did not want to conclude that the Sunnis of Iraq are responsible for the fix they are in. Indeed, had he fingered the Sunnis, he would have realized that the violence is not "sectarian" in the usual meaning of the word. The Kurds are also Sunni. This terrorism and the Sunni's boycott of the elections are both tactics in the continuous Sunni war to regain control of Iraq.
3 Comments:
By 
, at
Thu May 05, 07:14:00 AM:
Excellent post, illustrating the ongoing propaganda war. As commented on by someone on another blog, this is the forever war. Harks back to a book of that title by Joe Haldemann.
By 
TigerHawk, at
Thu May 05, 08:46:00 AM:
Actually, I disagree. The Forever War, a great science fiction novel, was about the alienation of soldiers who could never return home. Haldeman's model was Vietnam. Haldeman used time dilation to substitute for the vast cultural and geographical chasm between 1960s America and the jungles of southeast Asia.
This was is more like Starship Troopers (the novel, not the movie), in my opinion, where serious questions of philosophy drive the actions of the soldiers.
Indeed, it is very interesting to read both novels in close proximity. Now we need a novelist who is the equal of Robert Heinlein and Joe Haldeman to write the analog to the global war on terror.
By Cardinalpark, at
Thu May 05, 10:38:00 AM:
Tigerhawk, I wish I could agree with your conclusion that the journalistic use of the passive voice reflects clever and sneaky propaganda. Unfortunately, it reflects ignorant and stupid propaganda. The truth is these fools ("useful idiots, so named by the enemy of another era), who have a knack for picking losers by the way (including, at the moment, their own profession, given declining circulation), have decided to root for the underdog -- that would be the sunni stalinists linked up with the al qaeda fascists. I can't even bear it anymore having this discussion at cocktail parties. Even bright people (at least in New York) are devoid of rational thought on this topic.
Why? Either they are pacifists, who've never heard of a war they can support; they are rigid partisans who will oppose anything the current administration does, good or ill; they are "anti-capitalists", who are uncomfortable with the American ideals of individual liberty and all that entails and want a humbler America (how French); or rigid isolationists (like the moronic Pat Buchanon).
Call somebody out on this and it makes for some sweaty moments at said cocktail party, especially with a couple of martinis behind you. It irritates the spouse too, who seeks to preserve smooth relations...know what I mean?
Your post on the Princeton student who wouldn't admit to Chris Matthews who he voted for is a great example. Once called out for his partisanship, his bias is exposed and his argument begins to crumble. And he knew it. The instant one's biases are revealed, it's easy to see principles aren't involved.
There is no argument, none, for supporting Saddam, his Sunni "insurgents" or the al qaeda dung. US policy is flat out correct. Any journalistic BS to the contrary is simply hidden bias as above. Tactics sometimes fail and are adjusted, period. And it's fine to critique that -- McClellan was incompetent and gave way to Grant. Then Grant decimated the enemy -- what your meant to do in war. U.S. stood for unconditional surrender, lest we forget.
The journalists who fail to see that either fundamentally fall into one of the camps above or are overwhelmingly ignorant. Use of the passive voice is an embarrassing stupidity.
Where's Christopher Hitchens on this?
