Harold Pinter, on receiving his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize on Wednesday,
spoke in an unadulterated voice rarely heard in the US. This from a NYT report:
He
returned to the theme of language as an obscurer of reality, saying that American
leaders use it to anesthetize the public. "It’s a scintillating stratagem,"
Mr. Pinter said. "Language is actually employed to keep thought
at bay. The words ‘the American people’ provide a truly voluptuous cushion
of reassurance. You don’t need to think. Just lie back on the cushion. The
cushion may be suffocating your intelligence and your critical faculties but
it’s very comfortable."
This idea of language as an "obscurer of reality" is a potent one.
Warm, fuzzy, easy conceptions keep us a managed population, as Curtis White
has described. The fuzziness makes criticisms and harsh truths seem fantastic
and truly out of this world. "This world" is a carefully manufactured
set of safe, simple mental way points that keep away troubling thoughts about
some of the assumptions that form the foundation of modern western consumer
culture, and its leadership by the United States. As Pinter says, it is "a
brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis."
