Playing into the hands of
More from Orwell, As I Please – this time from June 9 1944, just three days after the invasion started but he doesn’t mention it. (Nothing surprising in that, there was plenty of mention of it elsewhere.)
A phrase much used in political circles in this country is ‘playing into the hands of’. It is a sort of charm or incantation to silence uncomfortable truths. When you are told that by saying this, that or the other you are ‘playing into the hands of some sinister enemy, you know that it is your duty to shut up immediately.
For example, if you say anything damaging about British imperialism, you are playing into the hands of Dr Goebbels. If you criticize Stalin you are playing into the hands of the Tablet and the Daily Telegraph. If you criticize Chiang Kai-Shek you are playing into the hands of Wang Ching-Wei — and so on, indefinitely.
That’s the Orwell who was so good at seeing through ploys for shutting people up. That’s one of them. In a way that’s the subject of Jacques Rousseau’s piece about Ntokozo Qwabe and the server – the way the justifiable disgust at Qwabe could get out of control and end up “playing into the hands of” racists – as it is doing. Jacques says there’s a Facebook page devoted to “Don’t serve Ntokozo Qwabe” and it’s full of racist comments, surprise surprise.
Objectively this charge is often true. It is always difficult to attack one party to a dispute without temporarily helping the other. Some of Gandhi’s remarks have been very useful to the Japanese. The extreme Tories will seize on anything anti-Russian, and don’t necessarily mind if it comes from Trotskyist instead of right-wing sources. The American imperialists, advancing to the attack behind a smoke-screen of novelists, are always on the look-out for any disreputable detail about the British Empire. And if you write anything truthful about the London slums, you are liable to hear it repeated on the Nazi radio a week later. But what, then, are you expected to do? Pretend there are no slums?
What indeed? It’s very often a quandary. I run into it a lot when blogging.
Everyone who has ever had anything to do with publicity or propaganda can think of occasions when he was urged to tell lies about some vitally important matter, because to tell the truth would give ammunition to the enemy. During the Spanish Civil War, for instance, the dissensions on the Government side were never properly thrashed out in the left-wing press, although they involved fundamental points of principle. To discuss the struggle between the Communists and the Anarchists, you were told, would simply give the Daily Mail the chance to say that the Reds were all murdering one another. The only result was that the left-wing cause as a whole was weakened. The Daily Mail may have missed a few horror stories because people held their tongues, but some all-important lessons were not learned, and we are suffering from the fact to this day.
Well said – and at the same time, nothing is gained by referring to the Germans as “the Huns.” It’s not an easy thing, to reconcile those, but we have to.
So what course is left for us? To be open and honest about everything? In front of friend and foe alike?
Perhaps the answer is ‘yes’.
I wonder also if there’s some strange ‘moral contagion’ notion going on with some of this stuff. Like you must want nothing whatsoever evil mortal enemy X wants, lest you get the evil on you or something… So give it up just to show them, or perhaps ensure your purity…
Been mulling it ever since encountering earnest ‘progressives’ (or so they called themselves) who seem terribly concerned the moment you mention you figure Mohammed was probably actually a bit of a fast talker, incredibly full of it and kinda hard to take after a while in real life, and maybe it might be a good thing if people in certain jurisdictions could feel a little more free to say such things out loud, well, apparently, saying this, you’re giving aid and comfort to the blackshirts or something…
Thing is, much as I find certain of their signature attitudes repulsive, there’s probably quite a few things even _beyond_ giving the finger to certain self-styled ‘prophets’ the blackshirts seem fond of and which I cannot conveniently afford to give up, just to spite them, nor to assure the world I’ve never been to their meetings…
Like, say, eating, breathing. We’re likely to share some enthusiasm for these activities, too…
So I guess I’m just gonna have to live with that. And maybe try not to let it worry me too much.
I do think there’s an obligation, when trying to speak about a nuanced issue, to actually speak with nuance. This means taking time and effort to establish your qualifiers and analogies. As a fairly common example:
I oppose cosmetic male infant circumcision, as it is routinely done in the U.S. generally, and in specific religious communities elsewhere, as a general violation of the principle of bodily autonomy. But having felt the need to say that, I am also obliged, due to the presence of certain odious individuals, to make it clear that I do not liken the practice to FGM, which is a horrific blight on the human race, and that I do not abide by the anti-Semitism that also often accompanies voicing such objections. The former can be done by establishing a different comparison–my preferred one is to liken it to douching, which is also a contrived and unnecessary practice which has a fringe chance of causing serious complications. That society pressures parents to do the former to their children, but pressures young women to do the latter to themselves, is a mild difference to me in comparison to assessing the harm done by either practice.
The latter issue of being perceived as an anti-Semite is best dealt with by addressing specifically Dr. Kellogg, who is responsible for the popularity of the practice among non-Jewish populations as a means of keeping young boys from masturbating. (Doesn’t work, but then, Kellogg was a quack.) It’s not the Jewishness of the practice that I object to; it’s the quackery and bad consequences.
This is why Twitter is such a dangerous medium for such topics–it’s impossible to layer this sort of nuance into the 140-character limit, thus leaving oneself open to misinterpretation and charges of aiding the reprehensible.
Not only was Kellogg a quack, he was a corny flake! So there, right on the record.
See, nuance, in < 140!
I dunno. I begin to think even answering certain insinuations with ‘fuck you’ is dignifying them excessively.
Mulling it, the thing that pisses me off most is: it seems to me the people who pull that shit seem to do so with such relative impunity. You spend three quarters of the time you’d rather be making an actual point scrubbing off the mud they threw, probably are never satisfied you won’t still be viewed with suspicion. This is probably half the point, at least, I figure: to make you overly careful, make you self-censor…
And how do they pay? Not much at all, seems to me. Or not nearly enough.
The world should feel more disgust at this. The price should be higher. There should be some brand you wear thereafter. Known for attempts to smear with bogus ‘moral contagion’ claims. Notorious, known discussophobe, and protector of sleazy ‘holy’ men, even.
Like that bozo in the cap on the Victoria Darbyshire show last week…
This is how I’ve felt during the campaign. A lot of people feel like some of their best friends are telling them they aren’t allowed to speak their mind about their options for fear of helping someone we all oppose.
Samantha – I felt that in the last campaign, too. Not only was criticism of Obama’s policies “helping the Republicans” it was also “helping the racists”. What? His POLICIES are a race now? Everybody, regardless of their race, gender, creed, etc, is entitled to f*** up from time to time, and the voters are entitled to point that out to those for whom we voted (or voted against, as the case may be).
Also, as an environmental scientist, when I try to point out something the New Age left has gotten wrong, I am “helping the polluters” or “helping the killers”. Wow. Helping killers is pretty serious – last I heard, that was aiding and abetting, and is a crime. But telling the truth about things like GMOs or stupid Paleo foods isn’t helping any killers.
Re ‘What? His POLICIES are a race now?’
Somewhere in that absurd question, there may be wisdom.
I like Obama okay. Always kinda did. Never figured he walked on water or anything, either, though, and always kinda figured what passed for ‘progressive’ in the utterly bizarre Overton window that was US federal politics would hurt my brain a bit, anyway. Always kinda figured him for a bit of a showman, too, and a bit of a horse trader, but most successful politicians are, a bit, so why hate the player, given the game?
And howinhell does it help anyone to hold them sacred? It’s quite the contrary: I’d rather be argued with than worshipped. Long as it’s in good faith, people trying to make things better.
Somewhere in there, maybe, is the problem. Worship itself, polarised regard. Are you hero or villain. What’s wrong, after all, with human, flawed, but doing what you can? Are people so saturated with celebrity gloss they can’t live with blemish and effort and imperfection anymore? And so polarised they expect an immaculate halo right up until they start inspecting you for horns?
“Playing into the hands of” is much less of a concern to those who refuse to see themselves as part of a political tribe or to make politics part of their identity.
Bullshit. It’s just as likely to be people who don’t give a shit what harm they do.
You don’t have to be “part of a political tribe” or “make politics part of your identity” to have scruples about inadvertently supporting views you don’t want to support.
Nope. Dismissing inconvenient facts is what one does for the team, or for a narrative to which one is strongly committed. “Scruples” don’t come into it, unless they result in tweaking said narrative to fit the facts, rather than the other way round.
“Dismissing inconvenient facts” isn’t the issue. You’re simplifying and stultifying the issue for the sake of making your own banal point about tribalism. Do better or don’t bother.
I’m also feeling this in the ever-more-insistent demand that Sanders supporters MUST commit –RIGHT NOW — to convert to Clinton supporters, even before all states have had their primaries, and before the Democratic convention. “Otherwise you’ll play right into Drumpf’s hands, and if that fascist gets elected, it’ll be all your fault.”