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Language is a Virus, Part 1b

Donald Trump’s use of the superlative has often been commented on and written about, and it’s not a new or interesting observation to say that this kind of extreme and oversold language is common to fascists and aspiring fascists. What’s more interesting, however, is the idea that this kind of language didn’t start with fascism abroad and work its way to America, but rather began here, with the language of unregulated capitalism and advertisement.

Klemperer makes this observation as early as 1937, when, after hearing reports from the German press that “a column made up of all the German newspapers published on [the day of the Nuremberg Rallies] would reach 20 km into the stratosphere,” he notes in his diaries: “A confusion of quantity and quality, an Americanism of the crudest kind.” He sees the American use of exaggeration as relatively harmless, if crude. In his estimation, “the worst thing that the American cult of numbers could be accused of was naive bragging and an excessive belief in its own worth.” Klemperer believes that the advertiser who is exaggerating his figures is doing so with a bit of a humorous touch, and that the reader of the advertisement (i.e. the consumer) is in on the joke. “Wasn’t it,” he writes, “as if the advertiser was saying to himself each time: you and I, dear reader, derive the same pleasure from exaggeration, we both know how it’s meant—so I’m not really lying at all, you subtract what matters and my eulogy isn’t deceitful, it simply makes a greater impression and is more fun if it’s expressed as a superlative!”

He contrasts this with the use of superlatives in Nazi propaganda, which he says is “malicious, because it is invariably and unscrupulously intent on deception and benumbing.” He goes on to document many cases of linguistic excess from the Third Reich, not just in terms of numbers—how many of the enemy died in battle, for instance (hundreds of thousands!), or how long the Third Reich would last (one thousand years! eternity!)—but also in the use of more seductive terminology: the word Welt (world), for example, in phrases like “Jews and Bolshevists are enemies of the world.” He even cites one chillingly familiar phrase from Hitler in 1941: “In the wake of their immortal victories against the most dangerous foe of all times—victories the likes of which have never been seen before in the history of the world—the armies in the East…” The likes of which have never been seen before in the history of the world… this phrase seems to come out of our president’s mouth at least once a day.

While he is surely right about the purpose of Nazi exaggeration, his take on the American “cult of numbers,” in my estimation, derives from a foreigner’s misconception about American advertising, as well as a bit of a bourgeois attitude toward the role of capitalism in the general imperialist worldview. The advertiser’s use of superlatives (The Best iPhone Yet!) is the end of a long chain of exploitation that begins with climate-endangering mineral extraction and works its way through underpaid, unregulated foreign labor. If we understand how essential and intertwined the corporate exploitation of foreign labor and resources is with American global influence, it becomes obvious that an advertiser’s use of exaggerated language is not just “naive bragging,” but part of a ploy to justify any kind of distant exploitation for the sake of producing the “best” possible product for the American consumer. After all, if Americans do not have access to the highest quality goods, the use of underpaid foreign labor begins to be suspect, and the myth of the rightness of American global dominance starts to fray. When pharmaceutical companies exaggerate claims about the effectiveness of their pills (an exaggeration from a pharmaceutical ad is the origin Klemperer’s first observation about the “humor” of American advertisements), the consumer and the producer do not “derive the same pleasure from [the] exaggeration.” Whatever the “authentic” motivation of the pharmaceutical industry, the read of my generation generally goes like this: we want affordable medical aid for illness and disability; the pharmaceutical company wants to profit. There is no handshake, no understanding between the parties. Any winking on the part of the pharmaceutical industry would be malicious at best, and so they don’t wink. Their exaggerated claims—including the invention of false authorities—are designed to directly manipulate uneducated buyers, as was the case with Purdue Pharma and the marketing of OxyContin (Patrick Radden Keefe’s Empire of Pain is a good source of information on this).

One might argue that Klemperer’s misjudgement is due to the fact that things have changed since the early 20th century. But I tend to doubt that things have changed all that much, though this belief is a symptom of my generation’s particular brand of critical thinking. The curse of all-purpose critical thinking is that we see the same patterns crop up again and again and draw conclusions. One such conclusion is that European fascism didn’t borrow the language of American advertising; it borrowed the ideals of American governance. It’s been well-documented that the Nazis borrowed a good deal of their thinking on race from America as well. The use of misleading numbers and exaggerated claims is probably as endemic to democracy as it is to fascism.

There is a strange current in American politics that I think really got supercharged during the pandemic, where members of the left wing berate right wing extremists who champion the ideals of “doing your own research.” If I remember correctly, it came about after the COVID-19 vaccine came out, and experts like Fauci were championing the new inoculation. Anti-vaxers didn’t trust Fauci, and so they chose to ignore Fauci and the CDC’s advice, instead opting to “do the research themselves.” The universal prominence of COVID-19 and the novelty of a new vaccine being produced before the eyes of the public brought this skepticism into the mainstream. It was always unclear to me what the “research” consisted of, which is where the disdain from the left came from. On the other hand, the idea of “doing your own research” seems like the most essential aspect of a healthy democratic society. The other option is to blindly believe. Now, when so many Trump-appointed governmental authority figures are not experts in their fields, and are often working to undermine the actual experts, the idea of “doing your own research” comes home to roost. The fact that we are unsure where to look for definitive and well-researched information is the outcome that the current political administration wants. They aren’t providing new information to replace the old, they are simply removing important information from view. There is even an entire wikipedia article about how the Trump administration is removing online resources, and the directives to remove slavery exhibits from national sites is also well-known. Rather than the single truth of fascism, our current government creates a veil of universal untruth. Trump’s often contradictory superlatives help foster this. It does not matter that he lies in any single scenario; the project is about creating an atmosphere in which all statements might be lies. Then, people start to look for something else besides fact. That “something else” is whatever appeals to the citizen-consumer’s sense of identity—the basic ploy of the advertisement campaign. And this is one of the dangers: that people will rely on their “sense” rather than their intellect. Klemperer cites this as a major project of the Nazis, too, one that draws from the Romantic, emotional-based backlash against Enlightenment rationalism.

Klemperer is again and again baffled by how Naziism took hold of the German populace. His book doesn’t answer this question. It explores one means by which the Nazis did this, but the question of human nature, of even the “thinking person’s” susceptibility to propaganda, remains a mystery to him. As such, it always feels like that mystery is available for further exploitation, in even the most enlightened societies. I highly recommend you read his book. It’s full of fascinating insights into the power of language to shape thought, and the devastating effects not just of Nazi language manipulation, but of the very concept of controlling individual thinking through the use of specialized vocabulary.

This is my final post about Klemperer’s Lingua Tertii Imperii. I hope you found it interesting. Next, I’ll be looking at Jacques Ellul’s Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes. I hope you’ll stay tuned.