The term doublespeak
was coined by George Orwell, the famous author of 1984 and Animal Farm.
Doublespeak is the characterization of a self contradition that occurs in a
single sentence. This phenomenon is frequently found in propaganda. The
application of different classes of logics in propaganda is not new. The
economist Ludwig von Mises examined this phenomenon, which he labelled
polylogism.
Some time ago, I stumbled over a website run by a physician named Jan de Winter.
Dr de Winter preaches the virtues of what he calls healthy living. Following all
the dictates and utterings of this man would be completely impossible. No man
can make head or tail out of it, although eating vegetables seems to be a
persistant mantra. Have we heard that story before?
The website has sections on both smoking and drinking. Dr de Winter seems to
have noted an interplay between smoking, drinking and lung cancer. By examining
the texts carefully, we find a glaring example of polylogism. We shall take a
look at it.
From the page about
drinking we have:
”The rates of lung
cancer and laryngeal cancer in smoking drinkers, however, differ dramatically
from those seen in non-drinking smokers; alcohol alone, therefore, may play the
more significant role at this particular site. ”
So Dr de Winter speculates that alcohol is the decisive factor in causation of
lung cancer in smokers.
From the page about
smoking we have:
”What is more, in
countries where only a small proportion of women smoke, the effect of passive
'smoking' on lung cancer in women actually becomes more important than that of
direct smoking.”
That is a wonderful example of polylogism. Among smokers alcohol is the decisive
factor in causation of lung cancer. Among non smokers it is the dilute smoke
from other peoples cigarettes! This type of reasoning is pure nonsense.
If the decisive factor in lung cancer causation among smokers is alcohol
consumption, then obviously alcohol consumption is also the decisive factor
among nonsmokers. It cannot be otherwise.
The polylogism at play here is that one set of logics applies to the class of
smokers and another set to the class of nonsmokers. It is beyond reason how a
physician can write such self contradictive nonsense. What is he thinking about?
Perhaps he has eaten too many vegetables. It has turned his thinking into a
vegetative state of affairs. He needs to smoke a cigarette to clear up his
muddled mind.
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