🥀 The death of language

I met Anna Dolidze at the Open European Dialogue in Milan, a forum for European members of parliament of all persuasions to learn from each other.

Many referenced the 'technocratisation of language’ (the phrase itself perhaps an embodiment of the problem). Politicians were frustrated that the language they were being given by their policy communities was too technical; they could not use it to talk to voters because no-one understands it.

The corrosion of language is a theme we have touched on several times in Policy Unstuck. Previous guest Anna McShane made the (bang on) point that when we start using technocratic language in communications among ‘elite’ groups, eventually that technocratic language drifts into the public sphere.

A kind explanation for this is that the language has become so normal within a group that they think everyone understands it, or that they think precision of language is more important than comprehension of language. A less kind explanation is that they are using language as a shield—it’s much harder for someone to challenge you if they don’t understand what you have said.

When a politician talks to the public about ‘fiscal headroom,’ and you consider that most will not understand what that politician is talking about, it is a failure. It breeds this pervasive feeling that the system isn’t built for ‘people like me.’ Fiscal headroom can be explained simply if they want to: ‘how close we are to breaking the financial rules we set ourselves.’

Technocratic language is only one half of the problem. The other is the abstraction of language and the use of dead language. Rather than using metaphors or similes that evoke an image in your head (“their polling numbers are buckling like a cheap suitcase”) we use metaphors that have entirely lost their visual or emotive connection. They meant something once upon a time, but they have died…

• A ‘delivery vehicle’ is no longer a van that drops off parcels, but a group of people working together to ‘execute something.’

• ‘Executing something’ is no longer chopping something’s head off, but ‘delivering change.’

• ‘Delivering change’ is no longer giving someone 20p back from a fiver, but ‘managing a transition.’

It was great to get into these issues with today’s guest, Anna Dolidze, not least given her career move from academia to politics, and—her words—having to ‘unlearn’ how to speak. It’s a class I could certainly do with taking!

Enjoy,

Tom

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Do you spend enough time with the people you want to convince?

If a politician is making several media appearances a day, who is the person they have in their mind as they speak? They might be imagining their friend, their colleague, their adversary… but those are not the person they should be speaking to. They should be speaking to their voters.

Why don’t they speak to their voters? It's a question of lived experience. Think about it: where does this politician spend most of their day? To whom do they talk? Where do they get their information from? Where do they get their metaphors from? When politicians get an office, they distance themselves from their constituents, and their communication suffers.

Advisers may not be in a better situation

It’s equally hard for political advisers to course correct, because they exist in the same bubble. Nor is it easy for consultants to go to a politician and say, “What you are doing is not working.”

I’ve seen a consultant try to convey the message, “People are calling you a loan shark,” and the politician responded, “Well, that's not a bad thing.” It is a bad thing! But people don't like being told they are wrong, and it’s especially hard to do if you want a contract from them.

Policy reports have no soul

99% of the time advocacy groups don’t give you what you need to make a political argument. If somebody gave me a policy argument already translated into influential, accessible language, I would take it as a gift. Usually, they just give data.

And so political analysis has become incredibly boring from the perspective of a normal person. The people who go to the ballot box are the same people that watch shows in the evening because they are fun: those shows touch their emotions and existential fears. Policy reporting is so far removed from that.

→ Take this training if you want to inject soul into your writing.

What is the British dumpling?

A good politician is a person who is an interpreter between different realms, including between voters and the world of experts. Their job is in part to be Google Translate.

For example, in the minimum wage or inflation debate, I use the dumpling check. The Georgian dumpling is the most popular food in Georgia; nothing beats the dumpling. I tell policy experts that whatever numbers they have, they must translate them into how many more dumplings a person can get in a restaurant with that money.

I don't think the policy world thinks in those terms on its own.

‘Dead language’ creates the space for populism

I remember meeting a voter in a hair salon who said “I admire you, but you have to speak simpler.” All the new non-mainstream parties understand that this is a serious grievance that a lot of people have–that people do not understand the language that politicians speak from their podiums. And so those parties fill that void.

To fix this, you have to engage with the vocabulary of expertise, but you must be like Anthony Bourdain: able to go to a shabby little diner and also go to Davos. You have to be bilingual in that broad sense and translate the codes.

Even people from populist movements eventually have to speak with the World Bank or the Big Four auditing companies. The ability to traverse these fields lies in being able to switch between those two languages. 

If you can’t, you lose touch with the people whose hearts you have to win.

The technocratisation of political careers

Political parties in Western Europe have become bureaucratised. They take a young person who then serve through the ranks, and becomes technocratised in the process. 

Look at the biography of someone like Angela Merkel: she was in politics from the time she was a student. The upside of that for the politician is tenure—safety of that office for years. The drawback is the loss of inspiration: when was the last time you heard a political speech that inspired you? 

Think back to the times where classic political speeches were made. They’re full of visual language. It’s why so many songs are made from Martin Luther King’s words, because it is so poetic. What I think they have forgotten—not all of them, but bureaucrats—is that first you have to mobilise in a democracy. This is what the struggle is.

Only after you mobilise people and have the mandate do you translate it into policy and negotiate with power. If there is any good thing about what’s happening in European politics right now, it is that the competition from fringe movements is a wake-up call for people to go back to this very first stage where they secure that mandate.

Thank you to the 94 readers who have referred a colleague to Policy Unstuck.