Politics and the English Language

This is an essay, not a book — Orwell’s 1946 piece, first published in Horizon. He collects five specimens of bad contemporary prose, names the habits they share (dying metaphors, verbal false limbs, pretentious diction, meaningless words) and argues that the decline is political rather than merely aesthetic: vague and inflated language is what makes indefensible positions defensible, and “political language” is “designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.” It closes with six rules, the last of which is to break any of them sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

Why it’s on the list: It closes the whole curriculum’s final sub-section, which is the right place for it: after four parts of political argument, Orwell’s subject is the medium all of it is conducted in, and his claim is that the medium decides what can be argued.

Where I saw it: Brendan McCord’s Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List, in the section on Literature and Societal Critique. Shared on X on March 9, 2026 and saved to Kyle’s “Books To Read” Apple Note. The full 211-entry transcription, with the four parts and sixteen sub-sections, is on The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List.

Connections

• The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List — the curriculum this card came from.
• George Orwell — the author.
• Free Speech — the essay’s claim that degraded language constrains what can be thought.