Caring, Killing, Euphemism and George Orwell: How Language Choice Undercuts Our Mission
From All-Creatures.org Animal Rights/Vegan Activist Strategies Articles Archive

FROM Karen Davis, PhD, UPC United Poultry Concerns
January 2021

An important contribution to the Do’s and Don’ts of ethical and effective animal and environmental advocacy.

Barn Owl mother with her young - painting by Barry Kent MacKay

The “rhetoric of exploitation” is my term for the ubiquity of euphemism in agribusiness, animal science, and all forms of institutionalized animal abuse including the ritualistic massacre of birds and other animals in the name of religion. See, for example, my article: What’s Love Got to Do with It?

The following article, “Caring, Killing, Euphemism and George Orwell,” addresses the use of euphemism in conservation biology, where euphemism is employed “as a means to mask the indefensible” and “to preclude a negative emotional response to an activity through the use of vague and pleasant words.”

The authors write, for example:

How do we know if a word or phrase is a euphemism? Here’s a self-test. Apply the term or phrase to some entity or group you care about and gauge your reaction. If you are uncomfortable, it is probably a euphemism. If it makes you feel dishonest it almost certainly is a euphemism. Would you “sacrifice” or “cull” those you care about so that some knowledge might be gained?

This article was originally published in the journal, Biological Conservation. It was sent to UPC by one of the coauthors, David Johns, who has granted permission to republish it. We are pleased to share this important contribution to the Do’s and Don’ts of ethical and effective animal and environmental advocacy. Animal advocates must consciously recognize and avoid language that normalizes insulting, abusing, and obliterating the members of other species by casting them in an uncaring vocabulary.

"Caring, Killing, Euphemism and George Orwell: How Language Choice Undercuts Our Mission."
By David Johns & Dominick A DellaSala

David Johns, School of Government, Portland State University, PO Box 751, Portland OR 97201.
Dominick A DellaSala, GEOS Institute, 84 Fourth Street, Ashland, Oregon 97520.

What does George Orwell have to do with Conservation Biology? As one of the foremost critics of how language is used, he has quite a lot to say. He was not just a critic of the imprecise or the dreary, but of the power of language to mislead; he understood the power of language to evoke the passion of a mission-value-morality driven discipline such as conservation biology, or drown it in what he called orthodoxy—a condition that “seems to demand a lifeless, imitative style.” (Orwell 1964:IV: 135) Too often, he noted, speech about values was “the defense of the indefensible.” (Orwell 1964: IV: 136) We argue in this essay that euphemism is a means to mask the indefensible and conservation biologists should not be a party to that.

Most papers presented at conservation biology meetings and published in our journals have to do with understanding how biodiversity is impacted by human activities. Less often we consider our purposes, values and motivation. But these aspects of our work are equally important; they address why we do what we do, and the purpose of what we do....

Please read the ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE - Caring, Killing, Euphemism and George Orwell: How Language Choice Undercuts Our Mission (PDF).

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