The Power and Abuse of Language

Listening to the many hours of testimony of the impeachment trial, I often find myself angered by the logic of some of the Republican defenders of President Trump. The particular argument they have used that I’m referring to claims that President Trump (or another person involved) never used the words “quid pro quo” or “bribery,” therefore the president cannot be accused of such actions.

It occurred to me that there is a classic novel, one that many of us were required to read in high school or college that pertains to the very moment we find ourselves, in regards to this impeachment trial. We are being challenged to consider how language functions and this is exactly what Nathaniel Hawthorne challenges us to do in The Scarlet Letter.

The Scarlet Letter opens with a primitive trial of a woman, Hester Prynne, living in a Puritan village, who has given birth to a child outside of marriage.  When demanded to give the name of the father of the child (whom you will recall was the beloved town minister), she refuses and her punishment is that she is banished to the margins of the village and must always wear the letter 'A' upon her breast as a symbol of her crime (sins and crimes were one and the same in this Puritan enclave).

You have likely made the connection that Hawthorne’s story and the impeachment both involve a trial, but don’t go any further with that comparison by attempting to associate Donald Trump with Hester Prynne. That is not where I’m going with this. What is important about The Scarlet Letter is how language is used by different people in the story. Hawthorne, through his characters, makes a brilliant argument for how language must be understood in connection with the actions that are connected with it. Thus, the letter 'A' changes meaning for the people in the Puritan village as over the years Hester becomes known for her acts of kindness and care. Hawthorne, in his brilliantly ambiguous way, never even mentions the word "adultery" in the novel in order to implicate his readers in the symbolic power of language. But over time the 'A' begins to stand for "Abel" or several other implied meanings based on Hester's actions. As a symbol of adultery, Hawthorne dryly states, "The scarlet letter had not done its office."

Language merely as a system of symbols, without it’s material connection (which is just a fancy way of saying without being informed by the actions that attend it), becomes a tool of the powerful to be used however they want to wield it.  Any current or historical accounts of human abuse are accompanied by a very symbolic approach to language. Thus, Africans were made slaves because the people in power labeled them not fully human, Jews were labeled vermin by Hitler, Japanese-Americans became potential enemies of the state during WW2.

In the same way that language was used to label people not based on any actions on their part, language can be used to excuse people of actions that did happen simply by noting that the label wasn’t there, therefore the action could not have happened. The constant in the examples of human abuse and what we are witnessing in the impeachment trial is that people are using language as having a power in and of itself without any need to pay attention to the human context. That is a dangerous way to use language. 

It is also a lazy way to use language. We should never forget that language requires something of each and every one of us. It is dynamic and ever changing as well as the most stable thing we have for being able to communicate. Language should never be relied on as the ultimate witness to a person’s defense. We have the responsibility to assess language in the context of actions that surround it.

Maybe we should pick up that old, dusty copy of The Scarlet Letter for a refresher course in the power and abuse of language.