By Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D. Twitter: @farooqkperogi Scholars of language and rhetoric have for long identified certain words and exp...
By Farooq A. Kperogi,
Ph.D.
Twitter:
@farooqkperogi
Scholars of language and rhetoric have for long identified
certain words and expressions that instinctively evoke warm fuzzy feelings in people,
that effortlessly sway opinions, and that galvanize people into action. The words
are often so broad and so semantically indeterminate that anyone can read any
positive meaning into them. In other words, they are clean semantic slates on
which people inscribe whatever positive attributes they want.
American rhetorical scholar Kenneth Burke called such words
“god terms.” In his book titled A Grammar
of Motives, Burke describes god terms as the “names for the ultimates of
motivation.” They are words that are unquestioningly sanctified by a cultural
community, which inspire and drive them to act in a certain way.
Another American rhetorician by the name of Richard Weaver
expanded on Burke’s notion of god terms. In his book titled The Ethics of Rhetoric, Weaver defined a
“god term” as a “rhetorical absolute” with “inherent potency,” that is, an
inherently vague term that most people in a society, culture, and age associate
with affirmative attributes and for which they are prepared to make sacrifices.
Words like “justice,” “democracy,” “progress,”
“accountability,” “good governance,” “transparency,” “change,” etc. are examples
of god terms. They are vague enough to defy semantic precision yet likeable
enough to attract positive cognitive and emotional associations. The words are used by public relations
experts, advertisers, politicians, and other kinds of professionals in the mind
management industry to persuade people to pursue predetermined courses of
actions such as buying a product, voting for a candidate, having a certain kind
of opinion or attitude toward a person, a company, or a cause.
God terms are often so universally positive that their
underlying assumptions are undisputed, even if they are ill-defined. Who argues
with “progress”? Who doesn’t want “justice”? Who resists “democracy”? Who
rejects the virtues of “good governance”? Who doesn’t cherish “transparency”? However,
although our culture predisposes us to automatically process these terms as
invariably positive, we have no precise meanings of the terms, and that’s why
they are powerful instruments of persuasion. The best propaganda is one that
isn’t suspected as one, and that creatively taps from the cultural consensus of
the society.
Devil terms
But there is also something called the “devil term.” A devil
term is a word that evokes revulsion in us, that dislocates our sense of
emotional balance, and that mindlessly activates negative feelings in us. The
most popular devil term of the last two decades is the word “terrorism”—and its
many inflectional extensions such as “terrorist,” “terroristic,” “terrorize,”
etc.
In Nigeria, “sentiments,” “tribalistic,” “unpatriotic,” etc.
have become devil terms. The painfully idiotic expression “wailing wailer” (or
“wailer,” which simply means a critic of President Buhari) has also now become
a devil term among hordes of low-wattage Buhari partisans on social media.
God terms that are overused, that have exhausted their
persuasive power, or that have reached the end of their rhetorical shelf life
can transmogrify into devil terms. For example, in the United States, “liberal”
went from being a god term to a devil term, no thanks to the propaganda of
conservatives who successfully cast liberals as unpatriotic. Now politically
and culturally liberal Americans call themselves “progressives.”
Even in northern
Nigeria, “liberal” has transmuted from a god term into a devil term. This
connotational transmutation explains why Kaduna State changed its license-plate
slogan from “liberal state” to “center of learning.”
The term “political correctness” used to be a god term. It
meant social sensitivity, especially in language use, toward marginal groups in
the society. Now it has become a devil term that means underhand, Orwellian
censorship of free speech.
“Change” as a God
Term
The term “change” is historically a powerful god term in
politics. It is thought to have endless rhetorical utility, and its invocation
especially in moments of great national stress can be enormously potent. A few
examples from US political history illustrate this.
Hubert Humphrey’s 1968 presidential campaign slogan was, "Some
People Talk Change, Others Cause It." He lost to his opponent, Richard
Nixon, by a painfully narrow margin—what some analysts called by “seven-tenths
of a percentage point.” Well, perhaps it was because Humphrey was the incumbent
vice president who represented the old order, or because he was ambivalent
about change. He dismissed people who “talked” about it and cast himself as
someone who “caused” it.
God terms are supposed to be vague and devoid of
concreteness to be effective. Voters’ material conditions probably reminded
them that the government Humphrey was a part of didn’t “cause” the kind of “change”
they identified with, so they chose to stick with “some people who talk change,”
even if it was an indeterminate change.
In 1976 Jimmy Carter won election as America’s 39th
president, and his campaign slogan was, "A Leader, For a Change."
However, his administration came to be beset by runaway inflation and a biting
recession, much like Buhari’s is shaping up to be, and he became thoroughly unpopular
by the end of his first term. Ronald Reagan defeated him in a landslide in 1980
with the campaign slogan, "Are You Better Off Than You Were Four Years
Ago?"
In 1992, Bill Clinton’s campaign slogan, "It's Time to
Change America," resonated with Americans, and helped him to handily
defeat George Bush Sr., ending 12 uninterrupted years of Republican rule.
Sixteen years later, Barack Obama reengaged with the
persuasive arsenal of “change” with the slogan “Change We Can Believe In” (or
just "Change”), and won a massive victory against John McCain.
In Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari caused an unprecedented
political upset by defeating an incumbent president through his deployment of
the “change” slogan.
When “Change” Becomes
a Devil Term
Judging from the vast disillusionment that the Buhari
administration has instigated in Nigerians so far, “change” may become a “devil
term” in Nigeria by 2019, if it hasn’t already become one.
Change has now come to be associated with lies, deceit,
hypocrisy, double standards, endless whining and blame shifting by people in
government, descent from bad to worse in living conditions, incompetence in
high places, unpreparedness, astonishing elite insensitivity, economic and
social bondage, pauperization, reverse Robin Hoodism (which I once defined as
robbing of the poor to enrich the rich), personalization of power, extreme
nepotism and provincialism, facile and arrogant disavowal of promises made
during campaigns, etc.
These are all
attributes the current “change” administration embodies in colossal measure,
which will certainly cause the “change” slogan to become irretrievably damaged
in Nigeria’s linguistic, rhetorical, and political landscape.
Perhaps the greatest violence to the notion of “change” in
Nigeria is the “ChangeBeginsWithMe” campaign whose conception and execution
ironically undermine its very notional core. The campaign was irreparably
marred by two grave legal and ethical infractions that bordered on barefaced
intellectual theft. The concept itself is the appropriation of somebody’s copyright.
That’s a legal infraction. The speech that formally introduced it to Nigerians plagiarized
an entire paragraph from Obama’s speech. That’s an ethical infraction.
The campaign has now deservedly become the object of scorn, derision
and anger, especially because government officials who champion it are steeped
in the old ways while calling people who are already down and out to “change.”
An old woman I spoke to in Nigeria last Friday, who is a
staunch Buhari supporter, captured Buhari’s “change” this way: Unhappy occupants
of a leaky house hired the services of a new builder (Buhari) to repair their
roof. The builder decided to take down the entire roof in order to rebuild
it. But after taking the roof down, the builder is out of his depth, and has no
clue how to put it together again.
Now he blames everything and everybody— from his tools to
previous builders who put the roof together—for his incompetence and
cluelessness. Meanwhile, the occupants of the house who thought being wet from
their leaky roof during rains was bad now have to contend with being thoroughly
drenched from the rains since they now have no roof at all.
No one in Nigeria will ever campaign again on a platform of “change.”
The word is now an irredeemably damaged slogan. Its persuasive content has been
depleted. When next a politician or a political party promises “change,” people
would most certainly ask: What “change” do you mean? Change from what to what?
From bad to worse? Or change in the faces of people in power while the same old
order of corruption, cronyism, nepotism, impunity, intolerance, bigotry stays
intact? Is this another bait and switch?
When people begin to ask for the precise meaning of a god
term you know it’s no longer one. Or, worse, when a term evokes fear and
trepidation in people, you know it has graduated to a devil term. “Change” is
becoming a devil term in Nigeria.
When Richard Weaker said in the 1950s that "a society's
health or declension was mirrored in how it used language," he came across
as overly linguistically deterministic. The story of “change” in Nigeria
instantiates his assertion.
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