Diplomacy, Doublespeak and Douchebags

Diplomacy, doublespeak and douchebags are related terms that can be applied in studying the personality of a person, and the affairs of government as a whole. These terms can be defined in the context of both the individual and the government, separately or together which this feature is about to. It is also a generalised perspective, though not at the cost of oversimplifying the nuances that these terms carry.

The relation between the first two terms is obvious: as much as a person shows a tactful way of handling a situation, s/he needs a fair amount of subtlety that is possible only through a practice of nurturing a pleasant personality and interpersonal skills. In another way, the relation between diplomacy and doublespeak is quite evident in the mildness as well as the vagueness in the rhetoric and diplomatic curse words of the politicians, and how those are toned down so well using their power over the people. Take another example from my hometown, the diplomacy of military civic action by the paramilitary forces, a doublespeak which literally means to win the goodwill of the masses through whatever available means, while democracy has been made an exclusive Made-in-USA product. The Minister of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Defence have earmarked public funds to polish this art if you don’t want diplomatic replies from a douchebag but the facts and figures of this insinuation.

Doublespeak is ubiquitous in the mass media of the west which are owned by capitalists and is equally present in the world of the political and executive-administrator classes. The official documents of governance and administration offer the perfect case studies. (Perhaps this link has also partly to do with the English language as one of the colonial legacies, when it comes to India.) Before we see their further connection, for the sake of clarity, diplomacy and doublespeak are not as negative as these words may sound in the previous paragraph. It is more about the angle from which the words are defined that is important.

In analysing the interpersonal skills of an individual, especially in his/her communication power and people-management ability, diplomacy is corollary to doublespeak and if used properly, there is a great chance of overcoming unnecessary issues while fine-tuning the ways of interacting with others. This is quiet significant — in its deficiency, however, the person is liable to become a douchebag just from a single word s/he use or do not use. In short diplomacy, on an individual level, is the art of using the doublespeak. Funnily, s/he is again liable to become a douchebag if being diplomatic the entire place, all the time becomes his/her second nature. I’m sorry to admit that there are a handful of people in my surroundings who have become douchebags for all the wrong reasons.

The case is slightly different when it comes to the societal level of a particular people living in the largest democracy where military civic action is always a front-page news. Diplomacy and doublespeak are too raw when polite fiction is a way of live in such a society. Everyone becomes a douchebag, trying to look nice when the whole world knows no one is nice out here. They pollute the literature, talking about a literary genre to be specific — as the depiction of these douchebags in black and white needs no flowery language as are usually done for the stars and the moon and the love-struck heros and heroines in romantic lit, but as dark characters of the realistic arts, in which diplomacy and doublespeak are redundant or are simply a mismatch for their characterisation.

It is interesting to relate three random words in the most unlikely manner. Their connection also shows how the douchebags and their cousins — the morons — are one of the elementary particles of our universe, so to speak in an undiplomatic way. Diplomacy and doublespeak are human sophistication, which always hang on a fine balance. The moral of the story is that our universe is relative. Nothing more, nothing less.

KEYWORDS

Diplomacy \də-ˈplō-mə-sē\
- the art and practice of conducting negotiations between nations
- skill in handling affairs without arousing hostility (Merriam-Webster)
Doublespeak \ˈdəbəlˌspēk\
Deliberately euphemistic, ambiguous, or obscure language: "the art of political doublespeak".
A douchebag is an individual who has an over-inflated sense of self worth, compounded by a low level of intelligence, behaving ridiculously in front of colleagues with no sense of how moronic he appears. (Urban Dictionary)
A polite fiction is a social scenario in which all participants are aware of a truth, but pretend to believe in some alternative version of events to avoid conflict or embarrassment.

READ

George Orwell     Nineteen Eighty-Four
Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky   Manufacturing Consent – The Political Economy of the Mass Media