by Magda Stroińska,
Durvile & UpRoute Books,
2023/$35.00/288 PP.
From “doubletalk” (the intentional distortion of words) to Orwellian “Newspeak” to “weasel words” (that corrupt the meaning of a word in order to manipulate an audience) to “bullshit,” we’ve all heard it, increasingly so as populism surges—in Alberta and around the world. “How can ordinary people protect themselves from propaganda and language manipulation?” asks Magda Stroińska, in her thought-provoking “academic memoir.” Stroińska, now a professor of linguistics at McMaster University, grew up in Poland under the communist regime—“a place where language became divorced from reality.” Much of her book focuses on the propaganda used by the twin totalitarianisms—Nazi and Soviet—that plagued Poland in the past and still infect political speech in that country. And elsewhere: “the spread of empty promises and all forms of populist rhetoric in public discourse seems to be reaching epidemic proportions worldwide,” she writes. “Propaganda and thought manipulation have become some of the most important problems we face today.” To defend against this scourge, “I hope that my own struggles with language and its representation or creation of reality may be of some help to others.”
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