Each week in the Spectator Australia magazine there is a column by Janet de Botton for devotees of the card game of Bridge. Some particular situation or tactic is explained and an example given, showing the cards held in the hands of the four different players, who play in pairs.
That’s all I know about Bridge. The descriptions of the game play illustrating the point under discussion are, frankly, impenetrable. Bletchley Park cryptographers would struggle, I think, to make any headway in decoding what the hell it means. In the 9 November 2024 edition, this paragraph purports to explain a case in point:
Hoffa (player Thor Erik Hoftaniska) ruffed the Spade lead and played a top Heart and another to dummy, discovering the very annoying trump break. It was time for a small Club from dummy and the King was taken by the Ace and a small Club returned towards the Jack. West didn’t want to give declarer the whole suit, so he followed with the 8 of clubs, and East could ruff dummy’s Jack of clubs and continue forcing declarer. South ruffed again and played another Club to West’s 9 of clubs, who naturally forced the South hand yet again.
Only someone in possession of the code could unravel the meaning, if any, in this hallucinatory passage. It would have had the censors at Colditz bamboozled in a letter home from Douglas Bader and the boys. “Nusink to zee here!” they would have spluttered, “zose Englisher Tommies have lost zeir marbles” before chucking it into the mailbag for the Red Cross.
Codes were indeed used successfully in communications to and from Colditz prisoners during WWII, and were never cracked. A useful tool to have in the toolbox, when one is confronted with censorship and a determined tyrant who wants to stop the truth coming out.
What constitutes a code ranges from the kind of formal, mathematical, structured method which can transform innocent looking (if garbled) sentences into a secret message, if only one has knowledge of the decoding technique, to an untruthfulness involving deliberate ambiguity (this technique is favoured by politicians, and others) and also to a kind of circumlocution between strangers that dances around a topic that is known to be controversial.
I encountered this last type of code on a 3 month 4WD outback camping trip a few years ago. Chance encounters with fellow campers often turned to campsite recommendations. After a while, phrases like “we like this campsite, it’s a bit out of the way but very peaceful” and its opposite “a little too close to town for our liking” seemed (in our imagination at least) to be imbued with extra meaning, which was corroborated more than once as we passed by the non-preferred sites.
No matter what our Great High Priestess of Permitted Pronouncements (our “e-Safety Commisioner whom I once confused with our “Pee-Safety Commisioner”, sorry about that) may or may not pontificate about, the truth will find a way out, and people will know, without a shadow of a doubt, who has been lying to them. We’ll resurrect old codes, or invent new ones, or find new channels, and every lying perpetrator will know, and we’ll know they know, that we will expose them one day.
In the meantime, each of us must adopt a posture towards incoming “information”, and have some sort of framework for judging how reliable it is. Lately, various prefixes have become fashionable in categorising information: mis-, dis-, mal-, and no doubt others, now adorn virtually every utterance of a politician talking about what, in a truth-full world, would be called censorship. In essence, the fetishisation of these euphemisms for censorship amount to a tacit admission of guilt in lying to the public - to make these ‘ad nominem’ attacks on words and thoughts by slurring them with the mis and dis labels is to avoid responding to the underlying concern, just like an ‘ad hominem’ attack defames the individual while ignoring the argument.
So, my preferred posture towards incoming information, whether from Mainstream Media or Government or other institution, or an individual, is now quite settled. Anyone with nothing at stake in making a claim is to be ignored, and avoided altogether if possible. The claim itself is to be treated with utmost scepticism, especially if it comes from someone claimed to be an expert. Any call to action by such a person is to be responded to by complete inaction, or the opposite action, just for fun.
Anyone risking their livelihood or their freedom or their reputation to make a counter-claim is to be given the time of day. Their call to action, if any, is to be contemplated, and possibly followed.
I think it is quite likely that my declared posture could be construed as in breach of the current Bill making its way through the parliament. Let’s hope it doesn’t get all the way.
In the meantime, perhaps I should look into the Bridge classes at my local Community Centre. I might learn something.
"In essence, the fetishisation of these euphemisms for censorship amount to a tacit admission of guilt in lying to the public - to make these ‘ad nominem’ attacks on words and thoughts by slurring them with the mis and dis labels is to avoid responding to the underlying concern, just like an ‘ad hominem’ attack defames the individual while ignoring the argument."
So well said, Richard!
Do you have a sense of how likely is it that the Communications Legislation Amendment 2024 will pass?
Lori
Euphemisms - the backbone of Political Correctness.