William Lutz Doublespeak

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Doublespeak, as described by William Lutz in Doublespeak, is used to convey a point by misleading someone's thought process (26). While doublespeak may not be an outright lie, it is a way of communication used to hide the truth without ever actually contradicting it. In contrast, in Stephanie Ericsson's The Ways We Lie, lying by omission consists of the truth without key facts (3). Regardless of whether doublespeak is an outright lie or just misguidance, its effects can still be detrimental. By describing a genocide as an ethnic cleansing at the time more people were willing to agree to mass killings and afterwards the events were viewed as a conflict between two groups as opposed to being systemic murder. Over the course of history there have been multiple examples of groups using doublespeak to hide their intentions of completely obliterating entire populations. As stated by William Lutz, "language can easily distort perception and influence behavior and thus be a tool, or weapon for achieving the greatest good or the greatest evil" (30). The term 'ethnic' differentiates a group and causes them to be viewed as outsiders. The term 'cleansing' functions to make on group feel superior due to their natural heritage or 'cleanliness' which consequently
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As opposed to coexisting, a group resents those they deem inferior. Doublespeak alters people's perspectives and can be used to cause whole societies to live in a delusion. Ericsson describes such a phenomenon as a lie by delusion, "Delusion is the tendency to see excuses as facts" (5). Perpetrators of genocides view their racist beliefs as facts and present them as such to the general population. The term ethnic cleansing hid motives of outright murder through scapegoating and false senses of

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