That highlights the point very well.
I only knew Stephen Fry (besides the comedy stuff, and only tangentially) from this:
Given the state of the world today, and given that our identy forms ONLY as a result of the boundaries society gives us, is a reflection of it if you will, it's no wonder so many people get ill. 1 in 10 belgians is on antidepressants.
Maybe the ill ones really are the sane ones. Not all of them, but you get my point. Surely, remaining alert about abuse of language requires being weird in some way. You have to look past or ignore the constant onslaught of propaganda.
Whilst I'm linking docu's: here's the best I've seen on PR (of which such language misuse is an extreme case):
The Century of The Self.
It has the following parts:
Happiness Machines. Part one documents the story of the relationship between Sigmund Freud and his American nephew, Edward Bernays who invented Public Relations in the 1920s, being the first person to take Freud's ideas to manipulate the masses.
The Engineering of Consent. Part two explores how those in power in post-war America used Freud's ideas about the unconscious mind to try and control the masses. Politicians and planners came to believe Freud's underlying premise that deep within all human beings were dangerous and irrational desires.
There is a Policeman Inside All of Our Heads, He Must Be Destroyed. In the 1960s, a radical group of psychotherapists challenged the influence of Freudian ideas, which lead to the creation of a new political movement that sought to create new people, free of the psychological conformity that had been implanted in people's minds by business and politics.
Eight People Sipping Wine In Kettering. This episode explains how politicians turned to the same techniques used by business in order to read and manipulate the inner desires of the masses. Both New Labor with Tony Blair and the Democrats led by Bill Clinton, used the focus group which had been invented by psychoanalysts in order to regain power.
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