Another well-known teacher and writer responded: "Sure, English teachers and faculty types generally are quick with deceptive rhetoric, especially when we talk about what we're doing. . . . I don't think we can do much more than call the kettle black. But that kettle is so much more dangerous than our pot. . . . We should be talking to the public about Pentagonese even if somehow we fall into self-righteous jargon while doing it. This is clearly not a time to wait for someone without fault to come along and cast the first stone."

Many teachers recognize their own language manipulation and that of their colleagues. Because they do not want to be hypocrites, any sense of moral outrage they may have against the language of the Pentagon or Madison Avenue is countered from within, from their own sense of personal guilt that they, too, manipulate language. So their call for reform is usually very personal: "Let's reform ourselves first, then, once pure, we can go after others."

Thoreau, speaking about reformers, observed: "There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is hacking at the root." In my judgment, the root cause of much of our confusion about language today is the implicit assumption, seldom recognized or articulated, that language manipulation is intrinsically bad.

Those who unconsciously accept this premise are condemned to feelings of guilt, frustration (due to their call for impossible conditions), and possibly even misanthropy, because it can be observed that all people, in all eras, in all lands do this "bad" thing of language manipulation. Indeed, most of the reformers, the critics of advertising, the texts and the teachers I've encountered have assumed this premise that language manipulation is bad.

In contrast, let me state the premise that language manipulation is a neutral, natural human activity, and that any "goodness" or "badness" depends on the context of the whole situation.

By "language manipulation," I mean the process of intensifying or downplaying elements of human languages. Language, here, is being used in a broad sense to cover verbal language, both written and spoken; mathematics; and all nonverbal ways by which humans communicate information or attitudes: facial gestures, body movements, spatial relationships, and so on.

I believe there is no "neutral" transfer of information; all communication involves a basic selection / omission process by which we intensify or downplay. We intensify some things simply by selecting them; we downplay others simply by omitting them.

To clarify this intensify-downplay activity, consider how we manipulate the elements of verbal communication; for example, a word. Words are intensified by adding modifiers (adjectives or adverbs), by using synonyms (substituting other words which have greater connotations), by adding a prefix (patriot/ superpatriot; liberal/ ultraliberal) or a suffix (beatnik, peacenik), or a dozen other ways. We can intensify writing with CAPITALIZATION, with underlining, or with punctuation -- add "quotation marks," for example, and we can supercharge a word: so-called "intellectuals." We can even play around with spelling and the alphabet: Amerika, U$A, Nixon with a swastika for the x. In our speech, we can intensify or downplay an individual word by the stress, the pitch, the tonal qualities we choose to give it. In brief, we do thousands of things to words, the basic building blocks of our verbal language, which are designed either to intensify or downplay.

Most English teachers spend their days involved in some aspects of working with the manipulation, the intensifying-downplaying process, of verbal language. In teaching syntax, we know the thousands of patterns which can be generated from a few core ideas, the deep structure of a sentence. We know we can intensify by certain devices and patterns within a sentence -- by repetition, by positioning, by association, and so forth. In fact, the very earliest studies of language in ancient Greece gave us long lists of the classical tropes and schemes, those patterns by which groups of words can be ordered.

We know also, as we consider larger segments of writing, the architectonics, the structure, of whole speeches, whole essays, whole novels. Many English teachers are rather expert at analyzing the structure of a piece of writing, pointing out the basic mechanics of how transitions are made, how coherence is achieved, and so on.

Yet, if one were to ask their opinion on euphemisms, for example, it's quite likely the answer would be prescriptive: "Don't use euphemisms." There's an almost instinctive reaction, an uncritical accepting of assumptions, that this kind of language manipulation is "bad."

To illustrate the dilemma of those who assume that language manipulation is intrinsically bad, let me use an example from Mario Pei's book Words in Sheep's Clothing (New York: Hawthorne, 1969). This book is an extensive collection of contemporary examples of what Pei calls weasel words: "The term can be legitimately extended to cover any word of which the semantics are deliberately changed or obscured to achieve a specific purpose, or which is used in a given context for the sole purpose of impressing and bamboozling the reader or hearer. Weasel words are shifty, tricky, dishonest."

Note here this premise, rather explicit, that language manipulation is bad. Later in the introductory chapter, as Pei begins to explain and qualify, he forgets that value judgment ("shifty, tricky, dishonest") made in his first premise. He concedes that "semantic change is as old as language itself," but asserts "most semantic changes occur accidentally" and hedges, "The process of deliberate semantic change is largely modern. Still, there are historical examples." Finally, he qualifies: "It is only partly true that most of these deliberate semantic changes occur in the realm of politics and administration. As we go over the rather large lists we have accumulated . . . we find that weasel words appear in all fields of human endeavor. . . . Full treatment of the subject calls for a book that will never be complete, because each year sees a bumper crop of new weasel words."

In the 20 chapters that follow, Pei gives almost equal space to each of his selected categories: weasel words from advertising, the movies, the arts, cocktail parties, education, politics, the military, hippies, race relations, etc. In some chapters, the reader can sense that Pei has greater enthusiasm for attacking the weasel words used by certain groups; and, at times, Pei drifts away from his listings and begins to preach -- in favor of Loyalty Oaths, or against "relativism." Pei, as preacher, warns us: "We have largely forgotten our moral sense, our sense of right and wrong. Relativism is rampant among us. Things, deeds, patterns, or behavior are no longer regarded as intrinsically good or bad, but only in relation to existing circumstances. The moral code has become elastic. Worse yet, it has been conveniently forgotten. There is no absolute honesty, no absolute honor. There is only what you can get out of the world, the government, your fellow man" (p. 1320.

Pei reveals his own absolutist position, but I believe he misrepresents the position of those who would stress the importance of the situation or the context in making moral judgments. Formal, logical, syllogistic differences separate the two positions. Some people, including Pei, place the value judgment ("language manipulation is bad") in the major premise. Then, after collecting the evidence -- the widespread, ubiquitous examples of all kinds of people manipulating language -- that "everybody does it," they conclude that everyone is guilty of this bad thing. And, these analysts commonly end up in the same situation as Pei, who gives almost equal treatment: one chapter to artsy talk at cocktail parties, one chapter to the language of thermonuclear war. In my judgment, in my moral code, thermonuclear war is a hell of a lot more important, more significant, more dangerous, more deserving of attention than chit chat at a cocktail party.

My major premise: language manipulation is a natural, neutral human activity. I expect everyone to intensify, to downplay, to manipulate languages for their own benefit and advantage. This is what human beings do. This is what they've always done, always will do. If you start with this as a major premise, then any moral judgments are made in the minor premise. Value judgments concerning the ethical or moral aspects of language have to be made in context with the whole situation: who is saying what to whom, under what conditions and circumstances, with what intent, and with what results. Because such judgments are demanding, complex, and often tentative, they are much less emotionally satisfying than the "certitude" afforded by relying upon an a priori judgment that language manipulation is bad in and of itself.

Some people in our society desire a rigid, well-defined set of rules, a list of dos-and-don'ts, an absolute certainty. Sometimes we label these people as absolutists, perhaps even as authoritarians. We may disagree with their rigidity. However, they do exist in our society; they are "well-intentioned"; and frequently, among other certitudes, is their sense of "being right," of being the embattled defenders of Truth and Virtue.

Such people, I believe, are likely to react negatively to any attempted revision in the English curriculum that is based on the premise that language manipulation (the intensifying/downplaying of elements) is a neutral, natural human activity.

Such language education can be as potentially explosive as sex education has been in the past in American schools. In the sex education controversy, one side usually argues that students need some kind of basic sex information as an essential survival skill for the individual and society. One side contends that this basic information can be presented as neutrally as possible, without moral judgments, which they hope would be supplied by either home or church. The opposition attacks either premise, insisting that schools should not teach sex education, or, if taught, that the program should be didactic and moralistic, one that implants values and norms. (But in our pluralistic society, an immediate problem emerges: whose values? whose standards? whose norms?)

In one sense, parents would be less likely to protest a new approach to language education (especially after Watergate) than they would be to complain about sex education. But opposition could occur; we need to be prepared to explain to hostile parents that when we, as teachers, describe or discuss certain techniques of language manipulation we are not endorsing immorality.

Certainly in my own graduate courses I do not have any trouble teaching Aristotle's Rhetoric to my adult students. But I can imagine, and sympathize with, the problems faced by my students who go out into the local schools and teach in the 5th and 6th grades, and in the 11th and 12th grades. Can you imagine some 5th grader running home gleefully to tell mommy that "teacher said" the emotional appeal was more effective than the rational appeal? Some mommys and daddys would be off to the local school board, irate at the evils being taught. Can you recognize the potential problems if we try to inform our kids about the real ways languages can be manipulated?

Rhetoricians have always worried over the problem of teaching the realities of language manipulation. Dwight Bolinger of Harvard, for example, in his Presidential Address to the Linguistic Society of America, recently stated: ". . . what if enough [linguists] were to turn their attention to truth and falsehood for it really to make a difference? It is a risky business when scientists start developing tools that are capable of misuse. To bring to light the mechanisms of Machiavellianism may be to provide future Machiavellis with easy access. But I doubt we can teach today's Machiavellis much that they do not already know. This is one game where the con men have less to learn than their victims."

Bolinger and many others today are echoing the anguish of Aristotle who worried over this same problem in the opening pages of his Rhetoric, his treatise on the art of persuasion. Aristotle was an extremely moral person and he was very concerned with the problems of teaching people the possible techniques and ways of persuasion. But he did describe in detail the methods by which people could be persuaded. Aristotle's motive was not to train future evildoers, but to alert and train citizens how to recognize and to counter such techniques: "Further, we must be able to employ persuasion, not in order that we must practice it in both ways, for we must not make people believe what is wrong; but in order that we may see clearly what the facts are, and that if another man argues unfairly, we, on our part, may be able to confute him." (In my terms, a defensive rhetoric, or counter-propaganda.)

Our professional persuaders already know how to persuade and manipulate. Our educational system has provided intensive training to a small segment of our society in universities and business schools, with courses and programs labeled Salesmanship, Public Relations, Advertising, Market Behavior, Consumer Behavior, and Marketing Strategy. Various on-the-job training programs (such as the Date Carnegie courses) also have done a rather effective job of training persuaders how to persuade.

But, of the 60 million young citizens now in our schools, only a few thousand will be trained in these techniques of persuasion, in the use of the emotional appeal, associative techniques, image building, etc. The great majority of our future voting citizens, and future consumers, will have little or no training in identifying, naming, or analyzing such persuasion techniques.

I'm not overstating the case. Simply check the available texts: of the 19 leading college textbooks I analyzed for their treatment of "propaganda analysis," however labeled. All of them gave it but a few pages, and most of them concentrated on the fallacies of formal logic. At the high school level, more than half the texts and related materials I've seen have been based on the old Institute for Propaganda Analysis list of propaganda techniques ("glittering generalities, etc.), a list created pre-TV, pre-World War II, pre-Pentagon, pre-computer, pre-etc. Unfortunately, in addition, the list has internal errors of cross-categorization.

To recap; there's a widespread common assumption that language manipulation is bad in and of itself. Letters to the committee, editorial comments, textbook prescriptions, and so on, overwhelmingly seem to be based on this assumption, usually not articulated. I used Pei's book as my main example primarily because it's easily available in order for readers to check my commentary on it.

Why there is in America such a general attitude which favors this kind of "linguistic Manicheanism" is not my concern here. I'll suggest that it sterns from our Ramist tradition, our Puritan rhetorical tradition, and from the historical development of English departments and speech departments in the U.S. during the past century. But, regardless of cause, I think it's accurate to state that such a phenomenon, such an attitude toward language, does exist. Secondly, I believe that once we begin to introduce into our textbooks and classrooms a more descriptive attitude toward language manipulation, we are likely to incur the wrath of defenders of Virtue who will charge that such attempts are subversive and corrupting.

One of the most revolutionary things which can happen now is simply for teachers of language to teach how language operates, to teach what can be done with words and numbers and images and other human languages, not what should or shouldn't be done. To teach, not to preach. To teach our young how languages can be manipulated by anyone, to describe what is possible, to teach children to recognize their own manipulating and the manipulating done by others.

At present, we have a lot of English teachers acting more like preachers, more concerned with making their moral pronouncements about a particular politician or a particular commercial than with giving their students a good grounding in an understanding of language techniques. Students may be impressed, at least temporarily, with the particular bias or enthusiasm of a favorite teacher, but students may not carry with them the life-long ability to recognize language manipulation coming from all different directions. We've already seen students totally wise to and jaded by the Madison Avenue con game yet at the same time unaware of their own parroting of counter culture slogans and clichés.

Certainly one goal of any counter-propaganda campaign would be to immunize, to inoculate, students in advance of any particular propaganda blitz-from Left or Right, from Establishment or Counter Culture.

Most critics and reformers usually react afterwards; the teacher's job should be to prepare students in advance. This is best done, 1 think, by being very honest with our young and telling them what we really know about language manipulation. Because such frankness is not common in texts today, and is apt to provoke a response, I believe one of the major emphases of any effort here should be to assure parents, and fellow citizens, of our own moral standards. If we are going to remove a moral judgment from the major premise, we had better emphasize it in our minor premise.

In our pluralistic society, where diverse standards are obvious, it seems that equality and mutuality are the most commonly accepted standards. Our legal system, our public rhetoric, our common sentiments all agree on the ideals of equality, fairness, justice. Ideally, our laws are established to protect people from inequality, injustice, and exploitation. However much reality differs from these ideals, these ideals are still the structural framework of our society.

In a classroom, even if a teacher concentrates on what can be done with language, it's quite probable that students will seek advice about what should be done: "Should we use euphemisms?" "Is it immoral to do something like that?" The teacher faces a difficult situation. Instead of replying with the "euphemisms-are-bad" bit, the teacher has to explain the general problem of making a value judgment in context and then is expected to offer some analysis of a specific case, using specific criteria for a moral judgment. In our society, I would suggest that an acceptable criterion would be equality,

Our moral sense is outraged by inequality. In sexual matters we already have a sophisticated vocabulary to describe situations of equality and inequality. For example, we speak of seduction when there is not an equality, a mutuality of exchange, when the knowledgeable or crafty seducer takes advantage of the innocent or the naive; we speak of rape when force or violence creates a situation of inequality; we speak of child molesting when age is concerned, when the young are abused.

Using this analogy, it is clear that, in language situations today, many of our advertisers are seducers and child molesters, taking advantage of the young, the innocent, the naive, the gullible.

At present, there exists in our society great inequality in the ability to persuade. When a kid sits down in front of a TV set to watch the cartoons, we seldom realize that at the other end of this language situation there is a large group of adults -- sophisticated in persuasion, well-paid, well-equipped, well-advised -- who are targeting in on this little consumer. On one side, a $26 billion language industry with advertising blitzing us day and night. On the other side, a few random gestures by the schools.

I think the major thrust of any counterpropaganda campaign should be directed at a balance, at a situation of equality. To make the situation equal, we must make the persuadee more sophisticated; we must teach the student that which the persuader already knows.

I'm not advocating confrontation tactics, in which the dominant metaphor is the ever-ascending escalator; I'm not advocating an attack on advertising, on particular products, or on political policies being peddled. I am advocating a counter-propaganda effort in the schools in which the dominant metaphor is the teeter-totter, the see-saw, and our work is directed toward creating a more balanced, a more nearly equal situation, between persuaders and persuadees.

If you grant that language manipulation is a natural, neutral process; that moral judgments must be made in a context; and that equality is a useful criterion here, let me illustrate how one can talk about our much maligned technique, euphemism.

Many people and texts condemn the euphemism "You shouldn't use euphemisms." But the fact is, people do use euphemisms all the time; we manipulate language in these instances to downplay certain things. In many situations it seems to me perfectly polite, kind, and moral to use a euphemistic phrase to express sorrow or to avoid insulting someone or injuring their feelings. The morality, the goodness or badness, depends totally on the situation and context.

In one of Jacques Cousteau's undersea adventure books, he spends a page telling about the many euphemisms his crew uses for "shark." They never use that word. The dreaded monsters are always referred to in some euphemistic way, such as "friendly visitors." Now it's perfectly acceptable for the crew to use these phrases among themselves, in a situation of equality: "Hey, Pierre," someone says, "there's some friendly visitors below." Both the sender and the receiver of that message know the referent out there and all that implies. But, if I were a visitor aboard the ship and a crewman told me, as I was getting ready to dive overboard, that there were some "friendly visitors" below, I'd probably have a mental picture of picturesque pink-and-purple Angelfish swimming around. If I thus placed myself unknowingly and unwillingly into that dangerous situation, it would be a most immoral use of euphemisms because of the inequality of the language situation. To use such in-group euphemisms, or technical jargon, with in audience that doesn't comprehend the reality of the referent can be a most immoral act if it places the audience unknowingly into a dangerous situation.

When the Pentagon uses euphemisms, or technical jargon, such as "low yield, clean thermonuclear device," most people do not get an accurate mental picture of the reality because the words sound rather pleasant: it's low yield, clean, and only a device. By words, the military has concealed the reality that what they're talking about are bombs that are more powerful, more devastating, more horrible than the A-bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, more catastrophic than any weapon ever used before in human history.

Such a use of language, I believe, is immoral. In a democratic society, for the military to deceive its own citizens seems to me to be a gross, illegal abuse of power. I don't know what can be done about the "system" here; it's certainly more complex to indict the Pentagon or the CIA than it is to impeach a President. If you accept the concept that everyone manipulates language to benefit their own position, then it's not likely that the Pentagon will reform itseIf. To equalize the balance, journalists, broadcasters, and teachers of language have a special obligation to translate military and political jargon, euphemisms, and circumlocutions into language that citizens can understand and comprehend.

Note that the NCTE committee is focused on Public Doublespeak. Assuming that everyone manipulates language, in private and in public, here the focus is on the public sector. There are many possible public speakers worthy of critical attention (including educators and clergymen), but I'm working from a rather solid old-fashioned idea that one ought to focus first on the most important and the most powerful persuaders in our society. In 1974, Madison Avenue will spend $26 billion dollars to persuade Americans to buy this or that; the Pentagon will continue to mount the most intensive, most expensive propaganda blitz --on its own country --in history; and, soon, the politicians will be in high gear trying to persuade us of their policies or their presidential choices.

Priorities need to be established. Value judgments need to be made in any counter-propaganda campaign in order to determine which of the many possible persuaders are the most significant to watch, analyze, and bring to public attention. In my own writings, you may recognize that I place higher values on life-and-death issues and health-and-safety issues than on various cosmetic and parity product issues. How our military and political leaders manipulate language, what they conceal and omit, and how they blitz or censor or confuse seems to me to be of greater significance, worthy of more attention than most commercial advertising. Within the realm of commercial advertising, I also see a hierarchy of priorities: certain health-and-safety issues (automobile safety, tires, drugs, foods) are more important than worrying about whether someone wastes a few dollars buying some cosmetic dreams or loses a few cents buying a parity product.

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Looking to the future, it's possible to predict at least some of the propaganda crises. The advertising industry, for example, forecasts an even greater expansion during the next five years; their optimism might be a bit inflated, but obviously advertising is not going to be less sophisticated than it is in 1974. The political campaign in 1976 is quite apt to be the most technically adroit ever. Before Jeb Stuart Magruder went to jail for his Watergate activities, he bewailed the fact that no one really appreciated the "good" work that the Committee for the Re-Election of the President had done. Magruder believed (and rightly so) that the direct mail, computer, and telephone techniques which had been integrated into the GOP 1972 strategy to persuade specific types of voters would be models for all future political campaigns. One can reasonably expect that all. candidates in 1976 will be very concerned about their image of sincerity, credibility, and trustworthiness; we'll get what Arthur Herzog calls "the Candor Con."

The mass image-making campaign generated by the Bicentennial won't be a crisis, but will be certainly a nuisance. By 1976, we'll be so supersaturated with Bicentennial co-opting we'll be ready for another Revolution: this one to be touched off by a symbolic dumping into Boston Harbor of all the plastic American eagles, Early American furniture, and patriotically peddled Red-White-and-Blue knickknacks and doodads. We'll wince every time we hear the words "heritage" and "tradition" or see Liberty Bells, Franklins, Washingtons, and Jeffersons in the ads. (For more information, write the Peoples Bicentennial Commission, 1346 Connecticut Avenue NW, Washington, D.C. 20036, a group of motley youths who have done a brilliant job of exposing the crass commercialism of the "official" Bicentennial groups.)

Language manipulation during the past two decades has concealed one of our key housing problems. Under the romantic imagery of the covered wagon, metaphors of wanderlust, and euphemisms of "mobile home" and "parks," a significant change has occurred in housing patterns. By 1970, "mobile homes" accounted for 34 percent of all new single family units, and there were estimates that 94 percent of low income housing was such "mobile homes," usually crammed a few feet away from their neighbors in rows in such "parks." We are building new ghettos throughout the country, but few Americans are concerned, partially because most people have bought the PR phrases of the industry and accepted uncriticalIy the glamorized idea that "mobile homes" are really mobile. To provide adequate, humane housing for 100 million new Americans in the next 25 years is a problem of great concern; thus any language manipulation which tends to conceal or obscure reality here must be exposed, must be countered so that citizens can make judgments in a situation of equality in which facts are not masked by deliberately maintained illusions.

In the next decade, I believe we will see one of the most serious propaganda campaigns ever encountered: on food and diet. Judging by the past -- by the problems involved in the cigarette smoking issue (see Thomas Whiteside's Selling Death: Cigarette Smoking and Advertising) and by our ongoing controversy (with the FTC, FDA) about the various drug pushers on TV -- the forthcoming argument about food and diet patterns in America will be an even more lopsided propaganda blitz.

In the cigarette issue, for example, only a few companies and a few Southern states were involved directly in losing money. Yet, their fight for personal profits, despite the solid evidence of health hazard (cancer), still continues. A current cigarette ad (from a company which spent S85 million in advertising in 1973) has the chutzpah to claim: "If you don't smoke nobody is urging you to start." For this blatant lie, I lodged a "deceptive advertising" complaint, as yet unanswered, with the FTC. But I guess I must be patient: the FTC has been going after Bayer and Anacin and Bufferin and Excedrin for more than a decade, and the ad agencies and lawyers for these drug pushers are still finding loopholes in the laws, still rephrasing lies. But neither the cigarette issue nor the drug issue have the potential for controversy that we're going to see in the near future over some basic American ways of life" concerning food and diet.

Granted, there are fanatics, faddists, and health nuts with dire predictions about food and diet. But there are also serious scientific researchers now sending out warning signals based on probable conclusions of current studies. As traditional scientists they are not making premature claims, but evidence is accumulating that our American diet (really a post-1945 American diet) of hamburgers and hot dogs, steaks and snack foods, pizzas and soda pop, candy and ice cream, is having a devastating effect on the health of our citizens.

In the past generation, the American combination of advertising and abundance has created an environment harmful to our health which we have taken for granted; in other words, the cumulative effect of millions of ads for food products and food sellers has been a "conditioning propaganda." Americans are quite likely to scoff at, scorn, and reject any medical advice which points out that We are literally eating ourselves to death. As these medical reports are issued in the future, we are apt to see a propaganda blitz from those who profit by selling us certain foods and who stand to lose money if Americans change their eating and snacking habits.

"Every major food company today," said E. B. Weiss (Advertising Age, January 29, 1973, p. 54), "is getting more than half its income from products that weren't on the market 10 years ago." Obviously, any medical advice to stay away from greasy foods, snack foods, and the like because they are strong contributing factors, or even causal agents, to the epidemic of heart attacks affecting the American population is going to be countered by a massive advertising campaign confusing the issues, discounting "rumors," intensifying themes of personal "freedoms," focusing on here-and-now pleasures. Such advertising and such attitudes are going to come not merely from the major corporations peddling snacks and sweets (1973 ad expenditures: General Foods, $180 million; General Mills, $74.2 million; Kraftco, 574 million; Coca-Cola, S76 million; Nabisco, $69 million; Pepsico, S58 million; McDonald's, $46.5 million, etc.) but also from the thousands of small food companies, local restaurants, and farm groups such as the beef industry and the milk industry (which as we found out in 1973-74 has a rather large expense account and lobby).

In August 1974, for example, the FTC sought an injunction against the National Commission on Egg Nutrition, which had been placing ads claiming that "there is absolutely no scientific evidence that eating eggs, even in quantity, will increase the risk of heart attacks." This claim directly contradicts the advice given by the American Heart Association. If readers knew that the National Commission was a front for the industry, the American Egg Board, which was spending $2 million on this campaign, readers would be in a more nearly equal situation to judge the bias and source of the ad. The egg industry is indeed in trouble: per capita consumption of eggs has dropped from 389 in 1950 to 292 in 1973. A complex economic and moral question is posed: do we "save" the egg industry, or do we risk the possible premature deaths of millions? Today's egg industry is no longer a folksy chicken-coop-in-the-backyard business. It's primarily modernized into sleek rows of buildings, "egg farms" where the hens never touch the ground. But, it is not a big industry in comparison to the corporate giants whose toes are going to be stepped on in the future, who are going to be launching propaganda campaigns in defense of their interests.

A great deal of "conditioning propaganda" has already been going on for some time now, under the name of public relations or public service campaigns, with the purpose of making citizens feel very friendly toward our corporate giants. In some cases the intent is a bit obvious, for example, the PR campaigns for oil, coal, and
electric corporations that suggested specific "solutions" for the Energy Crisis (sic) . In other cases, institutional public relations campaigns for non-consumer or non-retail companies are designed to create a favorable public atmosphere in order to ward off demands for trust-busting, control legislation, or other governmental action that citizens might seek. Remember, after World War I, the public was very angry at the "merchants of death," the corporations
that had profited from the war. But who today can be mad at U.S. Steel or DuPont after they've been telling us week after week that they're involved in doing good things for better living?

Some conditioning is even more subtle, and a great deal of this is getting into the classrooms, almost unnoticed, making some teachers innocent co-agents and "volunteers" for corporate PR campaigns. For example, check the sources in the "Free Films for Educators" books. Last year, McDonald's provided thousands of classrooms with excellent kits and teaching aids about taking care of our external environment ("don't litter") ; I wonder if next year Ronald will give us some nutritional advice?

I'm not saying that we should be advocates of a particular cause, for example, of a specific diet. Or that we should necessarily get involved in confrontational tactics; for example, in devising counter-commercials ("You deserve a Stroke Today!" "Pimples Today! Coronary Tomorrow!"). Or that we should in any way impinge upon others' free choice to do what they wish. But, any meaningful freedom of choice means knowing the alternatives, the options, the other sides of an issue.

Rhetoric, as the art of persuasion, deals with issues in which there is doubt and disagreement. Rhetoric is concerned with the probable, not the certain. Rhetoric is concerned with complex choices -- the lesser of two evils -- the real dilemmas in human affairs which are not easily solved. Any professional persuader, any advertiser, knows this and also knows that scientists and doctors are going to be extremely conservative and slow in making definitive statements because their whole training and approach is focused on a search for rules and laws, predictable reproducible results. One should not attack this scientific quest for certitude, but one should recognize that in the interim period, public arguments will be rhetorical ones debating probabilities.

Teachers can help future citizens be aware of this, so that citizens know what the issues are in a complex argument, where the money is, who the speakers are. Above all, we should recognize the basic inequality that exists: not only is the money, media, and manpower to defend vested interests concentrated heavily on one side, but in addition the environment in which we have grown up has been so conditioned by advertising to certain norms and lifestyles that we find it difficult even to conceive that things could or should be different.

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Teachers can help "do something" about the current and future propaganda blitz. English teachers especially have a good opportunity because they are directly involved in language at all levels of our educational system. However, in my opinion, many of the kinds of reformers I've observed in the past few years are not very useful, effective, or coherent. Let me oversimplify by pointing out some "types":

Potshotters are those people with an eclectic enthusiasm, a random zealousness, who take potshots at everything with little concern for relative importance. Such people are outraged one day by a Pentagon communiqué, the next day by a hand-lettered sign in the local grocery store window. Targets are chosen not by significance but by proximity, perhaps even by whim. Without order or coherence, such randomness often wastes the energy, drains the enthusiasm, and exhausts the zeal of good, well-intentioned people who have not coherently established their goals and priorities.
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Assassins could be the label for those reformers with traces of paranoia or megalomania. Every Cause has its share of people whose motives are intensely personal and often a bit irregular or peculiar. Although extreme cases are relatively rare ("General Motors is out to get me!"), a much larger percentage of reformers can be classified simply as rivals for power. They damn the existing situation or Establishment, but they would be damned eager to impose their way, to substitute their ideas, if only they had the power. Underneath the selfless slogans of many reformers, underneath the veneer of idealism, lies a submerged strata of authoritarianism. "If-I-were-King" fantasies are not limited to those poor souls who are institutionalized; all reform movements have their share of would-be tyrants.

Single-issue people concentrate on one aspect of a problem, ignore the context, or exaggerate the part in relationship to the whole. Frequently, single-issue people focus on a narrow subject matter and have a short-term, one-shot existence as reformers. (Some distinctions must be made here, because it is valid and most useful for a specialist in a particular area to analyze or to criticize specific situations within the area. It is also reasonable for reformers to use a "task force" approach, a brief intensified attack on one specific aspect. But such valid approaches should be considered as tactical maneuvers within a wider, broader strategic context.) "Single-issue people" as used here suggests those narrow specialists whose scope and vision have been' so restricted or distorted that they do not see the broader implications of problems.

Ivory Tower Dwellers are the non-reformers within the teaching profession, those specialists who are totally blind to the problems of language and society. In the discipline of English, they are the technicians of literature or linguistics who plead they have no training, no interest, and no time to get involved in "someone else's specialty." Such an attitude is a gross abdication of responsible citizenship, of humane scholarship, of the intellectual life.

Thus far most observers would agree: the potshotters, the assassins, the single-issue people and the ivory tower dwellers contribute little to the cause of reform. Yet these types can hinder, delay, and obstruct change because they represent inertia, vested interests, emotional commitments to their own specialties, defensive reactions to anything which would seem to threaten their turf.

But often the inert hostility or the misdirected effort of these "types" of teachers is easier to deal with than some other commonly seen attitudes: the Preachers, who use the podium as their pulpit, to instill their own political views or moral judgments; the Puritans, who hold that language manipulation per se is "bad" (called Puritans here because I think their "linguistic Manicheanism" derives from a Puritan, Ramist rhetoric) ; the Rousseauists and Luddites; and the Cuddlers.

Rousseauists and Luddites are those reformers more common in colleges among younger teachers who are "with it" or "right on" (or whatever this semester's slang is) and whose classroom discussions are lively conversations about current events and pop culture. In theory, most of the modern Rousseauists may grant the concept of persuasion; that is, they will accept the idea that persuasion is legitimate. But they fear an organized, institutionalized persuasion. For them, it's all right for one person to try and persuade another person, but when it comes to an organized institution (i.e., the advertising industry) persuading the public, the Rousseauists deny commercial advertising the right to exist. They share Rousseau's fear of institutions and organizations. During the 1971 FTC Hearings, Alvin Achenbaum (vice-president of J. Walter Thompson Co. advertising agency) correctly rebuked the recklessness of many of the anti-advertising zealots: "Critics rarely define manipulation or back their charges with hard evidence. It is hard to know whether they are against advertising as such, or the misuses of advertising, or against selling in general."

Some teachers even share the Luddites' fear of machines and glamorize those inhumane revolutionaries today who literally want to destroy the existing urban-industrial system with the mad dog tactics of a savage anarchy. In reality, such destruction would cause death and suffering to millions of human beings. Relatively few teachers are so extreme, but more than a few who see themselves as "reformers" in fact romanticize the pastoral sentimentality of the counter culture, pandering to the wishful thinking and the self-centered luxury of the weekend Whitmans and the summertime Thoreaus. Henry David Thoreau is a dear friend of mine. But I'd hate to have this Henry as one of our strategic policymakers today, concerned as I am with the very real problem that in the next generation we have to feed, clothe, and house 100 million more people in this country and perhaps several billion more in the world.

Cuddlers characterizes those sincere teachers who do not want "to corrupt" the young, who want "to protect the innocence" of the children and act as a shield for their students. These teachers may know a great deal about language; they may know a great deal about human duplicity. But they hesitate to pass these items on. They don't want "to hurt" the children or "to destroy their illusions." They want children to remain forever innocent, to be trusting, to be believers. One such teacher wrote to me: "Isn't it a shame there's such a credibility gap now. I think our job is to restore our children's confidence in their government."

No. I disagree. Teachers should not act as the press agents or the public relations staff of any administration, any government, any corporation. If a democratic society is to remain free, young citizens should not be trained to be docile, trusting, and naive. Governments and their functionaries, corporations and their products, are always asking for our trust, our confidence, our belief in them.

"Trust me" is the standard pitch of every politician and practically every product peddled. At a recent FTC hearing, an advertising spokesman cogently noted that "Advertisers realize that when consumer confidence deteriorates, the value of all advertising deteriorates." In a capitalist economy, corporations have a vested interest in promoting trust and confidence as great virtues. In America, for example, "responsible" corporate groups (Chambers of Commerce, Better Business Bureaus, etc.) sponsor "self-regulatory" rules and agencies to discourage the abuses by fly-by-night frauds so the reputation of established business is not threatened and consumers remain confident.

In both capitalist and socialist spheres, governments spend enormous amounts of time and money building confidence, faith, and credibility not only for external propaganda but also for home consumption. Today, both modern corporations and governments have an enormous amount of sheer power -- in money, manpower, media access, laws and lawyers, rules and regulations -- compared to the individual citizen.

Throughout human history the problem of innocence and experience has been a central theme of moralists, philosophers, teachers, and, in a very personal sense, of parents. We are aware of the danger of "corrupting" the young; Christ, for example, warned against such corruption by using: the powerful metaphor of the millstone drowning those who would corrupt youth. But, the Bible also gives us the injunction: "Be ye as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves."

If teachers in a free democratic society do have certain moral obligations, it would seem that their efforts should be directed toward providing individual citizens with survival skills in a society of sophisticated persuasion techniques, and not in endorsing or advocating trust and confidence in any particular politician, administration, government, corporation, or product. Foremost among our survival skills must be a healthy skepticism, a realistic attitude, and an ability to make critical judgments.

All of these attitudes, these reformers, exist now within our schools, within our society. But which of these attitudes do we wish to encourage for the next generation? The 100 million more children who will be in American schools in the next 25 years will be exposed to a more intensified and sophisticated propaganda blitz from a larger advertising industry and a larger government and will live in a society even more organized and institutionalized.

Shall we encourage the Rousseauists? The Puritans? The Potshotters? The Assassins? Shall we go back into our Ivory Tower, ignore the problem, and hope that it will go away? Or shall we attempt, once again, to reform, to create some kind of coherent, organized, thoughtful, reformation of our attitudes toward education? If we are to be reformers, let us reform that for which we are most responsible, the teaching of language.

But where, specifically, shall we start? Without being trite, we must start with ourselves. But not in the hand-wringing spirit of "teacher-heal-thyself" from your indulgence in that "bad" thing of language manipulation. Let us start in a simple, realistic acknowledgment that most of our previous training and attention has been directed toward literature and classroom methodology and that we are generally ignorant about rhetorical techniques, nonverbal communication, and basic information on the media, advertising agencies, regulatory agencies, and so on.

This means that, as individuals, we have to devote attention and make time for personal reading and research in these areas. Obviously, we must sacrifice other priorities or other items which now consume our time. Instant results cannot be expected. It takes time, patience, a long-range view. But imagine if only a few thousand of the several hundred thousand people who teach language in the schools today were to decide now to focus their interest on these issues, to expand their readings, their research, and their writing. If you can imagine this, I can imagine that five years hence, we'd start seeing some very visible results.

It would be reasonable that, much like a series of widening, concentric circles, after such self-interest, one would be concerned with articulating these ideas in the classroom, the department, the school system or school district, and in the various regional and national organizations. There have to be some comprehensive curriculum changes, but I can't foresee this happening very soon, and certainly not without a broad base of support from alert, informed teachers.

"Do you really think," a voice inside me says, "that any of this can really happen? That any of these words you've written, or any of the words so eloquently written in some of the other essays here, can really have any influence? Aren't all of you simply putting off your roles as Mr. Chips and Miss Thistlebottom for a chance to put on your Don Quixote clothes and encourage others to do the same?"

But words count. Well-written sentences have lasted longer than corporations, nations, or empires.