At a Loss for Words: Conversation in an Age of Rage by Carol Off

A Non-Fiction Review by John Oughton

Carol Off, journalist, author, and long-time host of CBC’s As It Happens explores how fractured, antagonistic, and emotion-fueled our political discourse has become. She has chosen six keywords and researched how their meaning has been shifted – often reversed – by right-wing politicians and media: freedom, democracy, truth, woke, choice, and taxes. 

It’s hard to ignore that, during a time when one hopes political opponents would collaborate and compromise to make progress on the huge challenges facing us — climate change and all its ensuing natural disasters, ongoing wars, the widening income gap between the wealthy 1%  and the middle class and poor, global pandemics — the opposite is the case. Trump spews schoolyard threats and insults at those who disagree with or campaign against him. Canadian Conservative leader Pierre Polievre was ejected from Parliament for calling PM Trudeau a “wacko.” In more civilized days, political insults were couched in considered, even literary language. Winston Churchill suggested that his opponent Clement Atlee was “a modest man with much to be modest about.”  Nixon, said Adlai Stevenson, was “the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree and then mount the stump to make a speech for conservation.” Now all political enemies are liars, crooks, failures – if you listen to Trump. 

Off’s theme is that “words we rely to define and defend our civil society are either put to work for a different ideological agenda or gutted of their meanings. The values they once stood for mocked and distorted…” Her hosting of  As It Happens led her to this realization after she became “alarmed by the strident language of many of our political conversations. Guests often became angry, irrational, and accusatory.” In fact, Off writes, right-wing, anti-democratic and autocratic forces have become skilled at using hot-button words to ignite outrage and contempt in their audiences, rather than discussing issues in a rational manner. Remember the recent attempts of conservative Repubicans to ban the dreaded “critical race theory” from schools in which it was never taught, or on the curriculum in the first place? Or those pols and trolls who now use “woke” and “liberal” (hence its more insulting variant, libtard) as insults, turning their original meanings upside-down.  

“Woke,” as Off says, first arose as a term used by Black activists to denote someone aware of the realities of living in a country with systemic racism and a history of slavery. Now Polievre, Trump, de Santis et al leverage it to evoke anger in their audiences against some vague liberal group that is over-compassionate and concerned about minority groups, the disabled, the poor, immigrants, etc. – in other words, anyone who is not a white Christian success story. Amusingly, Off quotes conservative figures who were unable to define “woke”, even in an on-air interview, supporting her contention that the meaning of loaded words no longer matters – just the load of negative emotions they bring. 

Her well-researched text —24 pages of notes document her assertions and facts — is a  clearly written account of these attempts to subvert, even negate, keywords. It recalls George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, which described how Big Brother (the ultimate fictional autocrat) gutted the meaning of words with oxymoronic slogans repeated ad nauseam, like “War is peace. Freedom is slavery.”  Off acknowledges this debt in her book, choosing Orwell’s line “It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words” as her epigraph. By contrast, Off argues, “The political rhetoric we require right now must be precise. We need vocabulary that has weight and substance… To accurately identify the causes of our anger and resentment, we need to be able to trust our language and each other.” She still sees some hope, however: “Despite what’s been happening to the six crucial words I’ve examined here, we still have the language to restart the conversation and to get ourselves out of a mess.” 

Off’s book is essential reading for anyone who cares about the current state of the world. She shows how not just her chosen terms, but truth itself, has been under sustained attack by “institutions” and “experts” funded by billionaires like the Koch brothers, who abhor taxes, all governments, and attempts to limit fossil fuel use. Right-wing extremists and their allies have mastered the art of disinformation to sway public opinion toward their positions. Examples include the pseudo-documentary Hillary: The Movie, funded by conservatives and released when Clinton was contesting the Democratic primaries. Conservative activist Leonard Leo, a genius at raising money from über-rich supporters, “spent hundreds of donated millions to bend the US judiciary toward his values.” She also mentions the American sociologist and environmental academic Robert Brulle’s peer-viewed study that revealed conservatives spent almost $600 million (more than I make in a year!) in “a campaign to manipulate the public about the threat posed by climate change.” Key investors were Koch Industries and Exxon Mobil. 

Finally, Off reminds readers that the disturbing tactics and language abuse used to frighten and convert democratic voters into authoritarian followers is not limited to the US (she notes Stephen Harper’s war on science, Polievre’s support of the libertarian Freedom Convoy that blockaded downtown Ottawa, and his frequent use of “woke”). She points to Hungary’s Orban and Brazil’s Bolsonaro as recent leaders admired and courted by the far right for their similar values, among others. This book will woke you up. 

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About the Author

Carol Off spent almost sixteen years co-hosting the multi-award-winning CBC radio program, As It Happens. Before that, she covered news and current affairs in Canada and around the world.

About the Reviewer

John Oughton lives in Toronto and has retired as a Professor of Learning and Teaching at Centennial College in Toronto. He is the author of six poetry collections, most recently The Universe and All That (Ekstasis Editions), the mystery novel Death by Triangulation, and over 400 articles, reviews and interviews.

Book Details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Random House Canada (Sept. 3 2024)

• Language ‏ : ‎ English

• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 368 pages

• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1039008437

• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1039008434