Politicians and the "Sliding of Meaning"

Dr. X discusses the use of Linguistic Tells in Narcissism to discern the level of Narcissism in our politicians and offers a very useful caveat:

Mark Liberman at Language Log investigated recent claims that Barack Obama and Sarah Palin overuse first-person pronouns.  Using a counting script he developed, Liberman found that Obama used the word 'I' far less than George W. Bush did in a comparison of first inaugural addresses and first press conferences.  Comparing Sarah Palin's resignation speech with other major resignation and concession speeches, Liberman found only "equivocal" evidence for the claim of excessive first-person pronoun usage.

These erroneous claims about first-person pronoun usage were intended to support arguments that both politicians are unusually narcissistic, egocentric or excessively self-involved, but I am extremely skeptical of the notion that frequency of first-person pronoun use is anything more than a weak indicator of egocentricity.

There are a number of reasons such frequency usage is a misleading measure of Narcissism in politicians, not least that they so often have a carefully constructed, focus group approved, False Self that they present to the public.  Their responses to questions are often rehearsed and anything but spontaneous.  (It is possible that during rare moments of spontaneity their true self leaks through, but in general we are watching an act at most times with far too many politicians.)  The political False Self is seen most overtly when politicians believe they need to disguise their real (Narcissistic) or ideological interests from the public.  No politician is authentic enough to suggest that he really wants power because it is a deeply held desire to tell people what to do!

Dr. X then discusses a much greater danger from Political speech, a danger not confined to Narcissists:

These erroneous claims about first-person pronoun usage were intended to support arguments that both politicians are unusually narcissistic, egocentric or excessively self-involved, but I am extremely skeptical of the notion that frequency of first-person pronoun use is anything more than a weak indicator of egocentricity.  A far more interesting claim about the narcissist's use of language comes from Mardi Horowitz (1).

Horowitz says that narcissists rely on a defense he has termed "sliding of meanings."  Within the context of narcissism, sliding of meaning refers to defensive remolding of linguistic meaning to preserve the narcissist's primitive sense of perfection.  In layman's terms, the narcissist can never admit to being wrong or deficient in any significant way, so he or she plays weaselly games with words.

This defensive maneuver can be maddening for anyone dealing with a narcissist, but the narcissist doesn't slide meanings merely as a device to deceive others.  For the narcissist, sliding of meanings is a habitual form of self-deception.

Aside from the meaningless truism that most politicians have more than a surfeit of Narcissism, it is also a truism that all Politicians rely on "sliding of meaning" to obfuscate and hide unpalatable realities.  Few Politicians get re-elected promising that the voters will have to pay for all the things they want and expect from government.  However, once people catch on that the "sliding of meaning" has become so overt and egregious as to constitute what appears to be indistinguishable from lying, the Politician is in trouble.

President Obama is having more difficulty with this he had any reason to expect.  He has the talent for Florentine articulation that most successful Politicians need, in which the art of saying very little while speaking a great deal leaves the audience believing whatever they want most fervently to believe.  Obama's problem is that the usual Panglossian approach to politics practiced for the last three decades, where everything is offered to the voters, little is expected from them, and someone else always pays the bill, has broken down during a deep recession. 

Realty has finally caught up with our bubble economy and it is Barack Obama's great misfortune, and the source of his great bewilderment, to be President just when the government's ability to continue to be the great cornucopia of our desires is no longer believable to a growing number of Americans, who suddenly have to pay their bills and do not think they can pay everyone else's bills at the same time.  It is a cruel irony that the most liberal President since Jimmy Carter has a nation which can no longer afford him.