A man may take to drink,” wrote George Orwell, “because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.” Unfortunately, the Daily Princeton is like the man who rushes the growler a few too many times.
Last month, the members of the American Whig-Cliosophic Society found Edward Snowden guilty of treason. On other campuses—even Princeton’s aristocratic, Northeastern peers—Edward Snowden is a kind of geek-dissident hero who harnessed his hacking powers for good to reveal the excesses of the National Security Agency.
The people who introduced us to everything “social” and all things “innovative” have political positions and ideological stances that impact policy in real and tangible ways. As the language of entrepreneurship creeps into our vernacular, the politics of the entrepreneurial class creep into the halls of government.
