Chinese culture suffers bad press internationally because of its love of idiom; as do Japanese and Korean culture as well. It commonly makes literally translated dispatches look absurd. Who can forget the celebrated Cold War phrase "running dogs of imperialism"? Such are an easy butt of humour; and they unfairly evoke a kind of group mind control.

A Doonesbury cartoon demonstrates. Honey (can I assume a certain level of shared cultural context here?) has prepared a bumper sticker for Duke's presidential campaign. It reads, in ringing Chinese style, "The people rejoice at the imminent wiping out of the two pests and their lackeys."

It probably wouldn't play in Peoria.

So plain language has a cultural and a political agenda. This is a plain fact. Orwell, at least, was completely aware of this aspect of plain language. He was a political animal, on the animal farm, and he saw plain language as a protection against oppressive politics. Remember the title of his seminal essay on the subject: "Politics and the English Language." It's as plain as that. Since then, the history of the plain language movement has been a history of promoting openness in government.

The elimination of "cliche," or standard phrases, is in particular an explicitly political tool. Stock phrases favour conservatism, which is to say, conventional wisdom. Most cultures value conventional wisdom, conservatism, more than the modern West. We do not respect our ancestors to that extent.

African-American culture is an example. As a piece floating around on the Internet outlines, cliches are necessary to writing the blues, the classic expression of the African-American soul. Rule number one: "Most blues begin 'woke up this morning.'" Rule number 5: "Blues cars are Chevies and Cadillacs. Other acceptable blues transportation is Greyhound bus or a southbound train." Rule number 4 says it all: "The blues are not about limitless choice." ⁽³⁾

In sum, the drive for originality in language, and indeed the shunning of polite forms, reinforces a favourable view toward change in political and social spheres, and toward human equality.

We cannot separate this from plain language, it seems to me, and so we just have to face the moral choice: do we have the right to assume these are absolute values.

Can we live with this? For there will be opposition. As the US discovered in Viet Nam, some cultures don't want this; or at the very least, remain unconvinced.

But this is only one aspect of a broader dilemma. Do we believe in human rights? If we do not believe in human rights as universal, we do not believe in human rights at all: that is what holding them as "self-evident" and "inalienable" means. If they can be legitimately withheld from Afghans by their government, because of cultural differences, they can legitimately be withheld from blacks in America, or Jews in Germany, as well.