As I head back to work in a bullshit-infested university, this analysis serves as a valuable reminder and a practical inventory of everything to look out for in its statements and policies.

“It’s time to move beyond the debate between passive and active voice in favor of something more responsive to the fluid nature of contemporary political language.”

“The bureaucratic voice makes use of both active and passive constructions, but its purpose is uniform: to erase and efface any active agent on the part of the bureaucracy.”

“While the bureaucratic voice works to present governments and corporations as placid, apologetic, and unmovable, it also works to make their victims as active and vital as possible.”

“The bureaucratic state never acts of its own volition; it is always reactionary, and it always acts because the victim leaves it no choice.”

In contrast to the abuses of language that Orwell was concerned with, “the purpose of the bureaucratic voice is less to shape our thoughts or how we see the external world, but to reward incuriosity.”