<i>Dogwhistles and Figleaves: How Manipulative Language Spreads Racism and Falsehood</i>

It’s easy to feel lost when trying to understand how language works in the contemporary political landscape. Social and political philosophers of language have made significant strides in providing tools for thinking about the relationship between language and politics—offering theories of slurs, silencing, hate speech, propaganda, generics, and a range of other power-laden uses of language. But understanding how these uses of language operate in the messy, complicated, ever-changing world of contemporary politics still presents a serious challenge. The ground seems to constantly shift beneath our feet.Jennifer Saul’s Dogwhistles and Figleaves embraces this challenge wholeheartedly, offering a model for future work in the social and political philosophy of language. Saul’s central aim is to provide a theory of two communicative maneuvers—dogwhistles and figleaves—and demonstrate the crucial role they play in propagating racism, misinformation, and polarization. Of particular interest to Saul is accounting for the rise of explicit racism and blatant falsehoods in political speech during the first Trump presidency and the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic.The book is divided into two parts: Part I introduces the core theoretical machinery of the book—the White Folk Theory of Racism, racial dogwhistles, and racial figleaves. Part II then draws on these theoretical tools to explain the proliferation of blatant falsehoods and conspiracy theories in political speech.Saul’s basic picture in part I is as follows: There is a norm—Don’t be racist—that prohibits the expression of explicit racism (20). Some language users actively support this norm (those committed to some form of anti-racism), some reject the norm (those who openly advocate racist ideas), and others accept a thin version of the norm but can be convinced to “look the other way” if the speaker can claim plausible deniability for racist speech (10). In this environment, dogwhistles and figleaves serve a particular function—they allow speakers to disseminate racist ideas while maintaining the appearance of abiding by the prohibition against expressions of racism. In the case of dogwhistles, this result is achieved via covert, coded speech. Saul divides dogwhistles into two main kinds: (1) “overt code” dogwhistles, which involve a “secret code” that is decoded by one group in the speaker’s audience while remaining unrecognized by another (42); and (2) “covert effect” dogwhistles, which prime the racist resentments of audience members without their awareness (48). For instance, speakers might refer to “States’ rights” or “inner city” Americans (43, 49). Figleaves, by contrast, are “additional bits of speech” that offer “cover” to speech that would otherwise be (correctly) understood as racist (10). For instance, a speaker might add “I’m not a racist, but …” at the beginning of an utterance or “… and some of my best friends are Black” to the end of an utterance (75–76). Successful figleaves and dogwhistles provide a form of deniability to speakers—dogwhistlers can always appeal to the code word’s ordinary (“innocent”) meaning, while the use of figleaves raises doubt about whether the speaker is really racist (57). In both cases, the speaker evades responsibility for racist speech, norm rejecters are emboldened, norm accepters are pacified, and norm supporters who point out the racism may be accused of oversensitivity (“wokeness”).The return to explicit racism presents a potential puzzle for Saul’s influential earlier work on dogwhistles: If there is a norm against explicit expressions of racism, why is it that explicit expressions of racism appear to be staging a comeback, with only limited negative political consequences? Saul’s initial theory of dogwhistles might seem to suggest the opposite trajectory—that speakers’ expressions of racism would become increasingly covert as they seek to avoid violating the prohibition against explicit racism. Yet now it seems that “saying the quiet part out loud” is increasingly accepted and even celebrated (as “owning the libs”) (2).Saul addresses this puzzle by providing an account of how figleaves can offer cover for even blatantly racist speech. Key to Saul’s argument is her discussion of the White Folk Theory of Racism. Saul argues that the theory of racism embedded in the norm—Don’t be racist—builds in a set of overly restrictive assumptions about what it means to be racist. For instance, Saul suggests it is often assumed that racism must involve a conscious belief in the biological inferiority of a racial group, that only individuals can be racists (not speech or institutions), that an individual must be racist “in their heart,” and that racists must be monstrous (24). With this tightly constrained definition of racism operating in the background, it is relatively easy for speakers to generate a figleaf for almost any expression of racism. All a speaker has to do is raise “just enough” doubt to “block the inference to the claim that the speaker is racist” (74). Speakers can raise doubt in various ways: by presenting their utterance as humorous (“It’s a joke!”), by deferring responsibility to others (“People are saying that …”), or by turning the accusation of racism on others (“I’m not racist, [my opponent] is the real racist”) (75–84). As long as these strategies cast some doubt on whether the speaker counts as racist according to the White Folk Theory of Racism, the figleaf will achieve its purpose. Members of the norm accepting group will be more likely to become convinced that even brazen expressions of racism are “not really racist” (98).A key innovation in part II of Dogwhistles and Figleaves is Saul’s theorization of the ways dogwhistles and figleaves contribute to the spread of conspiracy theories and misinformation. Alongside the norm against racist speech (Don’t be racist), Saul suggests we also accept a norm in favor of truth-telling: “Be truthful” (136). As with the norm against racist speech, dogwhistles and figleaves serve as ideal tools for speakers who wish to violate the norm of truth-telling while maintaining the appearance of abiding by it. Dogwhistles can be used for coded communication about conspiracy theories. For instance, seemingly innocuous phrases like “Nothing can stop what’s coming” and “Save the children” can signal a social media user’s support for QAnon (156–58). Figleaves can be leveraged to raise doubt about whether speakers have violated the norm of truthfulness. As with racial figleaves, speakers can claim that they are “just asking questions,” present themselves as merely reporting what “a lot of people are saying,” or qualify their confidence by saying, “I don’t know if this is true or not, but …” (144–48). Saul is careful not to overstate the case here—lies, bullshit, and conspiracy theories are not a new phenomenon in political speech, she reminds us. What has changed, Saul suggests, is that politicians have become more comfortable appealing to blatant falsehoods (with little fear of backlash) and conspiracy theories are increasingly “playing a larger role in our political discourse” (131). Dogwhistles and figleaves, Saul argues, have played a key part in enabling this new status quo by stretching the boundaries of what is understood as consistent with the directive to “be truthful.”One challenge for Saul’s project in Dogwhistles and Figleaves is the astonishing variety of different uses of language she aims to account for. Dogwhistles range from more familiar forms of coded speech to uses of language that prime racist attitudes below the level of conscious awareness. Figleaves are even more heterogenous. Figleaves may be bits of speech added just before or after an utterance (synchronic) or speech that is added much later on (diachronic) (74). Figleaves can appeal to humor, friendship, ignorance, political correctness, or any number of other potential qualifications or evasions. The same string of words may be a figleaf when used by one speaker and an innocent caveat when used by another. Saul even suggests that individuals can serve as “human figleaves” when members of a targeted racial group are strategically used to publicly defend racist policies (96). Finally, both figleaves and dogwhistles can come in intentional and unintentional forms.A natural objection to raise here is: Do dogwhistles and figleaves really pick out particular, distinct varieties of speech? Extending Saul’s account of dogwhistles and figleaves to deal with blatant falsehoods broadens the scope of her framework, but one might worry that it ends up too broad—and risks losing sight of the core linguistic phenomena that Saul’s account seeks to illuminate.This objection, though, misses what is distinctive about Saul’s approach in Dogwhistles and Figleaves. Throughout the book, Saul repeatedly draws our attention to the fact that speakers who use dogwhistles and figleaves must navigate and manage multiple audiences: those who reject norms against explicitly racist or obviously false speech, those who merely accept these norms, and those who actively support these norms. A key social function of dogwhistles and figleaves, Saul suggests, is to generate conflict and division between these groups. When a speaker uses a dogwhistle or figleaf, a specific dynamic tends to emerge: some members of the audience (norm supporters) point out the racism or falsehood, other members of the audience (norm rejecters or accepters) defend the speaker by appealing to the figleaf or innocent, surface-level meaning of the dogwhistle. A dispute ensues. Because the speaker is able to claim deniability for the racist message or the obvious falsehoods, criticisms of the speaker come across as judgmental and oversensitive. In this context, it is easy for norm accepters to be persuaded that the speaker is not really racist or not really a liar. The combination of doubt, deniability, and the high bar set by the White Folk Theory of Racism give the speaker near-immunity from challenge. The end product is rising polarization.Saul’s project is thus best understood as an account of the social function dogwhistles and figleaves play in these group-level dynamics of conflict over racist and false speech. What unites figleaves and dogwhistles is not anything about these utterances at the level of semantic content or even their specific pragmatic features. Rather, these uses of language are distinguished by the function they play in generating a particular kind of conflict and division between groups. This means that the array of speech included as instances of dogwhistles and figleaves will necessarily be broad and varied—any utterances that fulfill the social function will count. In my view, this is not a deficit of Saul’s approach. Rather, Saul’s attention to group-level dynamics offers a much-needed corrective to our typical focus only on interpersonal contexts of language use.Saul’s Dogwhistles and Figleaves is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding the politics of our time, the relationship between language and power, and foundational questions about the social infrastructure of language and communication. It is timely, accessible, and packed with richly detailed examples. It is attuned both to specific features of uses of language and the broader political context they occur in. Most importantly, readers will come away feeling a little less lost—and with some tools to help us address these pressing problems.