Orwell wasn't even half right
Jun. 11th, 2006 07:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chickenfeet"Newspeak" is surely Orwell's most chilling creation. The idea that the rulers could so distort language that words come to mean essentially the opposite of themselves is appalling and he was right in predicting that it would become a mainstay of governments and other authorities throughout the world. The fact that ostensibly democratic governments use Newspeak quite as much as authoritarian ones probably wouldn't have overly surprised GO. I think he would have been more surprised by the kind of Neospeak that pervades business, and latterly government, circles and serves either as a substitute for thought and analysis or, closely related, to enable managers to toe the party line without even admitting to themselves that it is complete twaddle.
Central though to Orwell's concept is the idea that use of Newspeak is a conscious decision to obfuscate. I think he would have been genuinely surprised, and appalled, at how the debasement of language seems to be facilitating an inability to function as a decent, morally capable human being. In evidence I present a quote from Rear Admiral Harry Harris, USN, the commandant of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp referring to the suicide of three inmates. "I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us.". I wish I believe that he was deliberately manipulating words to mislead us but I fear that that sentence is actually indicative of the moral universe that this benighted individual inhabits.
Central though to Orwell's concept is the idea that use of Newspeak is a conscious decision to obfuscate. I think he would have been genuinely surprised, and appalled, at how the debasement of language seems to be facilitating an inability to function as a decent, morally capable human being. In evidence I present a quote from Rear Admiral Harry Harris, USN, the commandant of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp referring to the suicide of three inmates. "I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us.". I wish I believe that he was deliberately manipulating words to mislead us but I fear that that sentence is actually indicative of the moral universe that this benighted individual inhabits.
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Date: 2006-06-11 12:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-11 12:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-11 03:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 07:00 am (UTC)I presumed it was the former reason, but I may be wrong.
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Date: 2006-06-12 07:05 pm (UTC)It is a truly scary quotation.
At least now we know he was wrong. It wasn't warfare, it was a PR stunt... (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5069230.stm).
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Date: 2006-06-12 07:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-13 12:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-13 12:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-13 12:31 am (UTC)