In an appendix to his dystopian novel, [Orwell] discussed how an idea could be made literally unthinkable if there were no words to express it. The illustration he gave was the word “free.” In Newspeak, “free” could be used only in the sense of “this field is free from weeds” or “this dog is free from lice.” The concept of political or intellectual freedom had disappeared, because no one could put it into words.
My favorite.
“CONSERVATIVE: Neanderthal. Like “right-wing” (q.v.), but with the added bonus that it can be applied to both sides in the same conflict. Islamist “conservatives” want to impose headscarves while Western “conservatives” want to ban them….”
I would argue his definition of free speech has an alternate. It also means the right for a lefty group to attend any event and shout down anyone who opposes their views and prevent any speech contrary to theirs.
I’ve never heard anything that more accurately describes Liberals/ progressives than Michael Savages now famous quote “Liberalism is a mental disorder”.
They are truly mentally sick individuals, used as puppets and pawns by the world’s elitist power/ money systems.
Another great English Philosopher, Humpty Dumpty, illustrates how the post-modern left controls political debate by controlling the meaning of words, thereby shutting down debate through the assignment of words like racist, sexist, homophobic, etc:
“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”
Notice how every shooter is now “mentally ill”? Next you’re going to need a current mental health evaluation to get permission to own a firearm; that is if they don’t designate firearms ownership as a mental illness.
I have witnessed the ‘greed’ definition being adopted by those who consider themselves to be on either side of the political spectrum.
Standing in the grocery line-up, someone remarked how it was the result of corporate greed that more cashiers were not on duty. I mentioned that it was a locally owned franchise and not corporate. He still insisted it was greed. I replied that we all want to spend as little as possible and that is why he was at a discount grocery store. He still didn’t get it. I was recognizing the usual union speak.
My conservative mother-in-law remarked how her daughter-in-law was always one hour short of full-time and how the owner was greedy. I gave the same response as above. Difference was that she caught on.
“They are truly mentally sick individuals, used as puppets and pawns by the world’s elitist power/ money systems.”
The funny thing is, that is EXACTLY what liberals say about conservatives.
No doubt the socialist mentality, sold as liberalism, has taken over our schools, bureaucracies and media. Whining about this fact has become a full-time conservative pastime. What I would like to know is what we DO about it. A long-standing conservative majority in Ottawa has accomplished jack-shit.
Generally a positive person, I see no hope on this front. Conservatism in the west has no real leaders.
Hannan is right about double-speak, but he’s wrong about Orwell himself. By the end of his life Orwell was deeply discouraged about the so-called virtues of socialism. That’s precisely what 1984 is about. It was specifically that freedom is impossible under a socialist dystopia, a place where the television watches you.
“Instead of being watched by the state through telescreens, we carry our own screens—ones that put more information at our fingertips than an entire government department could have compiled in Orwell’s day. Big Brother has been defeated by capitalist technology.”
Dead wrong. If we’ve learned nothing else in the past year we’ve learned that these “screens” of ours put all of our communications directly in the hands of the government.
“Unrepentant socialist as he was, he never overcame his belief that the free market was doomed.”
But Orwell was right. The crony capitalism of the renewable energy industry, the massive bailouts of the auto companies in 2008 show that the free market has indeed been damaged, perhaps not yet irreparably. Any business activity can now require a host of government bureaucrats interpreting reams of regulation to go forward. Naturally it helps enormously if you have friends and political connections, subjecting our “free market” to palace politics.
I could go on, but I think you get the point. We live today in aspects of a tyranny that Orwell could indeed recognize. Oceania is not that far away.
Oh well.
There ain’t much hope that a population that chronically misuses the simple phrase “literally” will ever give much thought to the true meaning of words like liberty and freedom.
Nice article by Hannan.
Unfortunately he omitted my favourite newspeak distortion: LIBERAL
The word is used with different connotations by both left and right, and it’s especially twisted when used as the name for Canada’s “natural ruling party”.
DISTRACTION: Anything that may produce a great disturbance in the narrative. For example, “The fact that ‘Jackie’ was not raped at all, let alone gang raped for hours on broken glass, is a distraction from women’s truth that all men are evil oppressors who have more stuff than women.”; and “That Mike Brown was a violent, drug-addled thug, who had just committed a strong-arm robbery and then attacked a police officer is a distraction from what all blacks know: that police are racist murderers intent on preventing blacks from living their authentic black culture of violence, drug-use, theft and murder.”; “To say that Lena Dunham is a psychotic liar is a distraction, and unhelpful to the cause of oppressed psychotic liars everywhere.”.
See also UNHELPFUL
“Newspeak” is the tyranny of the articulate,(otherwise known as the PTB (AKA Predators That Be) who subtly and cleverly rewrite the lexicon and manipulate memes and connotations to suit their own ends. Methinks Shakespeare got it right: “First, lets kill all the lawyers.”
Wrong. Shakespeare is not advocating killing lawyers. The quote is made in Henry VI in a conversation between two villains who later commit murder. Naturally the two villains prefer a society without any laws. THAT’S the meaning of the quote.
Canadian Observer >
“The funny thing is, that is EXACTLY what liberals say about conservatives”
That may be true, but a few key policies of the worlds “Liberal Elitists” reveal the truth:
– Gun Control
– Open Borders
– Multiculturalism
– Global Warming (Manmade)
– “Environmentalism”
– Globalization
– Socialism & the Welfare State
– Foreign welfare
– Gender (feminism, homosexual normalization, LGBTWTFBBQ, etc)
– Militant atheism except when it comes to Islam
The Rule of Law – A judge over rules the Consent of the Governed via their elected representatives. Gay marriage now legal in Florida, like California and many other states where the voters specifically defined marriage as one man and one woman and a judge disagreed with their collective decision.
Jeb Bush said the States should decide the question of marriage and specifically in Florida said we should respect the Rule of Law. Whose law? Whose rules?
It doesn’t make any difference whether people have free speech or not if Big Brother is watching your every move, recording it, and capable of rounding up ring leaders.
In a society that’s regulated out the yin yang, everyone is violating regs every day and the state can arrest any of us anytime they choose.
Daddy, what did you do when they claimed carbon dioxide was a pollutant?
Posted by: johnlee at June 26, 2009 4:07 PM
My bad, Newspeak is now:
Daddy, what did you do when they claimed carbon was a pollutant?
Good one.
See also Divisive.
Your label if you disagree with the consensus.
Canadian Observer said: “Generally a positive person, I see no hope on this front. Conservatism in the west has no real leaders.”
Conservatism isn’t about “leaders”. Its about freedom. If you’re waiting for a Great Leader to come and give you your freedom, you’re in the wrong party. Great Leaders don’t give freedom. They TAKE IT.
Liberals want you to shut up. Don’t give them what they want. Don’t allow them to define words, define them yourself and never EVER back down.
That’s how you win. Inch by inch. Because that’s how we lost in the first place. Inch by inch.
“Great Leaders don’t give freedom. They TAKE IT.”
Some Leaders have protected freedom, thought it is true they cannot give it.
The world is a jungle where the law of the jungle says the mighty get their way anytime anywhere, except in civilization where the mighty want to protect freedom and equality.
Some great leaders have protected freedom or we wouldn’t be talking here and now.
United we stand, divided we fall. It’s all over but the crying.
Big Bother has us all under surveillance. Edward Snowden was a hero because he told us of the Truth, even though it was already too late.
the Truth:
We Lost the right to FREE speech on the same day We Lost the right to PRIVATE speech.
True.
But… the all powerful, all seeing, all pervasive Communist government of East Germany fell in a -day-.
How many guns are there in Canada? 16 million? How many were ever registered, despite the threatened ten year jail sentence? Two million.
Control is an illusion. They have no control. We do. This is the most disruptive, most radical truth there is. It topples empires and tyrants. Indeed, its the only thing that ever does.
They win when we forget that.
Don’t forget.