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The Principles of Newspeak (1949)
51–60 of 145 posts
Re: The Principles of Newspeak (1949)
#52Re: The Principles of Newspeak (1949)
#53> Even in the early decades of the twentieth century, telescoped words and phrases had been one of the characteristic features of political language; and it had been noticed that the tendency to use abbreviations of this kind was most marked in totalitarian countries and totalitarian organizations. Examples were such words as NAZI, GESTAPO, COMINTERN, INPRECORR, AGITPROP.
And now, COVID.
Re: The Principles of Newspeak (1949)
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not the cognitive dissonance that one would assume it to be. They've studied their methods well. Marx and Mao would be proud. https://nypost.com/2020/06/25/blm-co-founder-describes-herse...
I'd think Marx would be turning in his grave. Identity politics only serve to divide the working class when they could come together on more important matters that unite them across party lines.
People need not know anything about Marx to invoke him. He's much more useful as a boogyman -- besides, aggressive enough badmouthing him will discourage others from finding anything serious out about his beliefs or positions.
Re: The Principles of Newspeak (1949)
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, it almost looks like society values censorship more than free speech these days.
I don’t think you can accurately call the downvoted comments which are still visible and being debated, ‘censored’.
We're talking about the flagged one which is no longer visible; the trend to remove comments or even accounts is even increasing with the large providers. I responded to the flagged comment before it was flagged, and I didn't see a reason for flagging it. But you can already tell from the downvotes what values certain people here represent; obviously not exactly liberal.
EDIT: as it seems it has been unflagged meanwhile, so it's again visible and you can check yourself.
Re: The Principles of Newspeak (1949)
#56Re: The Principles of Newspeak (1949)
#57Newspeak's goal of a complete regularization of English, and the elimination of all redundant forms, is actually an interesting idea IMO. Business jargon often moves in this direction, e.g. "learnings" instead of "lessons". And it's not always a horrible dystopian idea - Chinese has standardized over time and become more accessible to the masses with each iteration. EDIT: I apologize for my doubleplusungood thoughtcr…
Orwell believed if language is pared down, so too are thoughts.
Sounds like he believed in The Sapir–Whorf hypothesis:
> The hypothesis of linguistic relativity, also known as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis /səˌpɪər ˈwɔːrf/, the Whorf hypothesis, or Whorfianism, is a principle suggesting that the structure of a language affects its speakers' worldview or cognition, and thus people's perceptions are relative to their spoken language.
> Linguistic determinism is the concept that language and its structures limit and determine human knowledge or thought, as well as thought processes such as categorization, memory, and perception.
Re: The Principles of Newspeak (1949)
#58> Even in the early decades of the twentieth century, telescoped words and phrases had been one of the characteristic features of political language; and it had been noticed that the tendency to use abbreviations of this kind was most marked in totalitarian countries and totalitarian organizations. Examples were such words as NAZI, GESTAPO, COMINTERN, INPRECORR, AGITPROP. And now, COVID.
Ah yes, COVID-19, technical name for a respiratory disease, totally in the same category as Gestapo
Re: The Principles of Newspeak (1949)
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd think Marx would be turning in his grave. Identity politics only serve to divide the working class when they could come together on more important matters that unite them across party lines.
People need not know anything about Marx to invoke him. He's much more useful as a boogyman -- besides, aggressive enough badmouthing him will discourage others from finding anything serious out about his beliefs or positions.
More to the point - the propaganda that BLM is a "Marxist domestic terrorist group" effectively discourages people from studying the group's actual beliefs or positions.
Re: The Principles of Newspeak (1949)
#60Newspeak's goal of a complete regularization of English, and the elimination of all redundant forms, is actually an interesting idea IMO. Business jargon often moves in this direction, e.g. "learnings" instead of "lessons". And it's not always a horrible dystopian idea - Chinese has standardized over time and become more accessible to the masses with each iteration. EDIT: I apologize for my doubleplusungood thoughtcr…
> elimination of all redundant forms
Does anything like that exist. Nuances are intellectual keys conceived for discrimination.
Get proficiency over the language, and you will use 'learnings' when you mean learnings and 'lessons' when you mean lessons. It is having mental dominance over complexity. Simplification itself requires that dominance - it is thought management.