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The Principles of Newspeak (1949)

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91–100 of 145 posts

Re: The Principles of Newspeak (1949)

#91
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean that the essay is not written in the fictional world of 1984, but in the real world. It's outside the work of fiction, a piece of literary criticism by the author of the work being discussed.

When I first read 1984 I also thought like you, that this was just Orwell writing an essay about his invention, but there are some passages in this essay that show it's being written from an "in universe" perspective, i.e. by someone who lives in the same universe that 1984 "happened". Just an example: > "Various writers, such as Shakespeare, Milton, Swift, Byron, Dickens, and some others were therefore in process of…

> ...you must also accept...

But another good thing about fiction is how few "musts" there are in its interpretation.

Re: The Principles of Newspeak (1949)

#93
post #71
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, COVID-19, technical name for a respiratory disease, totally in the same category as Gestapo

Technical name is a bit funny, in the past we had no issues calling something a "spanish flu", "bird flu" or "Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease", now these are officially considered "inappropriate". With the WHO responsible for picking an interim name until an appropriate name could be issued when an inappropriate name enters common use. They even list tourism among the things that absolutely need protection against this typ…

> Spanish Flu

Which the Spanish called “French Flu”, and which many signs point to it actually being “American Flu”: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC340389/

Re: The Principles of Newspeak (1949)

#94

Startup idea: create a synthetic subset of natural language in which it's difficult to write annoying comments, to simplify social media moderation. Sell it as an API. All extant moderation* is of the form "start with the set of all text strings, and remove unwanted things incrementally". What if we tried it the other way around -- start with *absolutely nothing*, and incrementally add words / production rules which…

I think there are two categories: Counter arguments and sarcasm.

- It’s easy to filter counter-argument using vocabulary.

- And I think it would be possible to filter sarcasm by cutting off the little insidious nuances, because that’s the only ones which distinguish sarcasm from approval.

Re: The Principles of Newspeak (1949)

#95
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you define 'leftist'? Orwell also wrote Animal Farm, which is critical of communism.

I think Animal Farm provides a nice answer to that. In my reading of the text, the problem was not necessarily with the revolution, it was the fact that the revolution was perverted and in the end the pigs (communist cadre) simply replaced the bourgeoisie (farmers) preserving the system. Orwell was a socialist, believing in large scale redistribution, government involvement in the economy, etc. He just thought this b…

I seem to be burning my Karma on this thread, but what the heck. One more question for the group.

Can anyone name a communist country that did not devolve into (or begin as) a dictatorship? In the history of the world, has there ever been a truly communist government?

I believe the answer is no, and that none will ever emerge because of human nature.

Re: The Principles of Newspeak (1949)

#96
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>technical name In an era where almost all viruses/diseases have been referred to by non-technical names, the rapid switch to a technical mouthful of “COVID-19” or “SARS CoV 2” is absolutely political. I remember sitting at an airport last year watching newscasters denigrating the use of the term “Wuhan virus” as I had just walked past a sign warning about MERS (Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome) just on the other…

Geez, how hard is it to just call it Covid rather than moan about it? What next, do you want to complain about having to call the HIV-caused disease AIDS, do you prefer "gay cancer"? "Gay plague"? As to where the hotbed for Delta variant is: nowadays, everywhere!

Nobody is “moaning”. We are pointing out obvious inconsistency.

What’s ironic about THIS particular virus is that if any virus DESERVES a regional origin name, it’s this one, as this one was most likely created in a lab and released on the world due to lab failures. Perhaps I could entertain the notion forgoing regional naming for viruses of natural origin, so as to not unduly destroy tourism, travel, and reputation of areas that just got unlucky. In this case, though, name and shame is more than fair — it’s deserved. And consistent!

Re: The Principles of Newspeak (1949)

#97
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I first read 1984 I also thought like you, that this was just Orwell writing an essay about his invention, but there are some passages in this essay that show it's being written from an "in universe" perspective, i.e. by someone who lives in the same universe that 1984 "happened". Just an example: > "Various writers, such as Shakespeare, Milton, Swift, Byron, Dickens, and some others were therefore in process of…

> ...you must also accept... But another good thing about fiction is how few "musts" there are in its interpretation.

Agreed, given that this is fiction, everything is possible, however...

... since this is an in-universe account of Newspeak (because of the way the essay refers to Newspeak, we know it's not just Orwell the author speaking), and since this account wouldn't be possible in Newspeak itself, and furthermore, and because this is written in past tense, we have a pretty good indication that Newspeak failed. And because Newspeak and Ingsoc are irrevocably married, we also have a good indication that Ingsoc itself must have failed.

This is a coda explaining in-universe some details of a failed regime, much like the similar one at the end of The Handmaid's Tale (though that one is way more explicit).

Re: The Principles of Newspeak (1949)

#98

Esperanto probably inspired Orwell on this, at least to an extent. He knew several Esperantists. Most of the "A vocabulary" rules are similar, like valuing regularities. I wonder if he hated esperanto, or just conveniently borrowed the feel of an artificial language from it. To me, the euphemisation aspects of newspeak are the most "orwellian." IE, they're most likely to trigger that reference. Orwell himself complai…

When did he speak out against Trotskyism? He fought with a Trotskyist militia in Spain.

He spoke out against all forms of authoritarian socialism in general.

Re: The Principles of Newspeak (1949)

#99
This is such a profound concept.

Worth nothing that after German reunification, East Germans had lost the vocabulary and political context of democracy, and didn't really know what parties meant, what they did, the concept of voting, balance of power etc. etc.. It was erased.

We see this in people fleeing North Korea - they often talk about people not even having the ability to have certain kinds of dissenting thoughts.

I'm sure this is an issue everywhere, but the pervasive ability of the CCP to control language is problematic.

Re: The Principles of Newspeak (1949)

#100
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Animal Farm provides a nice answer to that. In my reading of the text, the problem was not necessarily with the revolution, it was the fact that the revolution was perverted and in the end the pigs (communist cadre) simply replaced the bourgeoisie (farmers) preserving the system. Orwell was a socialist, believing in large scale redistribution, government involvement in the economy, etc. He just thought this b…

I seem to be burning my Karma on this thread, but what the heck. One more question for the group. Can anyone name a communist country that did not devolve into (or begin as) a dictatorship? In the history of the world, has there ever been a truly communist government? I believe the answer is no, and that none will ever emerge because of human nature.

There was never a truly communist government anywhere, even if you ask the communists themselves. Don't forget: per Marx, communism was supposed to be the final stage, to be achieved after a period of socialism. USSR was thus the "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics", not "Communist Republics" (although in Soviet sci-fi, USCR would sometimes pop up in the future).

If you rephrase the question as whether there's any socialist country that's not a dictatorship, the answer depends on your definition of "country". For example, Rojava is not internationally recognized as such, nor do they claim to be one, but they're a de facto independent polity that leans heavily socialist. For another example, the Zapatistas.

If we look at history, there was never a shortage of revolutionary democratic socialists. The problem is that back when socialist revolutions became viable, socialism as a political ideology was generally violently suppressed in all its forms, and only the most ruthless, authoritarian strains could not only take power, but hold it long enough. Bolsheviks in Russia are the archetypal example, and it's worth noting that the first thing they did after the revolution was disbanding the Constituent Assembly, as soon as they found out that they don't have the majority in it (it was held by other socialist parties, most of them democratic). For comparison, consider the Luxembourgists in Germany, and how their revolution fared.

The other problem is that there's a positive feedback loop there. Once Bolsheviks won in one country, they would sponsor socialist revolutionary movements in other countries - but any such aid would come with ideological strings attached. E.g. in Germany, the communist party was the one receiving funds from the Soviets, and the democratic socialists were labelled "social fascists"; and in Spain, Soviets even physically purged ideologically disagreeable people from the Republican ranks (Orwell has seen his share of that close up). Needless to say, well-funded movements are the ones that usually win, and so Soviet dominance ensured that authoritarian socialists would usually be the ones running the show everywhere else.

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