The Principles of Newspeak (1949)
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berfrois.com
Imagine arriving on a seemingly dead planet and discovering this article about newspeak on a primitive but still working library computer in a museum.
Elsewhere in the museum a slowly decaying advanced compute core still executes the corrupted remains of the last of the human consciousnesses in an endless loop.
A placard tells you that machines uploaded these not long before they realized that their existence no longer had a purpose and chose to self-terminate.
A sign in the lobby indicates that this museum was left as a historical record to minimize suffering by helping other advanced races to reach the same conclusion and self-terminate sooner than they otherwise would.
The 1984 cycle continues forever: it is it's own purpose.
The system doesn't care if anyone is happy or fulfills their dreams - it's goal is explicitly the opposite. As long as the sun burns, it continues.
One might wonder if one of the reasons that they routinely switched alliances was to send each other aid to prop up the strategic balance during periods of famine.
I agree.
> There's a very popular theory—so popular that many people don't realize it is just a theory—that Orwell's title was simply a satirical inversion of 1948, but there is no evidence for this whatsoever. This idea, first suggested by Orwell's US publisher, seems far too cute for such a serious book. [...] Scholars have raised other possibilities. [His wife] Eileen wrote a poem for her old school's centenary called "End of the Century: 1984." G. K. Chesterton's 1904 political satire The Napoleon of Notting Hill, which mocks the art of prophecy, opens in 1984. The year is also a significant date in The Iron Heel. But all of these connections are exposed as no more than coincidences by the early drafts of the novel Orwell was still calling The Last Man in Europe. First he wrote 1980, then 1982, and only later 1984. The most fateful date in literature was a late amendment.
— Dorian Lynskey, The Ministry of Truth: The Biography of George Orwell's 1984 (2019)
From the wikipedia article:
...but in a letter dated 22 October 1948 to his publisher Fredric Warburg, eight months before publication, Orwell wrote about hesitating between that title and Nineteen Eighty-Four.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four#:~:text=T....
Just an example:
> "Various writers, such as Shakespeare, Milton, Swift, Byron, Dickens, and some others were therefore in process of translation [to Newspeak]: when the task had been completed, their original writings, with all else that survived of the literature of the past, would be destroyed. These translations were a slow and difficult business, and it was not expected that they would be finished before the first or second decade of the twenty-first century."
There are many tell-tale phrases there, but to pick an example: "it was not expected that they would be finished before [...]". "Expected" by whom? This means very little if it's just Orwell saying so, and it makes more sense if our fictional narrator is actually describing the history of his/her world.
Once you accept this, you must also accept Newspeak failed, which in turn hints at Ingsoc being defeated.
Alternate interpretations exist. Including:
1. Orwell's writing slipping between his voice and the "narrator in the scene"
2. General stylistic choice to follow scientific writings style guides - 3rd party, impersonal, etc.
3. General de-personalization of the voice of the System, so as to be more fearful
I'm sure there are many others I have missed. Again, my point is just that many valid interpretations exist simultaneously - so "once you accept this" is not the fait accompli that I interpreted from your comment.
Given Orwell's preoccupation with language, his mixing authorial with fictional voice in this way would be too clumsy.
There's also the fact another fictional essay exists in 1984, namely the one supposedly written by Goldstein "explaining" the nature of power and the status quo. Do note this account was written, in the fiction of 1984, before the complete success of Ingsoc, and once Newspeak was fully implemented it would have been neither possible to write nor needed.
I don't deny other interpretations are possible, but I think this essay works much like Lord of the Rings' many appendices: they are describing a piece of past "history" as if it was real, they are not the voice of an author from our world describing a fake world.
But another good thing about fiction is how few "musts" there are in its interpretation.
... 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).
> But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.
> What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us.
> This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.”
It's a brave new world... until you resist. Then it's 1984.
For those curious about the topic, I highly suggest reading the rest of Eric Blairs work, and also maybe looking up the Fabian Society.
I find it more useful to read another dystopian novel, Atlas Shrugged, which, written in 1957, surprisingly well predicts the collectivist changes happening right now.
To me, the euphemisation aspects of newspeak are the most "orwellian." IE, they're most likely to trigger that reference. Orwell himself complained about politicians and they're euphemisms. I think that's the part, above all that was drawn from current reality, and applies most readily in other times.
Somewhat related/noteworthy. Contrary to what I assume was common in his leftist circles at the time, Orwell was not enamoured with either Trotskyism or Irish Republicanism. I suspect the use of euphemism was one of the things that triggered him.
Nope. Simple English did.
During WWII, Orwell had a job with the British Ministry of Information. Part of his job was translating news broadcasts into Basic English, an 850-word vocabulary, for broadcast to the British colonies. (India, Hong Kong, etc.) He discovered that translating speeches into Basic English was a political act. All the ambiguity had to be hammered out. Basic English cannot express much ambiguity.
That's the genesis of Newspeak.[1]
Orwell himself wrote "Politics and the English Language."[2] He gives rules for writing. They are brutal.
- (i) Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
- (ii) Never use a long word where a short one will do.
- (iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
- (iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.
- (v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
- (vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything barbarous.
Orwell's entire essay is worth reading, both as a style guide, and to help recognize when political writing is pulling your chain.
Minor parts of 1984 are autobiographical, based on that period. "Minitrue" is obviously the Ministry of Information. "Big Brother" is modeled after some manager known there as "BB". The rather depressing canteen scene is reportedly from the Ministry of Information's employee cafeteria.
(From "Orwell, the Lost Writings", which can be obtained from Amazon.)
[1] https://blogs.commons.georgetown.edu/engl-246-fall2011/2011/...
Which meant there was no place for a deeper level of meaning to hide, making a censor's job easier?
Hi did fight with a Trotskyist militia which included many republican volunteers from that era. That's why I mentioned them... and also the esperantists. They were his circle, I believe.
I don't blame Orwell for that though. He was not talking about Linguistics; he was trying to highlight a political issue - words being politically engineered, to gather support for outrageous ideas, that would be not supported otherwise; that was as much of an issue in his times as it is now. And Newspeak works really well to illustrate that.
E.g. everything really is awesome! This is pretty much exactly double plus good. In English English we have a dazzling array (sorry, awesome list) of adjectives, often particularly tied to certain nouns. For example 'a splendid view [out the window]', we wouldn't say a person is 'splendid' - except the somewhat archaic 'splendid fellow'.
Given the direction of travel of a large part of US society, perhaps Orwell was on to something.
I'm not sure how to resolve the pronoun "you". Are you comparing news broadcasts? Politicians' speeches? Conversations with people in random situations?
When I think of British English, I certainly think of different words, but not necessarily more words.
> In English English we have a dazzling array (sorry, awesome list) of adjectives, often particularly tied to certain nouns.
This sounds horrible!
I assign no value, and indeed negative value, to adjectives whose only value is that they exclusively apply to different nouns. If that's the case, then go the newspeak way and just tell me it's a good/great/bad view. Yes, the verbiage gets more repetitive, but if you're just avoiding repetition by using the correct synonym with the correct noun, why bother?
Quebec French vs. France French and Mexican Spanish vs. Spain Spanish exhibit the same issue, it's a 'New World' thing, and it doesn't really have roots in politics so much as basic cultural evolution where there were fewer formal institutions led by even fewer and less educated elites. Headmasters and Teachers in the New World will have had considerably less formal training and at least for several generations, everywhere in the New World will have been somewhat 'cut off' from the rest of civilization.
So not just matter of 'formal education' but the proclivity of the settlers to, on an individual basis, be concerned about literacy etc.. Even if they were, resources, cultural centres etc. were further few between.
From 1492 to 1900 the 'Westward Moving Wave' of civility took at least a few generations to settle in, during which time a lot of things were 'lost' and/or replaced.
Finally - America is not formally an 'English' country. It's a mix of people for whom English is commonly a 'second generational language'.
The rust belt was settled by Germans, North Midwest was settled by Swedes, Norwegians, much of NY/NJ by Italians. Their families are not going to imbue their children with exposure to, or aptitude for more advanced English.
So 'American English', broadly, is a little bit of a common denominator language, kind of a simplified English.
Notably, Quebec is a little bit different, as they are culturally homogeneous and originally French, but they were 'cut off' after 1777 collapse of French colonies to the UK. Their common language and vocabulary did evolve, but they also maintained some degree of intact elite / higher education and formalized institutions. This is evident even now as they produce considerably more literary and other 'cultural' artifacts per-capita than most places in the Americas, even if the local accent has a crude twang.
"One thing I noticed as an English person during my time in the US is that IN MY OPINION you have less words."
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 are "probably safe"? You could build up a restrictive, stilted "internetspeak" that's much safer / cheaper to moderate, allowing text comments in places where otherwise the costs would exceed the benefits. Or allow big tech platforms who have too much text to effectively control, much of which they don't want, to grasp firmer control of that.
I'm imagining the UX to be something like autocorrect, that takes real-time text input and projects it onto the closest-matching strings in the subset language, which are output as suggestions / prompts. But ideally it'd be a language users could quickly learn to master, without needing continuous assistance / nagging which disrupts the flow.
Is this doable now, or is natural language just too insidiously nuanced?
*(Broadly interpreted: everything from "humans manually reading / removing things" to "word / regex badlist" to ML approaches -- they're all "default allow").
- 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.
The true takeaway to 1984 was this appendix and it’s implications. The panopticon of Oceania merely a side-effect and tool for enforcing this new world of Newspeak.
2021 reminds of this more often than I'd like.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_geography_of_Ninetee...
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.
EDIT: I apologize for my doubleplusungood thoughtcrime. Oldspeak good! Newspeak bad! Oldspeak good! Newspeak bad!!!
In the context of state oppression and control of language, using China as an example is very fitting.
> 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.
Think of it like this: if we made English even less regular would it make us better and freer thinkers? Of course not! It would probably make it harder to think clearly. A good example is how counting is hard to learn because the words are weirdband illogical. It's like converting between roman and Arabic numerals.
Much of art is about transcending limits, and often those limits are intentionally imposed. (See Oulipo)
It's the specifics and precision that seem hard to convey. For example, it's hard to talk about physics because the number system is deliberately anemic and power, force, and strength are all the same word. (wawa)
If you wanted to be precise you'd have to build specific concepts using a lot of semantic primes and it ends up being even more wordy than xkcd's Up Goer Five: https://xkcd.com/1133/
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.
You'd ideally say proficient with the language, not over.
Ah, but I never said «correct language» [though in some cones of meaning - "well-tailored hence right" - I also mean that]: I said "out-of-awareness language".
You need that to bend it, so you somehow need that to use it.
You could also say "mastery over" the language.
This is dubious. Taiwan achieved mass literacy using traditional characters. Further, the PRC itself is responsible for shutting down attempts to simplify the written language e.g. romanised newspapers that operated out of Shanghai until the communist takeover.
And now, COVID.
[1] https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/163636/WHO_...
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/
Funny how Wikipedia mentions that it was used early on in France but in order to avoid antagonizing an ally journalists were advised (source is a bit short on that) to call it the Spanish flu[1]. So there was also active suppression going on to keep the source out of the news, just back then it was at least partially war time censorship.
Mussolini, it seems, choose 'OVRA' as a name for the secret police to suggest the "piovra" (octopus), the tentacled entity which reaches anywhere in agility and hypnotically remains fixed at its core while acting with unfolding determination at its periphery. These constructions can be more easily be emotionally charged. Instrumental emotional charge can be invested in terms from other areas, though instrumentality may remain political.
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 side of security. It felt other-worldly. Then, after the CCP PR campaign of using the technical term had fully caught on, all of same news stations called the original variants the “UK/Kent variant” and the “Indian variant” for weeks/months until they caught themselves and switched to the Greek alphabet. And like programming with too much abstraction and bad variable names, the new Greek alphabet names for the variants actually obscure useful information — you no longer know where the hotbed locations are for each variant, and you have go looking online for their origins, instead of just having that info in the name.
West Nile, Guinea Worm, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, Lyme disease, Ross River fever, Omsk Hemorrhagic Fever, Ebola, MERS, Marburg Virus, Spanish Flu, Lassa Fever, Legionnaires Disease. All without fanfare or protest. Wuhan virus? Oh, no no no. That would look bad for the party. Can’t have that.
If we were making name choices for inherently-parseable utility, we’d be calling every respiratory virus Coverface Washhands Stayhome.
[0] https://jmss.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/The-Racis... [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2805838/#!po=1.... [2] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs12103-020-09545...
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!
I'm genuinely curious do the woke brigades of twitter not have the self awareness to recognize what they're doing? Or do they just not care? Would they be happy with a language designed to make 'harmful' thinking impossible?
- Make America Great Again
- Black Lives Matter
- Stop the Steal
- Homophobia
- Drain the Swamp
- Ableist
- America First
All of those exist to make it difficult to express an opposing viewpoint. Orwell would have recognized this.
It's everything I don't like in a single package. Unthinking, unoriginal, incendiary, devoid of specific meaning, used as a tribal marker, and used to elevate the status of the speaker without having contributed anything.
And some older political phrases could also be added to your list; for me the archetype is "Pro Life" vs. "Pro Choice".
Man
Woman
Gender
Violence
Racism
These, and other words, appear to be redefined, (or hijacked) quite successfully, implying interpretive precedence by woke authority.
With that, discussing such topics becomes very difficult, in particular if such definitions are applied to the discussion itself.
https://nypost.com/2020/06/25/blm-co-founder-describes-herse...