1984 discussion

The book just gets more and more interesting. I was kind of curious about the word Newspeak. Without language, would reality exist? In the book seems so.

Of course it would still exist we just couldn't talk about it or record it.

it would only be the shift of what we perceive reality to be. Does that make sense? You make your own reality so a wordless reality it would be! And in time we would only find another form of communication whether it be through expression or art, or perhaps we could fully commit to beings who speak telepathically:)

im speak = newspeak or just stupidity?

Laziness is stupidity or you might say, laziness leads to stupidity.

IM speak is useful for a quick text message or conveying a message quickly on a chat. But in a message board it's just difficult to read and annoying, aside from the occasional LOL.

Stephanie wrote: "IM speak is useful for a quick text message or conveying a message quickly on a chat. But in a message board it's just difficult to read and annoying, aside from the occasional LOL."

I agree. IM speak does have it's place.

IM speak seems acceptable to me if one considers it a language separated from, but also derived from, English, similar to pidgin English. However, there is a time and a place for IM speak. It should be used with care, given that the goal of language is communication and IM speak, if used incorrectly could actually impede communication if the people with whom the person using IM spelling is trying to communicate does not understand the message.

An interesting question I will throw out to bait the conversation: What is the connection between political correctness and newspeak?

P.C. is just a way of hiding the truth.
Scary book when you thing about it though,it makes you think about stuff,

Ishaan wrote: "The book just gets more and more interesting. I was kind of curious about the word Newspeak. Without language, would reality exist? In the book seems so."

Just imagine yourself and someone else who speaks a different language than yourself stranded in the wilderness. Your language is now useless because the other person doesn't understand you, so for all practical purposes it doesn't exist. It's just the two of you making odd noises.

This is what the world would be like without language. At least until the two of your constructed your own.

But like mentioned, Newspeak wasn't about completely eliminating language. It was about making it impossible for the people to express any feelings contrary to that which the government wants them to talk about. You can't say the government is corrupt and start a movement if there is no word for "corrupt". And so on.

People have always been good at creating the words they needed to express themselves. It's not as if language or dialects just sprang out of whole cloth, after all. If there were no official words to express discontent, the people would only invent some.

The only reason that wouldn't work well in 1984 is that the ever-present government surveillance would find the people using those words and remove them from the public. If the word couldn't be removed, it would be "co-opted" for the government's own use ("Pacifica is corrupt," etc).

Not completely on topic, but IM speak has been around a LOT longer that text messaging/instant messaging. It was used for telegraphing w/morse code.

Newspeak also functions to simplify things. Users cannot express complex ideas concisefly, so it kind of dumbs down the users.

The Newspeak in the book was a bit confusing at first, but soon became easy to understand as the book went on...

Newspeak was designed to weaken the language, to give the public less words to use, and thus give them less thoughts. Newspeak would eliminate any flexibility or originality in communication and original ideas. The interesting thing here is to see if communist societies have actually done this.

Will
http://anabarseries.blogspot.com/

Newspeak DOES dumb down the language, but it also makes language more prone to be lie than truth, more the bad than the good.

It's been awhile since I read the book, but was there not an example of there one day no longer being a word for "light" but instead it being "undark"?

I always found this interesting because it could just have easily been the other way around were the real motive just to simplify language. Why not have dark be "unlight" instead? But I think an additional motive, other than simplifying language and thought and precluding anything rebellious in nature (freedom being not a Newspeak word, for example), was to amplify the bad, in essence removing the ability to represent anything good from language.

Think of it:

Instead of joy, unsadness.
Instead of smiling, unfrowning.
Instead of success, unfailure.
Instead of peace, unworry or unwar.
Instead of good, unbad.

The list goes on. But can you see how the latter words in my list do not nearly encompass the former. The very connotation changes.

But that is what happens when you make the bad the base of the language and of the society, the thing to which all else is compared. The good is just the "un" of it.

Orwell did a very clever thing there.

If you don't understand Newspeak watch FOX or SKYNEWS....you'll get it soon enough

Aura wrote: "If you don't understand Newspeak watch FOX or SKYNEWS....you'll get it soon enough"

You can't just blame FOX news. all major networks have an agenda - some support the right, and some the left. None of them are objective, despite what they say.

Will wrote: "Aura wrote: "If you don't understand Newspeak watch FOX or SKYNEWS....you'll get it soon enough"

You can't just blame FOX news. all major networks have an agenda - some support the right, and some..."

I know, I just singled them two out because they are two of the biggest and most viewed, happy reading :)

Everyone brings their own "Newspeak" to a conversation. They invest words with meaning that are culturally biased. This is fine if you all use the same ref points.
Take the word "republican"...a glorious thing to a 1st cent bc Roman; at least 2 meanings to a US citizen; 18th cent rabble rouser (Paine, Burns etc); an image of a bad '70s mustache, balaclava and some semtex if from UK (humourless, post-office occupying martyr if from Eire).
And that's just one word.
As the world gets smaller due to media dominance the regional variations in meaning will get less and less and the cultural venere of big media will supply the dominant meaning.
Counteract this by reading Shakespeare and Cervantes, wallow in words, revel in poetry. And argue and disagree often...when we all agree they win.

Old-Barbarossa wrote: "Everyone brings their own "Newspeak" to a conversation. They invest words with meaning that are culturally biased. This is fine if you all use the same ref points.
Take the word "republican"...a g..."

I agree that regional variations are diminishing, but why is this happening? Is it possibly just an unintended negative consequence of communication today? I don't think it happening due to some sinister intentional purpose as in 1984

Will wrote: "I don't think it happening due to some sinister intentional purpose as in 1984..."

Aye...don't think it's a conspiracy, just think it's driven by market forces. Don't buy many conspiracy theories myself...but I think some groups/companies/gvts benefit opportunistically from certain events. If the dumbing down of media keeps people from questioning things, keeps them happy being spoon fed info, then that obviously benefits some groups...those groups don't have to be behind it all though. Sure, it's nothing new...bread and circuses = fast food and x-factor stylee TV.

This reminds me a bit of the old book Subliminal Seduction that suggested companies were hiding messages in their advertisements.

Will wrote: "This reminds me a bit of the old book Subliminal Seduction that suggested companies were hiding messages in their advertisements."

Have you seen anything that Derren Brown does? Subliminal/Jedi Mind Trick stuff...

Text speak stylee abreviations have been around for ages too. Any written language that had no vowels for instance, or the Latin habit of using abreviations or just the initials of well know phrases. These (and text speak) aren't a bar to communication if you are one of the cognoscenti...but can seem some kind of cant for those that are not

Misty wrote: "...or perhaps we could commit to beings who speak telepathically:)"

What is that supposed to mean? "Fully commit"?

Garnicholson wrote: "Hey folks, I was being flippant with my text speak reference, I don't think that's a conspiracy. If anything it shows how flexible humans are when it comes to language. Given a device that is fairl..."

LOL 'Simon Cowells ego' I can't stand him, everybody knows his mind numbing stupid TV shows are fixed, I don't know why people bother watching that rubbish.

I love the English language! It's whole universal appeal is wonderful. Personally, I'd be both happy and sad if Newspeak happens. Happy because it'd make everything simpler for many people and sad because we'd lose all the beautiful words in English.

Garnicholson wrote: "The idea of Newspeak being enforced upon the Proles is that with a limited vocabulary it would be harder for them to express themselves, therefore harder to share ideas, question their situation or..."

Ah, but did he not say the Proles would not be subject to Newspeak? "Except the Proles," was how Winston put it when Syme was speaking to him about the new dictionary, and Syme said the Proles were unimportant since they were puny and... well you read the book.

Garnicholson: Yeah, I just started re-reading it so I'm a little primed. And yes, that was the exact reasoning. I loved the part where Winston went into a bar and realized that it didn't matter what the Proles knew or remembered because they were so focused on inane details that they missed the deeper issues. Anyone else remember that part?

well,many of the ideas expressed by Blair are happening today, this shows the great vision he had.

doublethink-I've seen this in a couple of interviews,even in an episode of The Boondocks.

Really? Which episode? I love that show!

I saw this on Tumblr a while ago, found it interesting, thought you guys might too... I'll try and embed it in the post but it might not work...

Oh look, it worked.

I think one reason newspeak will never totally wipe out "thoughtcrime" is that language is a living thing and constantly evolves. Look at the way meanings change over time, the richness of slang etc. The use of slang in a classroom for instance can make a teacher oblivious to what is actually being said...mind you in reality they'll know that something is being said that "is of interest"...may not have a clue what the meaning is though.

Misty wrote: "Laziness is stupidity or you might say, laziness leads to stupidity."

Ignorance is strength

Isn't it Newspeak when the government taps our phones and our emails and calls it the "Patriot Act"? or am I just being paranoid?

Henry wrote: "Isn't it Newspeak when the government taps our phones and our emails and calls it the "Patriot Act"? or am I just being paranoid?"

Unfortunately no, you're not being paranoid. However, its a slightly different case. Newspeak by definition was the act of narrowing language so people wouldn't be capable of articulating "treasonous" thoughts. Things like the "Patriot Act", "Axis of Evil", and "Coalition of the Willing" were just a case of mislabling a product, aka. BS! It had the same purpose, if you think about it. It was "how do you prevent people from calling it what it is", change the language so people have a harder time expressing what's BS about it...

I was just thinking about this myself. How the Bush admin created a whole lexicon of bullshit. Thanks Henry!

I guess Newspeak would be if the Pentagon were called the Department of Peace.

Henry wrote: "I guess Newspeak would be if the Pentagon were called the Department of Peace."

War Dept became the Defence Dept...so Peace Dept seems a natural progression.

Aren't these more related to doublethink? The Patriot Act is a perfect example where many, at the time of its signing, probably felt it was the patriotic thing to support when in fact it is counter to what the founding patriots supported in the Bill of Rights.

Matthew wrote: "Really? Which episode? I love that show!"

I think it's in A Date with the Health Inspector.The part when Rummy insists that the arab has a gun so that the policeman would give permission to shoot.

Marc wrote: "Aren't these more related to doublethink? The Patriot Act is a perfect example where many, at the time of its signing, probably felt it was the patriotic thing to support when in fact it is counter..."

Good point. Newspeak is just censored, filtered definitions. Doublethink is the act of suspending rational thought for the sake of loyalty so... yeah, I'd agree with this assessment.

Alexandra wrote: "I think it's in A Date with the Health Inspector.The part when Rummy insists that the arab has a gun so that the policeman would give permission to shoot."

Oh, that's my favorite episode! "I think I see a gun", says the officer? Yes, I could see that how that would be a case of doublethink.

P.S. I think this thread has expanded now to incorporate doublethink as well. Good thing!

Newspeak is the totalitarian language used in Oceania and is constantly being changed. The main goal of Newspeak from Big Brother is to make it so the people of Oceania all think the same. If the words just eventually disappear, they cannot be thought and then said. This eliminates thoughtcrime which causes Oceanians to be the most loyal citizens. For example, the character Syme was one of the main people involved with the changing of Newspeak. Syme knew a lot of things ranging in many different aspects. He knew words that were suppose to be forgotten which was forced by the Party but through the times Syme just gathered all of these words and became more intelligent. With knowing so much the Party got rid of him because he had the knowledge to outsmart the party or to at least think against it. On the other hand, the Proles are left in the dark with Newspeak. They are given and learn just the basic things to survive. Their language is never altered because the Party feels as if the Proles could never revolt. That they are to much of a lower class. Overall, George Orwell was worried that the government could do something similar in the future and is trying to prepare the readers of his worries.