Newspeak

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Some people, ironically notably conservatives, compare "politically correct" terminology with Newspeak, particularly when a new word (ie "homophobia") is introduced to the language (Of course, people shouldn't make references to books they haven't read, or they make asinine statements like that). In the case of [[homophobia]], a word has been added to describe a new feeling or attitude while the purpose of Newspeak was to ''reduce'' the number of words in the language, thus removing the ability to express new feelings or attitudes (that this probably wouldn't work in reality is not the issue). Adding words is therefore the opposite of Orwell's original Newspeak, and Orwell would be all for it. In these cases, it is mostly used as a smear against ideas by comparing them unfavourably with the totalitarianism expressed in [[1984]].
 
Some people, ironically notably conservatives, compare "politically correct" terminology with Newspeak, particularly when a new word (ie "homophobia") is introduced to the language (Of course, people shouldn't make references to books they haven't read, or they make asinine statements like that). In the case of [[homophobia]], a word has been added to describe a new feeling or attitude while the purpose of Newspeak was to ''reduce'' the number of words in the language, thus removing the ability to express new feelings or attitudes (that this probably wouldn't work in reality is not the issue). Adding words is therefore the opposite of Orwell's original Newspeak, and Orwell would be all for it. In these cases, it is mostly used as a smear against ideas by comparing them unfavourably with the totalitarianism expressed in [[1984]].
  
A slightly more realistic application of the term to "[[political correctness]]" is when words are banned or discouraged. Racist terms such as "[[nigger]]", or offensive terms such as "cunt" are removed from the vocabularity in order to combat racism and offensive language. Recent campaigns to prevent people using the word "gay" to mean bad work along similar lines, causing a language to evolve forcibly in the direction of an ideology rather than naturally around the local zeitgeist. While undoubtedly the motives behind these moves is good-intentioned, they still rely on the method of restricting language to control thought.
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A slightly more realistic application of the term to "[[political correctness]]" is when words are banned or discouraged. Racist terms such as "[[nigger]]", or offensive terms such as "[[cunt]]" are removed from the vocabulary in order to combat racism and offensive language.  
  
 
It is also a common tactic used by [[creationism|creationists]], [[fundamentalism|fundy loons]], and [[Kool-Aid drinker]]s.  For example, the substitutions of "[[creationist]]" with "[[cdesign proponentsists]]" and then "[[intelligent design]] proponent" and adding "science" to form [[Creation Science]] similarly abuse words and meaning to gain political edge.
 
It is also a common tactic used by [[creationism|creationists]], [[fundamentalism|fundy loons]], and [[Kool-Aid drinker]]s.  For example, the substitutions of "[[creationist]]" with "[[cdesign proponentsists]]" and then "[[intelligent design]] proponent" and adding "science" to form [[Creation Science]] similarly abuse words and meaning to gain political edge.

Revision as of 04:33, 23 May 2009

Newspeak is a language that appears in George Orwell's 1984. Designed by the ruling Ingsoc regime, its purpose is to suppress thought by severely curtailing both the conceptual vocabulary and permissible grammatical structures of Oldspeak. As Orwell describes in the Appendix: "....a thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc should be literally unthinkable, at least insofar as thought is dependent on words." [1]

This idea of totalitarianism taken to its logical extreme is deeply unsettling, not least for its immediate, intuitive plausibility. As with many of the novel's terms and ideas, it captured the popular imagination and has passed into modern political and cultural discourse, to be variously used, abused and confused by individuals right across the political spectrum.

Contents

Newspeak in practice

Orwell's description of Newspeak is imperfect,[2] but in essence he imagines language distilled to a brute functionality. Basic needs can be expressed, but beyond this, the available vocabulary is so radically compressed as to prohibit anything other than the most perfunctory description or evaluation of any given object, term or concept.

This compression is achieved by breaking down the distinction between the different parts of speech, so that all remaining words can act as both nouns and verbs. Adjectives and adverbs are formed from these noun-verb roots with the addition of -ful and -wise, respectively. Orwell offers the example of the verb to cut, purged as its meaning is sufficiently contained within the new noun-verb knife.[3] By extension, this would lead to the elimination of verbs such as stab, slash, slice, and carve, and knifeful could replace adjectives as diverse as sharp, cutting, pointed, piercing and incisive.

Grammatically, Newspeak is simplified to an almost infantile, pre-literate degree. Irregular verb forms are suppressed[4] and any word can be negated with the prefix un-,[5] allowing the further eradication of hundreds of words. Emphasis is added with the modifiers plus- or doubleplus-, hence perhaps the most famous Newspeak formulation: doubleplusungood.

Use and abuse of the term

Newspeak has since become a term for any language that is controlled or abused in the name of political power.

Some people, ironically notably conservatives, compare "politically correct" terminology with Newspeak, particularly when a new word (ie "homophobia") is introduced to the language (Of course, people shouldn't make references to books they haven't read, or they make asinine statements like that). In the case of homophobia, a word has been added to describe a new feeling or attitude while the purpose of Newspeak was to reduce the number of words in the language, thus removing the ability to express new feelings or attitudes (that this probably wouldn't work in reality is not the issue). Adding words is therefore the opposite of Orwell's original Newspeak, and Orwell would be all for it. In these cases, it is mostly used as a smear against ideas by comparing them unfavourably with the totalitarianism expressed in 1984.

A slightly more realistic application of the term to "political correctness" is when words are banned or discouraged. Racist terms such as "nigger", or offensive terms such as "cunt" are removed from the vocabulary in order to combat racism and offensive language.

It is also a common tactic used by creationists, fundy loons, and Kool-Aid drinkers. For example, the substitutions of "creationist" with "cdesign proponentsists" and then "intelligent design proponent" and adding "science" to form Creation Science similarly abuse words and meaning to gain political edge.

And finally...

Crimestop is one of Newspeak's less well known concepts, but perhaps the most pertinent (and funny) when discussing the various stripes of fundamentalism. It denotes a learned mental discipline; a conditioned inability even to grasp thoughts contrary to one's own belief system.

"Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity." [6]

Oddly enough, Conservapedia has never come out against this behavior (unlike 'liberal Newspeak[citation needed]), presumably because they instinctively fail to understand its implications on their own debating tactics.

See also

Footnotes

  1. p. 312 - 1984, George Orwell, Penguin, 1989
  2. It would have been an immense (and somewhat anal) undertaking to realise his vision completely, and completely unnecessary for the purposes of the novel.
  3. p. 314 - 1984
  4. e.g. got, ran, slept = getted, runned, sleeped.
  5. e.g. good : bad = good : ungood.
  6. p. 220-1 - 1984
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