Orwell’s essay on Newspeak from the end of 1984

One of the purposes of this site all along has been to try and understand the fundamentals of the systems of thought of both leftism and Islam. As we have learned, so we have tried to bring forth evidence and understanding of the significance of these systems of thought in terms of the threat to our civilization at its absolute core that they represent.

That core of our civilization would be its primary belief system as basic to our way of understanding the world, dealing with each other, and organizing our society as zeros and ones are to a CPU.

As an example, Islam has several forms of mandated deception for the purpose of dominance of all things. The most well known is taqiiya, but there is also Kitman and a couple of others. Interestingly the specifics of each form of deception shows a solid grasp of real reasoning in order just to come up with these methods of deceiving those who rely on honesty and cooperation.

But leftism has a deeper and more complete reframing of reality. Yes, it has a name and that is dialectics. And explaining it in any short form is tricky as it is truly a fundamentally different system of thought, (as Is Islam for that matter) So any attempt to understand it through our own forms of reasoning is bound to fail, other than in the simplest and most practical ways. Which is still very useful.
For example, we could say that the purpose of dialectics is to come up with narratives which look like they are in the public interest in some way but really is an attack on a component or components of our society. Components such as basic liberties as a primary example.

A good example of this would be how nearly all Western governments used Covid as a way of removing some of the most fundamental freedoms and liberties guaranteed to all people in nations that had been more or less republics before that. eg: For the public good, we are locking you inside. You must wear a mask to get food or be outdoors. You must take an untested new technology vaccine to save your grandmother etc. etc. ad naseum.

So that short form of the definition of dialectics is true for  many purposes. That one understanding may be enough to resist or fight back here and there in some circumstances.

At the end of the book, 1984 there is an essay on Newspeak. It could be argued to be a lesson on dialectics but without using the word. I would hope many people here would watch it and offer their thoughts in the comments. There is a lot of red meat in this essay.

Examples of how Newspeak is already in use in the West for the purposes of control are legion. Think about every time you have seen the same narrative, usually of just a few words pushed through every TV or mass media outlet in the Western world, and nearly always a lie and nearly always destructive to our liberties. Some examples are above. But they continue steadily. “Trump and his supporters are nazis” etc. etc.

In this essay, Orwell specifies how the word “free” is to be used in the future. Not entirely unlike how Muslims use the term, “freedom”, meaning free to implement the sharia, or “Justice” meaning sharia law. And any other use of those terms eventually will be memory holed in an Islamic state. They may be already for that matter.

"The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought--that is, a thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc--should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express, while excluding all other meanings and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods. This was done partly by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words and by stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary meanings whatever. To give a single example. The word FREE still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be used in such statements as 'This dog is free from lice' or 'This field is free from weeds'. It could not be used in its old sense of 'politically free' or 'intellectually free' since political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts, and were therefore of necessity nameless. Quite apart from the suppression of definitely heretical words, reduction of vocabulary was regarded as an end in itself, and no word that could be dispensed with was allowed to survive. Newspeak was designed not to extend but to DIMINISH the range of thought, and this purpose was indirectly assisted by cutting the choice of words down to a minimum." 

Stephen Coughlin points out how contradictions which we witness daily from leftist leaders and media is not hypocrisy but dialectics. In this context it likely means that the use of certain phrases or words or actions which are justified under a certain rubric are then contradicted by another action or set of words in a similar context but with a different purpose.

The example which is so blatant it’s amusing from Trudeau is his frequent assertions that the Freedom Convoy are misogynists, while he gives CDN $367M to the Taliban. 

The purpose of these phrases is to create an effect. The meaning in the phrases is in part, assumed by the listener, and is meant to be understood by the public in a different way than what those who are initiated into these thought systems would understand them to mean. So when we hear the phrase, “Threat to our democracy” from all Western leaders, usually referring to counter-revolutionary public figures who the people would prefer as political leaders, they know we hear it one way, while they are using the term, “our democracy” in a much more Leninist way. And indeed, people like Trump and Orban and hopefully Poilievre are threats to their democracy as they use the word.

In Newspeak, something to one degree or another or in one way or another is certainly taking place and has been taking place in the Anglosphere for some time now. Anyone who has read Twain’s famous books, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or The Adventures of Tom Sawyer would know that the word that starts with a letter between M and O did not always mean what we were told it means. But the left decided for us all that there was no possible use for that word except in the most derogatory and humiliating sense and therefore it was never to be used ever under any context, including exposing the racism of someone because they used it.

In other words, it may not even be quoted to try and torpedo someone else who did use it. I believe one CBC reporter found that out and was publicly excoriated although I’m not sure there was any practical consequences to her after the initial flurry as she is a blue-overalls wearer after all.

Most people at this point would agree with banning that word. But the real issue is less the banning of that particular word as it is the state mandated meanings of words, and therefore the control of how we think by the reformatting of language. Although the state should play no role whatsoever in determining what words we may use, or in Canada, what words we must use. The issue which made Jordan Peterson famous.

Have a listen to this post script essay at the end of 1984 on Newspeak and please offer your own thoughts on any connections to today’s destruction and recreation of language as a fundamental tool of state control. Even if you don’t see any, there is a lot of insight in this portion of the audiobook.

Source: https://vladtepesblog.com/2024/11/01/orwells-essay-on-newspeak-from-the-end-of-1984/