Following my blog on the language of economic debate yesterday Ivan Horrocks posted a comment that I thought worth sharing more widely:
There was a very interesting discussion on a Radio 4 programme yesterday afternoon of George Orwell's concept of Newspeak (from 1984). The conclusion was that the shaping and control of language — and thus how we explain and understand the world — was as important as Orwell argued it was.
This morning I had a look at the Appendix to 1984 (The Principles of Newspeak). One interesting thing struck me. If the word Ingsoc (Newspeak was devised as a language to meet the needs of Ingsoc — English Socialism) is replaced by Neoliberalism it's a pretty accurate portrayal of the world that has actually evolved, rather than what Orwell imagined might happen. So to take one example from the book and “update” it:
“The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for a world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Neoliberalism, 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 Neoliberalism — should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words.”
Interestingly the news spots either side of the Radio 4 programme prominently featured Cameron's latest measures to tackle the “hordes” of benefit tourists (sorry, immigrants) coming to the UK from the EU, followed by various comments from a representative from UKIP. It struck me that this was indeed an example of how far down the road of Neoliberal Newspeak we've already progressed.
Footnote: Orwell envisaged that the Newspeak project ‘would have finally superseded Oldspeak (or Standard English, as we should call it) by about the year 2050.'
On my count we are way ahead of that timescale.
I fear Ivan is right. Matthew Parris confirmed it on The Moral Maze last night.
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I think it’s true that Neospeak has superseded standard English in the lexicon of the political classes – with a few exceptions. I don’t think it has – yet – become the de facto language of the masses, so we’re not yet at 1984 levels as the existence of this blog indicates. There are millions of Winston Smith’s out here. My personal Room 101 would be a roomful of BBC journalists…
Orwell’s Newspeak cannot be separated from the rest of the apparatus of Ingsoc, or, in our case, of neoliberal economic policy, supported by an ultra-powerful modern centralised State, equipped with almost every conceivable instrument of surveillance, and a large army of personnel seemingly single-mindedly devoted to that task working for GCHQ, MI5, MI6 and Special Branch. ‘Big Brother’ is watching every one of us. He is gazing down at us on CCTV, tapping our landline and mobile phones, reading our emails and text messages, and noting down (in evidence) every webpage we visit. Nothing we do escapes him. Furthermore, his control over what we read, see and hear can be expected to grow with time, and is already far more extensive than many people realise. The real Big Brother has been a good deal subtler than Orwell’s, but every bit as ruthless and efficient. Before any of us know it, all our freedoms and our democracy will have disappeared, and our capacity to think freely with it.
Agree entirely, Richard. I put a comment on here some weeks ago which made exactly that point. And I’m sure that Orwell would be truly shocked at how we’ve got to where we have.
Do also include the current attitude for positive “up” speak, the ‘need’ to phrase everything within a positive upbeat context. To be questioning of the status quo, where the act of saying that something isn’t quite right or to go to the full act of whistleblowing is to be seen as being hugely antagonistic not just to the organisation but it starts presenting questions as to whether the whistleblowers humanity is flawed because of their lack of ‘positivity’.
If you haven’t seen it do look at Barbara Ehrenreich’s book “Smile or Die” and some of the talks that are on youtube.( More after the link – RSA Animate – Smile or Die – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5um8QWWRvo )
The book as a whole looks at the darker side of positive thinking and in turn Positive Psychology (think of the current “Nudge” unit). A part of the book describes that some of the positive upbeat attitudes that occured in Wall Street before 2008 are responsible for the lack of critical awareness of just what was taking place at the time .
Thanks for RSA link
A much longer version of the talk exploring Barbara Ehrenreich’s book “Smile or Die” (known in the US as “Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America”) – An Evening with Barbara Ehrenreich – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMzFJ7wjzlM
excellent point well made.
the line that really gets under my skin is “there is no alternative”. what they mean to say is “do exactly as we say, or else…”.
Rastafari culture has a great awareness of the use of the English language in shaping thoughts and ideas. hence the reason they change words like ‘oppression’ (with the ‘up’ sound at the start giving the word a positive sound) to ‘downpression’, which better reflects whats actually going on. the same thinking applies to the word ‘understanding’, which becomes ‘overstanding’.
of course Afro-Caribbeans have suffered at the hands of greed-driven western capitalism far worse and for far longer than most, hence the Rastafari ‘War on Babylon’, with Babylon representing the western capitalist system that serves only the elite.
On the subject of language shaping thought, I was delighted to find this classic clip from Yes Minister on Youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ZZJXw4MTA
Very good