Newspeak: 2011
In 1949 a British writer named Eric Blair—better known by his pen name George Orwell—published a highly controversial novel entitled Nineteen Eighty-Four.
By 1989 the novel had been translated into more than 65 languages, which at that time was the greatest number for any English-language novel. The book has been required reading in some universities; at the same time, throughout its history, the novel has been banned, legally challenged and derided as intellectually dangerous to the public.
But of the many dystopian novels out there, Orwell’s book seems most relevant to our own time. For instance, in that book, Orwell invented terms that are now part of our daily language.
Big Brother is watching you; the book’s hero works for the Ministry of Truth, which is responsible for propaganda and revising history to make it fit “today’s fact.” Other government departments include the Ministry of Peace (Minipax), responsible for handling perpetual war, the Ministry of Plenty (Miniplenty), responsible for managing the terrible shortages of food and goods, the Ministry of Love (Miniluv), responsible for preventing people from falling in love, which was against state rules.
Oddly enough, the book’s society was divided into three classes, the Inner Party (2% of the population), the Outer Party (a small middle class), and the lower-class Proles (proletariat), about 85% of the population. Sounds a lot like today’s political arguments about the top 1%, the middle class and the lower-class poor, doesn’t it?
One of Orwell’s most frightening inventions was the idea of “newspeak.” Newspeak was contained in a continuously revised dictionary of “allowed words,” which essentially was political correctness run amuck. The idea is that words are dangerous things. If you remove them from the vocabulary of the population, they won’t or can’t use them to think dangerous thoughts.
Many of the book’s terms and concepts, such as Big Brother, doublethink, thoughtcrime, (hatecrime?), newspeak, and memory hole, have become commonplace among the intellectual elite.
Why does this editor consider the book important? Because it is frighteningly prophetic. Newspeak is political correctness. It is politicians using such phrases as “not forthcoming” to describe each other’s outright lies. It is calling a slower increase in spending a “budget cut.” It is saying unemployment is lower because a huge number of people stopped looking for work. It is using growing ignorance to maintain control of the population.
You know, I wish I had never read that book. If I hadn’t, maybe I could call my worry about the country “hope for the future.”
-C. H. Bush, editor
