"Brave New World" vs "1984"

[NoScotsman]

It would if it could but it would be wrong. Ad I said upthread, just look at the treadmill of language relating to mental retardation. There are countless other examples and that is just the tip of the nuttery. The idea that if you remove words from a language then people can't even think about the concepts those words expressed is utterly crazy.

Read "Politics and the English Language" by Orwell to see what Orwell is really getting at with regard to language ...

Also, to your point, I don't think the idea is that you extinguish ideas... but the popular expression and communication of those ideas. For example, PSA's are running in America right now telling people not to use the word "gay" when describing something in negative terms. Why do you suppose that is?

 

[NoScotsman]

But neither East Germany nor the British treatment of the Burmese lasted. The whole point of 1984 was a permanent society.

The East German regime and the British regime in Burma differed greatly from the regime in 1984. Your point? Besides, all societies are "permanent" ... until they aren't.

 

[Ziggurat]

Also, to your point, I don't think the idea is that you extinguish ideas... but the popular expression and communication of those ideas.

Indeed. Although the most common methods for suppressing popular expression aren't so linguistic, that basic idea has long been a mainstay of totalitarian control. You don't need to make everyone believe something, it's enough to make everyone act like they do. If you can't express an idea (because you don't have an adequate vocabulary, or more commonly because you're afraid to), then you can't rally support for the idea. So if you can make people publicly falsify their beliefs, then you can maintain control even in the face of universal opposition of true opinion.

What Orwell's work doesn't capture is how brittle such a system can be. If an event causes people to stop falsifying their beliefs, you can get a chain reaction where people suddenly realize that other people actually feel the same way they've secretly felt, and so they start expressing their true opinions, leading others to start doing the same as well. That can lead to preference cascades which can upset such control.

 

[Mark6]

What Orwell's work doesn't capture is how brittle such a system can be. If an event causes people to stop falsifying their beliefs, you can get a chain reaction where people suddenly realize that other people actually feel the same way they've secretly felt, and so they start expressing their true opinions, leading others to start doing the same as well. That can lead to preference cascades which can upset such control.

Did Orwell know about such chain reactions? Or even had reasons to suspect it? Earliest example of such I can think of was Poland circa 1980.

 

[brodski]

Read "Politics and the English Language" by Orwell to see what Orwell is really getting at with regard to language ...

I have read it.

Also, to your point, I don't think the idea is that you extinguish ideas...

That was exactly the point of new-speak, explicitly stated time and again in the text, the concept was based on a real political movement and real pseudoscience.

but the popular expression and communication of those ideas. For example, PSA's are running in America right now telling people not to use the word "gay" when describing something in negative terms. Why do you suppose that is?

Because people are idiots and they believe moronic things about language. And I picked those descriptions for a reason, the history of those words underline my point.

Homophobia does not come from using the word gay to mean crap, just like racism doesn't come from using the word black in a negative sense. Using the word gay to mean crap reflects homophobia in a culture- changing the words will not address the homophobia.

 

[Ziggurat]

Did Orwell know about such chain reactions? Or even had reasons to suspect it?

Not that I'm aware of, though I'm hardly an Orwell scholar. If he did, it didn't feature very prominently in his work. But it wouldn't be surprising if he didn't, since there wasn't really a history of internal collapse of totalitarian regimes at the time. Totalitarianism was failing because of external pressures (ie, war).

 

[Ziggurat]

Using the word gay to mean crap reflects homophobia in a culture- changing the words will not address the homophobia.

That reminds me.

 

[Rolfe]

Homophobia does not come from using the word gay to mean crap, just like racism doesn't come from using the word black in a negative sense. Using the word gay to mean crap reflects homophobia in a culture- changing the words will not address the homophobia.

As an aside, one of the children in Benjamin Britten's 1949 opera The Little Sweep is a boy called "Gay". The children in the opera were named after the children of some personal friends of Britten's - the sons and daughters of Lord Cranbrooke, and their two cousins.

Gay is now Dr. Gaythorne Gaythorne-Hardy, 5th Earl of Cranbrooke, an eminent zoologist and environmental biologist. His cousin Jonathan Gaythorne-Hardy, "Jonny" in the opera, is a fairly well-known author. Jonathan Gaythorne-Hardy has published his autobiography, and in all its pages his cousin is scrupulously named as "Gaythorne", every time, even during their childhood years.

Must have been hell growing up with that one.

Rolfe.

 

[bruto]

It's been a while since I read either, but I read both back in adolescence, and found them both worth reading and thinking about. I'd have said, off the top of my head, that Orwell came a bit closer in his vision of totalitarian regimes and how they can control the media and the language of public discourse. Even if it hasn't happened that way, the vision has some resonance.

On the other hand, Huxley's book has to do with government controlled genetic engineering, the creation of a biologically determined class structure, and the end of all the social trappings of family, and we haven't seen that. Also, of course, the part that appealed to me as a 13 year old has not happened: constant, promiscuous, casual sex without risk.

 

[andyandy]

Homophobia does not come from using the word gay to mean crap, just like racism doesn't come from using the word black in a negative sense. Using the word gay to mean crap reflects homophobia in a culture- changing the words will not address the homophobia.

I'm quite surprised your taking such a strong line against this - surely we can agree that words do have influence on perceptions? We can argue as to how much - but that they do have an impact surely is beyond debate....

 

[brodski]

I'm quite surprised your taking such a strong line against this - surely we can agree that words do have influence on perceptions? We can argue as to how much - but that they do have an impact surely is beyond debate....

In the long term the impact which words have on perception is tiny compared to the impact which perception has on words.

Look at the word gay- a word with highly positive connotations became connected with homosexuality in a largely homophobic culture and therefore became a term of abuse. There is a battle now to stop it being a term of abuse because people think that will address the homophobia- dies anybody here think that it will have a real, long term impact?