If you’ve read George Orwell’s novel, 1984, then you know one of the most important ways the totalitarian government of Big Brother keeps control over the people is with the use of language, especially as that language relates to the news and information people are shown.
Orwell called the manipulation of language for the purpose of tyranny “Newspeak,” and he explained in an appendix to the novel:
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.
Open Culture elaborates on that idea:
Newspeak isn’t just a set of buzzwords, but the deliberate replacement of one set of words in the language for another.
There are examples of newspeak throughout the novel, most notably in the phrase, “War is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength.”
Such a twisting of the language is essential for creating a “reality” that is pleasing to the overlords who control everything that’s seen and heard in Orwell’s new world.
Newspeak is taking place in the United States right now, most notably at Fox News, where the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection is being rebranded by Fox host Tucker Carlson as an “election justice protest,” Media Matters reports, and Carlson added:
“So again, that’s the sitting vice president who they tell us over and over, and you just heard her say it, received more votes than any vice president in history. And if you don’t believe that ― and there are reasons not to believe that ― if you don’t believe that, you’re like [Sept. 11 hijacker] Mohamed Atta. Your beliefs are acts of terror, you’re comparable to a mass murderer and you need to be pursued by law enforcement.”
Rioting and insurrection are now being fed to the Fox masses as an “election justice protest.” The truth is too real, so it must be bent to serve another narrative, one that papers over the murder committed on Jan. 6 and turns it into a protest for justice.
Newspeak is not just a matter of fiction. It’s among us, and it’s a very real threat to this republic.
