1984 Importance of Language; Newspeak Doublethink and how it affects personal thought and freedom

Importance of Language; Newspeak.

It is the intention of the government to make it impossible to convey any nonconformist thoughts. Hence Newspeak was designed for this very intention. To narrow down what people can actually say and think, the rules of language are being skewed from what we actually say right now. Negative terms have been eliminated from the language. In Newspeak, "bad" and "awful" are altered to mean "ungood" or "doubleplus ungood." This language leaves no room for nuance or shades of meaning. It also shortens terms in order to make the language as simple as possible, as in "Thought Police" becoming "thinkpol." The influence of this language spreads out among the people to cull what they are actually thinking. Since language is the expression of ones thoughts, if the words you need to express your thoughts are no longer there, then you will simply cease to have those thoughts. For future generations of Oceania, thoughts that the government didn't approve will no longer even be there because there will be no words to describe them.

The thing that comes to mind when thinking on American society of 2003 and the idea of Newspeak is the influence that the Internet has had on our very language. With acronyms like LOL (laugh out loud), BRB (be right back) and ROFL (rolling on floor laughing) being used online to cut down on the time spent actually typing, the younger generation are running away with it and actually using such acronyms in their everyday lives. It is the younger generations that also take words that we understood to mean one thing to mean the opposite. For example, I remember how confused my parents were when the word "bad" actually meant "good." Another term used nowadays from the younger generations is the term "whack" which (to them) means not good. The dictionary will tell you that whack means to hit someone and they even give a slang definition of it meaning to kill someone.

That language is changing everyday is inevitable and as the younger generations emerge from under their parent's wing, their use of the English language can seem distorted from what we once knew. The key thing with this change in language is that words are the expression of our thoughts and feelings. Without them, we wouldn't really be able to tell others how we feel or what we are thinking. The thoughts of younger generations, influenced by the media and Internet, are changing, causing a need in change in the expression of emotions.

Doublethink and how it affects personal thought and freedom.

One of the biggest examples of doublethink in 1984 is on page 149 when towards the end of Hate Week masses of people are listening to a speech given by an orator of the Inner Party and he is going on and on about war with Eurasia. In the middle of the orators speech he receives a message and without even blinking he begins to say that they are at war with Eastasia. The people just go right along with it, without any explanation from anybody, they accept what he is saying. Doublethink is just that, being able to hold on to two thoughts that are opposite of each other and accepting what you are being told. In the end of 1984, O'Brien gets Winston to not only say, but also believe that two plus two is five. Winston knows that the answer is four but he believes it is five because the Party said so. Winston no longer has any freedom of thought if he simply believes without question what the Party tells him.

Well, Bush told us that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and people still believe that there are weapons there, even though none have been found. Even though no weapons of mass destruction have been found, a large amount of people still believes our government. How someone can just believe what he or she are told without proof is strange. How this affects personal thought is that the idea is integrated with out proof. How this affects our freedom is that we are putting it on the line without evidence. Just because we "think" there are weapons doesn't mean that there are weapons. We are limiting not only our own freedom but also that of others in the world as well.