Why does Orwell focus on language as the key to freedom? What does freedom mean, and what should it entail? (use excerpts from the book other than those referenced above) Considering the power of language and the significance Orwell placed on the right to free speech, how can one see 1984 as a reflection of the period in which it was written? What about the 1940s inspired Orwell’s classic dystopia?
Almost four weeks ago, Twitter was banned in Turkey. A week later, YouTube followed suit. Egypt and Libya tried something similar in 2011; Iran in 2009; Tunisia in 2005; and, of course, China and North Korea since the 1940s. These governments (and many more) saw in the Internet a subversive power that needed to be restrained, lest it topple the standing hierarchy. Obviously, there is something to be said for the power of communication when it comes to military strategy and revolutionary planning. Cutting supply lines, rooting out spies, and using various propaganda tools have been used since the dawn of human politics. Yet, there is possibly a deeper and arguably more sinister motivation to restricting language and communication. Thought as a biological/neural process relies on concepts and abstract ideas which are all but meaningless unless they can be conveyed in some form of mutually understandable communication. Expressing the idea of the color ‘blue’ without using the word ‘blue’ is near impossible, because the same word can potentially have vastly different meanings, or no meaning at all, to two different individuals. The more abstract the idea is, the more grounded it must be in actual words for it to become meaningful – after all, colors can still be pointed out through physical communication, but there is no explanation for ideas such as evil, happiness, or freedom. Literary relativism is the idea that language fundamentally controls the way human beings are able to rationalize and perceive. As a result, controlling language can be an effective way to subjugate or manipulate a population – after all, one only need examine the psychological effects of effective advertising or propaganda to observe primitive thought control. George Orwell was one of the few who understood the horrifying and staggering implications of literary relativism; 1984, Orwell’s masterpiece, portrays language as the key to individualism, as a tool that can be used to either inspire freedom or promote mindlessness. In the novel, the standing government Party, IngSoc, uses their censored language Newspeak to minimize and control all thought. 1984 suggests that language is the origin of human intellect; regulation of language allows the current government to maintain and accumulate power by attacking any form of rebellion at its source. Much of the exposition of Orwell’s philosophy comes from the pages of the fictional novel, The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism; it feels fitting that an analysis of how Orwell uses and understands language should follow the chapters of The Book. Ignorance is Strength Orwell bases his study of language on an extreme form of literary relativism – language not only forms the basis of human thought, but is human thought. Of course, Orwell does not deny the possibility of thinking with images, smells, or concepts; instead, he believes that if “thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought” (Politics and the English Language, 1946). Manipulating language can inherently change how a human thinks, and, most importantly, it can do so unknowingly. The choice of language is therefore linked to choice of action, with the more literate individuals able to act with more ability. This is why the proles are not monitored, and
propaganda is not directed towards them – they have no understanding of complex thoughts, and their long term goals are limited to survival. In order to directly, subtly, and permanently influence the thought process of its more intelligent subjects, Big Brother implements Newspeak, a language stripped of nuance (the proles, of course, use Original English). Newspeak is unique in that “its vocabulary grew smaller instead of larger every year. Each reduction was a gain, since the smaller the area of choice, the smaller the temptation to take thought.” Newspeak is an implementation of literary relativism; it prevents the communication of abstract ideals and thoughts – and, eventually, of thought itself – by slowly removing all synonyms, antonyms, and alternate definitions. The goal to disconnect “articulate speech…[from] the higher brain centers.” Syme, Winston’s coworker, expands on this idea: “the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought. In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.” To Orwell, limiting the range of words is enough to remove concepts from thought itself. Thus, the government’s manipulation of language is highly effective. By changing the language, the vast majority of middle class Party members become “somehow curiously savage…[suggesting] the stamp of naked feet and the throbbing of tomtoms.” The Party doctors history and indoctrinates propaganda for the same reason: the literate and intellectual (at least, enough to pose a threat) Party members are subdued internally through thought manipulation. Yet, unlike the invasion of privacy or use of force so vividly described in the novel, Newspeak is a different, subtler beast. It’s a long term assurance against a shifting hierarchy: In 1984, when Oldspeak was still the normal means of communication, the danger theoretically existed that in using Newspeak words one might remember their original meanings. In practice it was not difficult for any person well grounded in DOUBLETHINK to avoid doing this, but within a couple of generations even the possibility of such a lapse would have vaished. A person growing up with Newspeak as his sole language would no more know that EQUAL had once had the secondary meaning of ‘politically equal’, or that FREE had once meant ‘intellectually free’, than for instance, a person who had never heard of chess would be aware of the secondary meanings attaching to QUEEN and ROOK. The idea of having any form of alternate thought is thoroughly eradicated both in literature and in public consciousness. Thus, the middle class is subjected to a two pronged attack that indoctrinates them internally and externally, to the point of becoming as primitive as the easily controlled proles. However, in numerous ways, the proles have far more power than members of the Outer Party. They are not subject to monitoring, nor restrictions on thought and speech; they are allowed freer communication and movement. On the whole, their ignorance and lack of literacy provides a shield, marking them as non-threatening. Their only true burden is the crushing poverty that prevents them from examining anything beyond their own quotidian survival. As a result, Ignorance is Strength has a double meaning: it is not only a propaganda term encouraging lack of thought, but is simultaneously a term describing the current state of affairs, in which the proles have hidden power in the
lack of indoctrination that they can never be allowed to realize. Winston understands this, and puts his faith on the proles for the fate of Oceania and the world. However, “so long as [the proles] are not permitted to have standards of comparison, they never even become aware that they are oppressed.” On the whole, the illiterate proles are functionally unable to think in a way that is a threat, while the Newspeak-speaking middle class is taught not to think at all. Because language is thought, rebellion is functionally unable to enter their minds. Freedom is Slavery Freedom is, at its core, the ability to think for oneself. Many mistake freedom as the ability to act, but that action is presupposed as being one’s own. An individual coerced into an action is not free in the same way an individual who has only a single option is not free, even though, in both cases, the individual theoretically has free ability to act. Yet, removing an individual’s ability to think in a certain way eliminates the action before it can even begin. Within the context of literary relativism, objective reality is thrown into doubt; in other words, “Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimeters inside your skull.” Actions cease to matter in the grand scheme of manipulation, because it is impossible (or at least, highly unfeasible) to control actions permanently; changing how an individual thinks is the only way to permanently prevent further unwanted actions. Thus, thought is freedom, and is the only true freedom. Freedom is the direct antithesis of the control Big Brother attempts to instill. With freedom, it is possible to foment revolution against Big Brother; without, the hierarchy remains stable and the middle class remains subdued. The Party recognizes that freedom of thought is freedom overall; as such, the Thought Police are “not interested in the overt act [of crime]: the thought is all we are about.” By manipulating the actual thought and perception of the populace, the government can effectively eliminate not only all potential actions of rebellion, but all thoughts of rebellion. The removal of subversive ideas, or thoughtcrimes, is only possible due to the presence of doublethink, a unique cognitive tool implemented by Big Brother that allows an individual to bend the realm of objectivity in order to believe two completely contradictory statements, calling either statement up as true when needed. Doublethink is the “ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed.” The ability to instantaneously switch values and ideals allows any individual consciousness to be molded by the government. Of course, with Orwell’s traditional style, doublethink is actually introduced to the reader in the first line of the novel – well before the concept is introduced or explained – with the phrase “It was a bright cold day in April.” Within doublethink, no single thought has value because it always simultaneously means the opposite; at any given time, everything and nothing is occurring at once. The result is a system of consensual reality, in which the ‘truth’ is determined by the masses. In 1984, “reality exists…not in the individual mind, which can make mistakes and in any case soon perishes; only in the mind of the Party, which is collective and immortal.” The Party openly encourages consensual reality, because it prevents the individual from attempting to observe the world in his own way. Once doublethink is fully implemented, the Inner Party can easily manipulate the flow of thought of the entire nation at once. The greatest aspect of doublethink is that no one – not even government members – are safe from it; for example, government ministries are named through doublethink: the Ministry of Love deals with torture, the Ministry of Plenty
deals with economic shortage, the Ministry of Peace deals with war, and the Ministry of Truth deals with historical revisionism and propaganda. The best example of consensual reality can be seen in the historical revisionism that the Party undergoes. If the Party tells a lie, “and if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth.” Because the past lives only in memory, and memory is changeable, Big Brother uses historical doctoring and consensual reality to reach into and tinker with the past. Because of doublethink, nobody questions any changes. In many ways, doublethink and Newspeak are two sides of the same coin, and both work to achieve the same goal. Perhaps the best example of doublethink and Newspeak in action is the word blackwhite. According to the Appendix: Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this. But it means also the ability to BELIEVE that black is white, and more, to KNOW that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary. This demands a continuous alteration of the past, made possible by the system of thought which really embraces all the rest. Blackwhite, and other Newspeak words, promote a duality that eliminates logic and rationality. The individual is eliminated when the brain is effectively wired to immediately change its entire belief system in a matter of seconds, because one’s personality and memories cannot survive for very long. Doublethink wipes consciousness like reformatting a hard drive; at any given point, no one can be sure of what was true in the past, and therefore what is true in the present. With thought, however, doublethink falls apart. The Party cannot implement its system of mass control if individuals can think. Freedom “is the freedom to say that two plus two makes four;” as soon as rationality is involved, an individual becomes insubordinate because he can no longer be controlled by the populace. His own reality becomes objective, and he lives outside of the consensual reality that the government controls. That freedom inspires rebellion. In 1984, political orthodoxy “means not thinking – not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness,” and unconsciousness is pliable. It is only through this unconsciousness, however, that any individual can remain ‘free’. So long as an individual is unable to comprehend freedom and the fact that they are being oppressed, that oppression never becomes real. The populace of Oceania is able to live with doublethink because, by lack “of understanding, they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm, because it left no residue behind.” Thus, the term Freedom is Slavery is not only propaganda encouraging the removal of all freedoms, but also a description of how freedom of thought leads to the realization that one is enslaved. The phrase ‘ignorance is bliss’ comes to mind. Without freedom, slavery as an abstract idea never reaches an individual’s consciousness, and the Party is able to accumulate power unhindered. War is Peace
Language is Big Brother’s key to stability in controlling its populace in the long term. Because language is the basis of thought, and thought is the basis of freedom, it follows that language is the key to freedom itself; removal of language constitutes the most severe type of attack on freedom itself – exactly what the Party hopes to accomplish. Overall, “the Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect. Newspeak is Ingsoc and Ingsoc is Newspeak.” Orwell puts a lot of faith in the power of language, even more so than Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. To truly understand the historical relevance of 1984 (and there always is historical relevance; Orwell is famous for his treatises against totalitarianism) it is necessary to look at the novel through the context of the time period it was written in. Orwell conceived of 1984 in the closing years of World War II and wrote most of the novel in the years immediately after. While it is possible that Orwell was inspired in part by Nazi propaganda and how the Third Reich was able to restructure the German language to inspire Nazi ideals (see: Lingua Tertii Imperii by Victor Klemperer), the similarities between Oceania and the USSR and Orwell’s own fascination with the rise of Stalin in previous works suggest that the true historical basis for 1984 lay in Moscow instead of Berlin. The towering mustachioed Big Brother evokes images of Stalin plastered onto billboards. Both are fueled through a powerful cult of personality, and both are the soul of the Party itself. On the other hand, the goateed Emmanuel Goldstein hints at Stalin’s arch-rival Leon Trotsky, with Goldstein’s sheep transformation reminiscent of Trotsky’s goat transformation, and The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism reminiscent of The Revolution Betrayed. Perhaps the most obvious hint as to Orwell’s source of inspiration, however, is the practice of combining words into one - something that appeared extensively in both Oceania and in Stalin-controlled USSR. In addition, many of Oceania’s more famous policies – such as the creation of unpersons and the doctoring of history – were already in place in the USSR by the time Orwell began to write. The start of the Cold War, with both the USSR and the US rising as super powers that enjoyed complete control in their own territories while demonizing the other through propaganda and literature. Throughout Europe and the world, there was a meteoric rise in the importance of information and the presence of espionage. Orwell took the events he observed and extrapolated 40 years into the future. He was convinced that the end of WWII was inextricably tied to the start of a global revolution in which the spheres of influence that had been established would expand while technology aided governments in massive violations of individual rights and abilities. Although Orwell was unable to foresee the strength of the American commitment to Democracy - which prevented much of the predicted geopolitics from coming true 1984 accurately portrays much of what occurred in the USSR in the 40 years following WWII. From the perspective of historical satire, much of the inspiration behind 1984 becomes clear. Yet, the novel is not really about the USSR, at least not in the way Animal Farm is. Stripped of history, Animal Farm begins to lose meaning. There is a certain persistence in 1984; something about it still impacts readers almost 75 years after it was published – 30 years after the titular date. Orwell’s study of language continues to strike a chord in its readers, because in 1984 there is a nagging alarm that manages to remain relevant as long as there are parallels that can be drawn to modern day events. Orwellian has entered the public lexicon; use of the word is as evocative as a curse when it comes to describing governments. In that sense, perhaps it is unfortunate that
the novel remains in our public consciousness – it’s still needed as a check on power. Yet, in an optimistic view that is in no way conveyed by the dystopian piece, by educating the populace on the dangers of excessive government control, Orwell has certainly made the path to dominance a lot harder for any aspiring Big Brothers. In many ways, because Winston’s future looks so bleak, our own future may be a little bit brighter.
