Orwellian doublespeak

Some quotes from Orwell’s 1984: “War is peace.” “Freedom is slavery.” “Ignorance is strength.”

These quotes represent Orwell’s concept of “doublethink” whereby a government manipulates reality by forcing people to believe blatant lies and contradictions, effectively eroding their ability to discern truth.

For example, suppose we all know, because we all witnessed it while it was actually happening, that Russia launched a brutal military invasion of Ukraine. Then suppose that our own government assures us that Ukraine started that war.

This is a perfect example of Orwellian doublespeak. What our government is actually doing is conditioning its citizenry to lose the ability to discern truth.

If you are an American citizen, how much you are bothered by this particular example of doublespeak might depend on your own family’s history. For example, if you are a Korean American, it might remind you of the assurances by the Japanese during the Korean occupation that it was all the fault of the Koreans.

Similarly, if you are Jewish American, it might remind you of the assurances by the Nazi government that the extermination of the Jews was justified because, well, they were Jews.

If you hail from any group that has historically been the victim of this sort of thing, maybe you should be worried. Once a government realizes that it can get away with doublespeak, it will feel emboldened to discover new “enemies” to rouse the populace.

And then it will generally choose “enemies” that have been successfully demonized in the past. So do you happen to be black? Hispanic? Gay? Female? Don’t think for a moment that you are safe.