Orwell for a Sunday Afternoon

[ThomWV]

Politics and the English Language 1946

"Since you don't know what Fascism is, how can you struggle against Fascism? One need not swallow such absurdities as this, but one ought to recognize that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language, and that one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end. If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy. You cannot speak any of the necessary dialects, and when you make a stupid remark its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself. Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one's own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase -- some jackboot, Achilles' heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno, or other lump of verbal refuse -- into the dustbin, where it belongs."

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm

[ristruck]

1. Get R Done

[bemildred]

2. Norman Mailer Answers George Will:

It is worth reminding ourselves that the life of a democracy may also depend on the good and honorable use of language and not on the scurvy manipulation of such words as "evil" and "love" by intellectual striplings of the caliber of our president.

-- Norman Mailer, Letters to the Editor
The Boston Globe
For Whom The Will Toils
March 14, 2002

[Viva_La_Revolution]

3. My middle son just started reading 1984 this morning...

He's been seeing lots of references on the internets, and he got curious.

I gave him Fahrenheit 451 to read after he finishes 1984.

Should be some very interesting conversations with him in the next few days...

[ThomWV]

4. Good for him!

I've read it twice in the last month and a half. The first time I just went right through it like any novel. The second time, last week, I paid attention to every word, consciously followed every line of plot, gave consideration to every divulged fact. I looked for the stories and the discrepancies. There is more there than I could absorb in just two readings. It is astounding.