Saturday, March 31, 2007
Pragmatism: the stick-figure approach
Volatility [BADGER of Missing Links]
The worse things get in the Middle East, the more it seems English language analysis begins and ends with the realization of the important fact that Bush is an ignorant bully. Unfortunately this often lends itself to melodrama, in the sense that other Mideast actors are assigned only secondary roles, with less than three-dimentional characters. And an incomplete and cartoon-like representation of the players lends itself to further public-relations manipulation. An example: King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia referred to the American occupation of Iraq as "illegal" (or "illegitimate") in his opening speech at the Riyadh summit, and this clearly took the American administration by surprise. Since American public opinion had been convinced for a long time that Abdullah was another poodle, this seemed to be little short of a rebellion on the farm. Certaintly it was another manifestation of American policy gone haywire. One part of the PR response from Washington has been to stress that "No, Abdullah has long been impatient with the Bush's lack of action on Palestine; he brought pictures with him to Crawford; he almost walked out until Bush promised to do something; and so on." And the other part is that Abdullah is still on board with the idea of "resolv[ing] the Palestinian issue so they can turn the region's attention to combatting the threat from Iran." In other words, the new spin on Abdullah is that his impatience over the inhumanity of Palestine finally boiled over and he lashed out, in the context of the more-urgent need to get that out of the way so as to combat the threat from Iran. In this way, one cartoon-version of Abdullah, the rebellious poodle, is in the process of being replaced by another, Abdullah the angry humanitarian, cornered.
It is true that what boiled over was the Saudi realization that their regional influence was under threat not only from Iran, but now increasingly from Iraq too. The reference to an illegitimate occupation of Iraq was really an attack on an illegitimate regime, and for Abdullah a threatening regime, in Iraq, sponsored by his supposed ally Bush. It had just recently become clear that the Allawi-American scheme for creation of an alternate, and more Sunni-friendly Green-Zone regime was being discontinued. If there was any one development that pushed Abdullah into using unexpectedly harsh language, that was probably it.
It is true that the feeling of growing threat from Iran and Iraq has changed the Saudi perspective. The Saudi regime now feels an urgent need for local allies, and given the lack of Arab leadership elsewhere (meaning Egypt), this means taking on the missing Arab-leadership role itself, and that in turn means: Promoting action, or at least apparent action, on Palestine. The Saudis are hoping not only for good PR on the Arab street, but also for an end to their feud with Bashar Assad's administration in Syria, weaning Syria away from Iran and back into the Arab fold (and similarly of course with Hamas). While it isn't clear how the proposed Palestinian negotiations will relate to the possible Syria-Israel talks on Golan and other issues, at least the Saudi-Syrian relationship is friendlier than it has recently been (the two having in effect taken opposite sides in the Israel-Hizbullah war). And this is additionally important because Syria and Saudi Arabia have been rivals for influence in Lebanon. What the Saudis are looking for is authority and problem-solving influence in all of these areas. This is not the same as "turn[ing] the region's attention to combatting the threat from Iran".
Condoleeza Rice also wants action, or at least apparent action, on Palestine, so on that point Condoleeza and Abdullah are in apparent agreement. However, this is a question of incremental steps, and the first incremental step that Condoleeza is looking for is gradual de facto recognition of Israel by the Arab regimes in the region generally, so that in any eventual war with Iran, America can be seen as simultaneously on the side of its traditional Arab allies, and on the side of Israel, at the same time. That accounts for the importance of this question of Arab-Israel diplomatic recognition as a first step. The first incremental step for Abdullah is quite different: It is the closing of ranks in the Arab world including Syria and including also Hamas, in order to split both of them from their Iranian relationships and bring them back into the Arab fold. Recognition or otherwise of Israel has nothing to do with it, except in relation to a Palestinian settlement.
To put it another way: From the Saudi point of view, the role of Israel will be as interlocutor in talks aimed at peace and ending the Palestinian occupation. By contrast, from American point of view, Israel is something that needs to be grafted into the Arab world as part of an anti-Iran strategy. For the Saudis, the road will hopefully lead to stability and balance, and it starts and ends with their establishment of their own Arab leadership and influence, including in Palestine. For the Americans, the road leads to confrontation with Iran, and an important way-station is the unification of Israel with the Arab regimes in the same anti-Iran camp. These are two very unrelated, and in many ways contradictory, aims.
What does the exclusive focus on Bush-the-incompetent-bully have to do with this? Just this: We know Bush. I know him as the milk-fed punk learning about strategy on the bar-stools of Yale. You perhaps know him in some similar way, but the point is that we know him as well as anyone can know anyone. We don't feel the need to study texts in order to understand what he is about. It is not the same with Abdullah. Yesterday he was a poodle, today a rebel, tomorrow an impatient humanitarian. The same goes for others in the region. Try to imagine an Arab person interpreting America without any understanding of the English language, and maybe you will see what I mean. Or look at it this way: Americans sometimes complain that Arabs and others don't appreciate America's motives, judging us only by our actions, which of course are full of technical errors of implementation that so often obscure our real aims and objectives. They don't "know" us. I am not belittling that.
But the point is that before you try and walk you should put the shoe on your other foot too. Given the stick-figure approach by the US administration and the media, it is to be expected that public opinion in America will now oscillate between thinking the Saudis are really Bush-allies in his anti-Iran strategy, and the opposite view, namely that they are Bush-opponents in their Palestine strategy and their overtures to the diabolical Hamas and Assad. They are what they are, and the problem for institutional America is that there isn't the cultural or linguistic underpinning to understand, not only what they are, but even (it sometimes seems) that there is such a thing as fully human aspirations and motivations in other cultures, at least not in a depth that would be able to withstand the cartoon-oriented propaganda. And the more the shock-a-minute thriller narrative takes hold, the less it seems to matter, and the more it actually does matter. Because the thinness of understanding creates volatility in public opinion just the same as thin markets foster volatility in financial trading markets, and it is a far more dangerous thing, because central banks cannot clean up after violence.
The worse things get in the Middle East, the more it seems English language analysis begins and ends with the realization of the important fact that Bush is an ignorant bully. Unfortunately this often lends itself to melodrama, in the sense that other Mideast actors are assigned only secondary roles, with less than three-dimentional characters. And an incomplete and cartoon-like representation of the players lends itself to further public-relations manipulation. An example: King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia referred to the American occupation of Iraq as "illegal" (or "illegitimate") in his opening speech at the Riyadh summit, and this clearly took the American administration by surprise. Since American public opinion had been convinced for a long time that Abdullah was another poodle, this seemed to be little short of a rebellion on the farm. Certaintly it was another manifestation of American policy gone haywire. One part of the PR response from Washington has been to stress that "No, Abdullah has long been impatient with the Bush's lack of action on Palestine; he brought pictures with him to Crawford; he almost walked out until Bush promised to do something; and so on." And the other part is that Abdullah is still on board with the idea of "resolv[ing] the Palestinian issue so they can turn the region's attention to combatting the threat from Iran." In other words, the new spin on Abdullah is that his impatience over the inhumanity of Palestine finally boiled over and he lashed out, in the context of the more-urgent need to get that out of the way so as to combat the threat from Iran. In this way, one cartoon-version of Abdullah, the rebellious poodle, is in the process of being replaced by another, Abdullah the angry humanitarian, cornered.
It is true that what boiled over was the Saudi realization that their regional influence was under threat not only from Iran, but now increasingly from Iraq too. The reference to an illegitimate occupation of Iraq was really an attack on an illegitimate regime, and for Abdullah a threatening regime, in Iraq, sponsored by his supposed ally Bush. It had just recently become clear that the Allawi-American scheme for creation of an alternate, and more Sunni-friendly Green-Zone regime was being discontinued. If there was any one development that pushed Abdullah into using unexpectedly harsh language, that was probably it.
It is true that the feeling of growing threat from Iran and Iraq has changed the Saudi perspective. The Saudi regime now feels an urgent need for local allies, and given the lack of Arab leadership elsewhere (meaning Egypt), this means taking on the missing Arab-leadership role itself, and that in turn means: Promoting action, or at least apparent action, on Palestine. The Saudis are hoping not only for good PR on the Arab street, but also for an end to their feud with Bashar Assad's administration in Syria, weaning Syria away from Iran and back into the Arab fold (and similarly of course with Hamas). While it isn't clear how the proposed Palestinian negotiations will relate to the possible Syria-Israel talks on Golan and other issues, at least the Saudi-Syrian relationship is friendlier than it has recently been (the two having in effect taken opposite sides in the Israel-Hizbullah war). And this is additionally important because Syria and Saudi Arabia have been rivals for influence in Lebanon. What the Saudis are looking for is authority and problem-solving influence in all of these areas. This is not the same as "turn[ing] the region's attention to combatting the threat from Iran".
Condoleeza Rice also wants action, or at least apparent action, on Palestine, so on that point Condoleeza and Abdullah are in apparent agreement. However, this is a question of incremental steps, and the first incremental step that Condoleeza is looking for is gradual de facto recognition of Israel by the Arab regimes in the region generally, so that in any eventual war with Iran, America can be seen as simultaneously on the side of its traditional Arab allies, and on the side of Israel, at the same time. That accounts for the importance of this question of Arab-Israel diplomatic recognition as a first step. The first incremental step for Abdullah is quite different: It is the closing of ranks in the Arab world including Syria and including also Hamas, in order to split both of them from their Iranian relationships and bring them back into the Arab fold. Recognition or otherwise of Israel has nothing to do with it, except in relation to a Palestinian settlement.
To put it another way: From the Saudi point of view, the role of Israel will be as interlocutor in talks aimed at peace and ending the Palestinian occupation. By contrast, from American point of view, Israel is something that needs to be grafted into the Arab world as part of an anti-Iran strategy. For the Saudis, the road will hopefully lead to stability and balance, and it starts and ends with their establishment of their own Arab leadership and influence, including in Palestine. For the Americans, the road leads to confrontation with Iran, and an important way-station is the unification of Israel with the Arab regimes in the same anti-Iran camp. These are two very unrelated, and in many ways contradictory, aims.
What does the exclusive focus on Bush-the-incompetent-bully have to do with this? Just this: We know Bush. I know him as the milk-fed punk learning about strategy on the bar-stools of Yale. You perhaps know him in some similar way, but the point is that we know him as well as anyone can know anyone. We don't feel the need to study texts in order to understand what he is about. It is not the same with Abdullah. Yesterday he was a poodle, today a rebel, tomorrow an impatient humanitarian. The same goes for others in the region. Try to imagine an Arab person interpreting America without any understanding of the English language, and maybe you will see what I mean. Or look at it this way: Americans sometimes complain that Arabs and others don't appreciate America's motives, judging us only by our actions, which of course are full of technical errors of implementation that so often obscure our real aims and objectives. They don't "know" us. I am not belittling that.
But the point is that before you try and walk you should put the shoe on your other foot too. Given the stick-figure approach by the US administration and the media, it is to be expected that public opinion in America will now oscillate between thinking the Saudis are really Bush-allies in his anti-Iran strategy, and the opposite view, namely that they are Bush-opponents in their Palestine strategy and their overtures to the diabolical Hamas and Assad. They are what they are, and the problem for institutional America is that there isn't the cultural or linguistic underpinning to understand, not only what they are, but even (it sometimes seems) that there is such a thing as fully human aspirations and motivations in other cultures, at least not in a depth that would be able to withstand the cartoon-oriented propaganda. And the more the shock-a-minute thriller narrative takes hold, the less it seems to matter, and the more it actually does matter. Because the thinness of understanding creates volatility in public opinion just the same as thin markets foster volatility in financial trading markets, and it is a far more dangerous thing, because central banks cannot clean up after violence.
Labels: pragmatism
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
MoveOn's Cynical Antiwar Agenda
War and Liberalism
March 27, 2007
[Richard of American Leftist] (...) MoveON.org has been one of my personal obssessions, but it is important to understand its centrality in preventing the emergence of an empowered antiwar movement. It has done so by calculated appeals to liberal pragmatism in relation to the electoral process. Sensing opportunity, MoveON.org organized against the invasion of Iraq in late 2002 and early 2003 on the slender pretext that it hadn't been authorized by the UN, as if to suggest that the colonial enterprise would have otherwise been acceptable. It participated in protest marches as part of a broader strategy to exploit antiwar sentiment to expand membership, while simultaneously limiting criticism of the impending conflict to the methodology of approval instead of the more compelling immorality of it.
The Iraqis? They were rarely, if ever, mentioned. Focusing upon the lack of UN authorization enabled grassroots liberals to subsequently support the occupation as questions related to the launching of the war were now considered irrelevant. It was a crude, but necessary finesse. Post-invasion, the Iraqis remained invisible, as the new mantra was Support the Troops.
Iraqis had died, and continued to die, in large numbers, with those still living lacking food, shelter, electricity and an uncontaminated water supply, but the new emphasis was about the extent to which the occupying force lacked sufficient body armour. Visitors to the MoveON.org website in 2004 and 2005 were subjected to a politically expedient fetishization of the military that, after repeated encounters, induced nausea. Removing the troops and liberating the Iraqis from the predations of the occupation was apparently not congruent with the objective of electing more Democrats.
Support the Troops is therefore one of the most insidiously effective advertising slogans in recent memory. It satisfied the legitimate motivation of people to empathize with the plight of soldiers in Iraq, while, paradoxically, enabling Democratic politicians, including liberals, to perpetuate the occupation. Or, to be more precise, people experienced the emotional release of remorse, while ensuring that there was no change in policy. Meanwhile, plans for the privatization of the Iraqi economy, and transnational control over the Iraqi oil supply, elicited little comment, except among global justice advocates. Support the Troops additionally served the essential purpose of concealing bipartisan support for the planned neoliberal transformation of Iraqi society.
The consequences of this success are dire. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, have fled the country and the US military is being destroyed by politicians who refuse to extract it before the command and control structure is shattered. It is a defeat so calamitous, so impossible to acknowledge, that the only solution is to expand the war to Iran and beyond. A more violent confrontation is required to conceal the stain of failure, even if the outcome is likely to be the end of US hegemony. Was it ever possible to peaceably scale back the American Empire? We will never know, but we do know that American liberals are among those responsible for excluding the possibility.
March 27, 2007
[Richard of American Leftist] (...) MoveON.org has been one of my personal obssessions, but it is important to understand its centrality in preventing the emergence of an empowered antiwar movement. It has done so by calculated appeals to liberal pragmatism in relation to the electoral process. Sensing opportunity, MoveON.org organized against the invasion of Iraq in late 2002 and early 2003 on the slender pretext that it hadn't been authorized by the UN, as if to suggest that the colonial enterprise would have otherwise been acceptable. It participated in protest marches as part of a broader strategy to exploit antiwar sentiment to expand membership, while simultaneously limiting criticism of the impending conflict to the methodology of approval instead of the more compelling immorality of it.
The Iraqis? They were rarely, if ever, mentioned. Focusing upon the lack of UN authorization enabled grassroots liberals to subsequently support the occupation as questions related to the launching of the war were now considered irrelevant. It was a crude, but necessary finesse. Post-invasion, the Iraqis remained invisible, as the new mantra was Support the Troops.
Iraqis had died, and continued to die, in large numbers, with those still living lacking food, shelter, electricity and an uncontaminated water supply, but the new emphasis was about the extent to which the occupying force lacked sufficient body armour. Visitors to the MoveON.org website in 2004 and 2005 were subjected to a politically expedient fetishization of the military that, after repeated encounters, induced nausea. Removing the troops and liberating the Iraqis from the predations of the occupation was apparently not congruent with the objective of electing more Democrats.
Support the Troops is therefore one of the most insidiously effective advertising slogans in recent memory. It satisfied the legitimate motivation of people to empathize with the plight of soldiers in Iraq, while, paradoxically, enabling Democratic politicians, including liberals, to perpetuate the occupation. Or, to be more precise, people experienced the emotional release of remorse, while ensuring that there was no change in policy. Meanwhile, plans for the privatization of the Iraqi economy, and transnational control over the Iraqi oil supply, elicited little comment, except among global justice advocates. Support the Troops additionally served the essential purpose of concealing bipartisan support for the planned neoliberal transformation of Iraqi society.
The consequences of this success are dire. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, have fled the country and the US military is being destroyed by politicians who refuse to extract it before the command and control structure is shattered. It is a defeat so calamitous, so impossible to acknowledge, that the only solution is to expand the war to Iran and beyond. A more violent confrontation is required to conceal the stain of failure, even if the outcome is likely to be the end of US hegemony. Was it ever possible to peaceably scale back the American Empire? We will never know, but we do know that American liberals are among those responsible for excluding the possibility.
Labels: antiwar, cynicism, pragmatism
Saturday, March 24, 2007
BushCo and MoveOn
One might be tempted to conclude that, monstrously, BushCo and MoveOn are sharing the same political strategist. But of course, it's far worse than that. It's (yet another) evidence that they are both mouthpieces for the same, overarching corporate interests; their cynical "pragmatism" - really nothing more than disempowering "talking points" - being picked up equally by either "side" as they trickle down to infuse the entire political scene. What I mean by "all bullshit". You hear idiots on the street repeating what they heard FOXnews say just like MoveOn repeats what it is signalled to say by the Democrat Party "powers that be". (from comments by Matty on Sat, 2007-03-24 )
Labels: cynicism, pragmatism
Monday, April 04, 2005
Wittgenstein, Ludwig
"The limits of my language are the limits of my mind. All I know is what I have words for." (Ludwig Wittgenstein)
Saturday, April 02, 2005
index
quotes
"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of what he was never reasoned into." Jonathan Swift
The great masses of the people . . . more easily fall a victim to a big lie than to a little one, since they themselves lie in little things, but would be ashamed of lies that were too big. Such a falsehood will never enter their heads and they will not be able to believe in the possibility of such monstrous effrontery and infamous misrepresentation in others . . . Therefore, something of even the most insolent lie will always remain and stick --a fact which all the great lie-virtuosi and lying-clubs in this world know only too well and also make the most treacherous use of. Adolph Hitler Mein Kampf 1925
The great masses of the people . . . more easily fall a victim to a big lie than to a little one, since they themselves lie in little things, but would be ashamed of lies that were too big. Such a falsehood will never enter their heads and they will not be able to believe in the possibility of such monstrous effrontery and infamous misrepresentation in others . . . Therefore, something of even the most insolent lie will always remain and stick --a fact which all the great lie-virtuosi and lying-clubs in this world know only too well and also make the most treacherous use of. Adolph Hitler Mein Kampf 1925
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
pretend it isn't happening
cherished words from Derrick Jensen. Food for thought, as always: "I don't think there really is anything even remotely resembling academic freedom or freedom of discourse within the culture. I keep thinking about RD Laing's 3 rules of a dysfunctional family, which are also the 3 rules of a dysfunctional culture. Rule A is Don't. Rule A.1 is Rule A does not exist. Rule A.2 is Never discuss the existence or nonexistence of Rules A, A.1, or A.2. The way this plays out within an abusive family structure is that the members can talk about anything they want except for the violence they must pretend isn't happening. The way this plays out on the larger social scale is that we can talk about whatever we want--we can have whatever 'academic' or 'journalistic' 'freedom' we want--so long as we don't talk about the fact that this culture is based on systematic violence, and has been from the beginning. Anyone who's been paying any attention at all for the last 200 years knows that the United States is based on systematic violence. We live on land stolen from Indians. The economy runs on oil stolen from people the world over. The entire economy is based on conquest and theft. It's no wonder most of the people in the world hate the U.S. But of course we can't talk about that. Anyone who does talk about that and is noticed must be silenced as quickly as possible. (...) I've never written this before in public, but my first thought on September 11 when I heard someone was attacking the World Trade Center is, 'Ah, so now it begins. Someone is finally fighting back. Given the terror that the United States routinely inflicts on people (including nonhumans, of course) the world over (and of course now a couple of years later the United States calls these programs of systematic terror 'Shock and Awe'), I'm surprised it didn't happen long ago. The poor have been very patient and longsuffering, more patient and longsuffering than anyone could ever expect.' That is what I thought. [Richard Oxman, Feb 2, 2005 Counterpunch]
prmn
prmn
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
the destruction of words
[Newspeak]
Neither of them spoke again till they had emptied their pannikins. From the table at Winston's left, a little behind his back, someone was talking rapidly and continuously, a harsh gabble almost like the quacking of a duck, which pierced the general uproar of the room.
'How is the Dictionary getting on?' said Winston, raising his voice to overcome the noise.
'Slowly,' said Syme. 'I'm on the adjectives. It's fascinating.'
He had brightened up immediately at the mention of Newspeak. He pushed his pannikin aside, took up his hunk of bread in one delicate hand and his cheese in the other, and leaned across the table so as to be able to speak without shouting.
'The Eleventh Edition is the definitive edition,' he said. 'We're getting the language into its final shape -- the shape it's going to have when nobody speaks anything else. When we've finished with it, people like you will have to learn it all over again. You think, I dare say, that our chief job is inventing new words. But not a bit of it! We're destroying words -- scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. We're cutting the language down to the bone. The Eleventh Edition won't contain a single word that will become obsolete before the year 2050.'
He bit hungrily into his bread and swallowed a couple of mouthfuls, then continued speaking, with a sort of pedant's passion. His thin dark face had become animated, his eyes had lost their mocking expression and grown almost dreamy.
'It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well. It isn't only the synonyms; there are also the antonyms. After all, what justification is there for a word which is simply the opposite of some other word? A word contains its opposite in itself. Take "good", for instance. If you have a word like "good", what need is there for a word like "bad"? "Ungood" will do just as well -- better, because it's an exact opposite, which the other is not. Or again, if you want a stronger version of "good", what sense is there in having a whole string of vague useless words like "excellent" and "splendid" and all the rest of them? "Plusgood" covers the meaning, or "doubleplusgood" if you want something stronger still. Of course we use those forms already. but in the final version of Newspeak there'll be nothing else. In the end the whole notion of goodness and badness will be covered by only six words -- in reality, only one word. Don't you see the beauty of that, Winston? It was B.B.'s idea originally, of course,' he added as an afterthought.
A sort of vapid eagerness flitted across Winston's face at the mention of Big Brother. Nevertheless Syme immediately detected a certain lack of enthusiasm.
'You haven't a real appreciation of Newspeak, Winston,' he said almost sadly. 'Even when you write it you're still thinking in Oldspeak. I've read some of those pieces that you write in The Times occasionally. They're good enough, but they're translations. In your heart you'd prefer to stick to Oldspeak, with all its vagueness and its useless shades of meaning. You don't grasp the beauty of the destruction of words. Do you know that Newspeak is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year?'
Winston did know that, of course. He smiled, sympathetically he hoped, not trusting himself to speak. Syme bit off another fragment of the dark-coloured bread, chewed it briefly, and went on:
'Don't you see that 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. Every concept that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten. Already, in the Eleventh Edition, we're not far from that point. But the process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. Even now, of course, there's no reason or excuse for committing thoughtcrime. It's merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control. But in the end there won't be any need even for that. The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect. Newspeak is Ingsoc and Ingsoc is Newspeak,' he added with a sort of mystical satisfaction. 'Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?'
'Except-' began Winston doubtfully, and he stopped.
It had been on the tip of his tongue to say 'Except the proles,' but he checked himself, not feeling fully certain that this remark was not in some way unorthodox. Syme, however, had divined what he was about to say.
'The proles are not human beings,' he said carelessly. 'By 2050 earlier, probably -- all real knowledge of Oldspeak will have disappeared. The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron -- they'll exist only in Newspeak versions, not merely changed into something different, but actually changed into something contradictory of what they used to be. Even the literature of the Party will change. Even the slogans will change. How could you have a slogan like "freedom is slavery" when the concept of freedom has been abolished? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking -- not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.'
One of these days, thought Winston with sudden deep conviction, Syme will be vaporized. He is too intelligent. He sees too clearly and speaks too plainly. The Party does not like such people. One day he will disappear. It is written in his face. [George Orwell>1984>Chapter 5]
prmn
Neither of them spoke again till they had emptied their pannikins. From the table at Winston's left, a little behind his back, someone was talking rapidly and continuously, a harsh gabble almost like the quacking of a duck, which pierced the general uproar of the room.
'How is the Dictionary getting on?' said Winston, raising his voice to overcome the noise.
'Slowly,' said Syme. 'I'm on the adjectives. It's fascinating.'
He had brightened up immediately at the mention of Newspeak. He pushed his pannikin aside, took up his hunk of bread in one delicate hand and his cheese in the other, and leaned across the table so as to be able to speak without shouting.
'The Eleventh Edition is the definitive edition,' he said. 'We're getting the language into its final shape -- the shape it's going to have when nobody speaks anything else. When we've finished with it, people like you will have to learn it all over again. You think, I dare say, that our chief job is inventing new words. But not a bit of it! We're destroying words -- scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. We're cutting the language down to the bone. The Eleventh Edition won't contain a single word that will become obsolete before the year 2050.'
He bit hungrily into his bread and swallowed a couple of mouthfuls, then continued speaking, with a sort of pedant's passion. His thin dark face had become animated, his eyes had lost their mocking expression and grown almost dreamy.
'It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well. It isn't only the synonyms; there are also the antonyms. After all, what justification is there for a word which is simply the opposite of some other word? A word contains its opposite in itself. Take "good", for instance. If you have a word like "good", what need is there for a word like "bad"? "Ungood" will do just as well -- better, because it's an exact opposite, which the other is not. Or again, if you want a stronger version of "good", what sense is there in having a whole string of vague useless words like "excellent" and "splendid" and all the rest of them? "Plusgood" covers the meaning, or "doubleplusgood" if you want something stronger still. Of course we use those forms already. but in the final version of Newspeak there'll be nothing else. In the end the whole notion of goodness and badness will be covered by only six words -- in reality, only one word. Don't you see the beauty of that, Winston? It was B.B.'s idea originally, of course,' he added as an afterthought.
A sort of vapid eagerness flitted across Winston's face at the mention of Big Brother. Nevertheless Syme immediately detected a certain lack of enthusiasm.
'You haven't a real appreciation of Newspeak, Winston,' he said almost sadly. 'Even when you write it you're still thinking in Oldspeak. I've read some of those pieces that you write in The Times occasionally. They're good enough, but they're translations. In your heart you'd prefer to stick to Oldspeak, with all its vagueness and its useless shades of meaning. You don't grasp the beauty of the destruction of words. Do you know that Newspeak is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year?'
Winston did know that, of course. He smiled, sympathetically he hoped, not trusting himself to speak. Syme bit off another fragment of the dark-coloured bread, chewed it briefly, and went on:
'Don't you see that 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. Every concept that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten. Already, in the Eleventh Edition, we're not far from that point. But the process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. Even now, of course, there's no reason or excuse for committing thoughtcrime. It's merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control. But in the end there won't be any need even for that. The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect. Newspeak is Ingsoc and Ingsoc is Newspeak,' he added with a sort of mystical satisfaction. 'Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?'
'Except-' began Winston doubtfully, and he stopped.
It had been on the tip of his tongue to say 'Except the proles,' but he checked himself, not feeling fully certain that this remark was not in some way unorthodox. Syme, however, had divined what he was about to say.
'The proles are not human beings,' he said carelessly. 'By 2050 earlier, probably -- all real knowledge of Oldspeak will have disappeared. The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron -- they'll exist only in Newspeak versions, not merely changed into something different, but actually changed into something contradictory of what they used to be. Even the literature of the Party will change. Even the slogans will change. How could you have a slogan like "freedom is slavery" when the concept of freedom has been abolished? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking -- not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.'
One of these days, thought Winston with sudden deep conviction, Syme will be vaporized. He is too intelligent. He sees too clearly and speaks too plainly. The Party does not like such people. One day he will disappear. It is written in his face. [George Orwell>1984>Chapter 5]
prmn
no surrender, no retreat
It's no surrender, no retreat. If they don't stop arguing the point, then they do not have to accept responsibility. [The Fog Of Phony War - David Corn - January 19, 2005]
