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Rated: E · Essay · Political · #2269611
What if political correctness were measurable?
In his most famous novel, Orwell mentions that, according to the nigh-omnipresent Party, "Proles and animals are free". Later on, before Winston's torture and conversion, we find that most people in the prison are members/ employees of the Party's political machine (this includes the poet). It's possible all of them are. In my mind, the oft-overlooked implication is that the Party monitors itself more closely than it monitors outsiders. The reason is clear: only a lockstep movement is immune to subversion from within.

But what if one of Newspeak's objectives as the official language in Oceania was to make monitoring these pawns even easier? Political correctness as a practice is meant to keep politicians and their minions from supporting (especially in appearance) certain loyalties and values that could harm their careers and reputations. Newspeak obviates the concern, although not entirely, by doing away with anything related to those potential landmines. To express one's crimethink, the only option would be to invent new words, once the old ones have been fallen into the massa damnata, or else misuse the available ones. And then it would be enough to catch them without over-analyzing the intent behind their grammar and emphases.
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Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/2269611-Thinking-about-Newspeak