Orwellian language
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Orwellian language (propaganda technique) | |
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Founder(s) | George Orwell |
Interest of | George Carlin |
Language chosen to hide rather than expose the truth. |
Orwellian language is language chosen to hide the truth, especially language which inverts the truth.
Etymology
The phrase is a refence to George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four, a dystopian novel about a totalitarian superstate which uses perpetual war against one or both of its two competing superstates to keep the large majority of its population in poverty and ignorance.
Examples
Page name | Description |
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"Continuity of Government" | A plan for undermining and infiltrating government, activated by the US Deep state on 9-11 |
"Counter-extremism" | Like "counter-terrorism", supposedly a force to counter "extremism". In practice, such efforts deserve closer scrutiny, not least because of the plastic nature of the word "extremism". |
"Counter-terrorism" | A component of the military-industrial-terrorism-congressional complex which has seen a dramatic growth since 9-11. Originally referred to special forces trained in terrorist warfare, it became a broader meaning for loss of civil liberties and a culture of fear and mistrust. |
"Fact checker" | An individual or group trusted to investigate the truth of news. In practice, professional fact checkers test whether news conforms to their employers' opinions. |
"Fact checking" | A thinly veiled effort to counter suspicion in official narratives as promoted by the commercially-controlled media. i.e. "Trust us, we've fact checked this article". |
"Free market" | The neocon economic system. |
"Mainstream" | As opposed to "extreme", this adjective is used particularly in the phrase "mainstream media" |
"National security" | Like the idea of 'Patriotism', the notion of 'National Security' is one designed to bind all members of a society together. By evoking fear of its opposite it creates a suitable psychological frame for the abdication of personal responsibility to the nation state. In the 21st century, the concept is repeated like a mantra in en effort to justify ever more opaqueness in the workings of governments tired of legal restrictions such as rights of their citizens. |
"Non-violent extremism" | An enemy image used to try to justify violent repression of those who advocate non-violent change. |
"Radicalisation" | Together with "extremism" this word is one of many which deep states are seeking to use to demonize dissent by equating truth telling and earnest inquiry with violence, as a tool to facilitate internet censorship. |
"Security service" | The phrase "security service" is used to describe groups which, often explicitly exempt from national laws, carry out not only intelligence gathering operations, but also assassinations and murders. This article clarifies why the phrase "security service" is not used in this way on this website. |
Committee on Public Information | Committee to boost US public support for World War I. |
Integrity Initiative | "Military-directed" "extremely shady covert disinformation and anti-democratic deep state outfit" that promotes Russophobic propaganda. Exposed by a set of 7 caches of documents, posted online. Later deleted its website. |
Memory hole | Mentioned in Nineteen Eighty-Four as a tool of censorship, now used metaphorically to describe the fate of unpalatable truths. |
Related Quotations
Page | Quote | Author | Date |
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George Carlin | “Now listen, long as we’re discussing minorities, I’d like to mention something about language. There are a couple of terms being used a lot these days by guilty white liberals. First one is “happens to be”… “He happens to be black. I have a friend who happens to be black.” Like it’s a fucking accident you know? Happens to be black? “Yes, he happens to be black.” Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah, he had two black parents? “Oh yes, yes he did. Yes, that’s right.” Right, and they fucked? “Oh indeed they did… indeed they did.” So where does the surprise part come in? I should think it would be more unusual if he just happened to be Scandinavian! And the other term is “openly.” “Openly gay.” They say “he’s openly gay.” But that’s the only minority they use that for. You know, you wouldn’t say someone was “openly black.” … well maybe James Brown… or Louis Farrakhan; Louis Farrakhan is openly black. Colin Powell is not openly black, Colin Powell is openly white; he just happens to be black.” | George Carlin | |
George Carlin | “Smug, greedy, well-fed white people have invented a language to conceal their sins. It's as simple as that. The CIA doesn't kill anybody anymore, they neutralize people, or they depopulate the area. The government doesn't lie, it engages in disinformation. The Pentagon actually measures nuclear radiation in something they call sunshine units. Israeli murderers are called commandos, Arab commandos are called terrorists. Contra killers are called freedom fighters. Well, if crime fighters fight crime, and firefighters fight fires, what do freedom fighters fight?” | George Carlin | |
George Carlin | “So about 80 years after the Constitution is ratified, the slaves are freed. Not so you'd really notice it of course; just kinda on paper. And that of course was at the end of the Civil War. Now there is another phrase I dearly love. That is a true oxymoron if I've ever heard one — civil war. D'you think anybody in this country could ever really have a civil war? "Say, pardon me...*machinegun sounds*...I'm awfully sorry! Awfully sorry."” | George Carlin | |
Cult | “The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliché. The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly selective, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. They become the start and finish of any ideological analysis.” | Robert Jay Lifton | 1961 |
Ruud Lubbers | “At the foot away, this trouble-field needs to be down-tunneled in a motion, so that appointments along this road with the cabinet can be out-concluded quickest and as best.” | Ruud Lubbers | |
Mark Rutte | “Vision is like an elephant that robs your view. (...) When I think of the word "vision" I immediately think: go see an ophthalmologist!.” | Mark Rutte | |
SDS/Exposure | “Whatever is unnamed, whatever is misnamed, is something else, whatever is buried under an inadequate or lying language, this will become not merely unspoken but unspeakable.” | Adrienne Rich |
Related Document
Title | Type | Publication date | Author(s) | Description |
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Document:Larry Sanger is right, Wikipedia has become the establishment thought police - just look at my entry on there | Article | 12 July 2021 | Eva Bartlett | Eva Bartlett in an op-ed for RT, writes about the problems with Wikipedia. |
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