Thoughtcrime ex Wiki

Thoughtcrime is a word coined by George Orwell in his 1949 dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. It describes a person's politically unorthodox thoughts, such as unspoken beliefs and doubts that contradict the tenets of Ingsoc (English Socialism), the dominant ideology of Oceania. In the official language of Newspeak, the word crimethink describes the intellectual actions of a person who entertains and holds politically unacceptable thoughts; thus the government of the Party controls the speech, the actions, and the thoughts of the citizens of Oceania.^[1] In contemporary English usage, the word thoughtcrime describes beliefs that are contrary to accepted norms of society, and is used to describe theological concepts, such as disbelief and idolatry,^[2] and the rejection of an ideology.^[3]

Thought control

In the story of Nineteen Eighty-Four, the Thinkpol (Thought Police) are responsible for the detection and elimination of thoughtcrime, and for the social control of the populations of Oceania, by way of audio-visual surveillance and offender profiling. Such psychological monitoring allows the Thought Police to detect, arrest, and kill thought criminals, citizens whose independence (intellectual, mental, and moral) challenges the political orthodoxy of Ingsoc (English Socialism) and thus the legitimate government authority of the Party.^[4] In the detection of thoughtcrime—and to overcome the physical impossibility of simultaneously policing every citizen of Oceania—the Thinkpol spy upon the populace through ubiquitous two-way telescreens, and so can monitor any person's body language, reflexive speech, and facial expressions:

Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by the telescreen; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was, of course, no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork.

— Part I, Chapter 1, Nineteen Eighty-Four

The universal, physical presence of the telescreen, in public and in private spaces, exerted psychological pressure upon each citizen of Oceania to presume that they were under constant Thinkpol surveillance, and thus in danger of detection and arrest as a thought criminal; thus, whenever near a telescreen, Winston Smith was always mindful of that possibility: "If you made unexpected movements, they yelled at you from the telescreen."^[5] Such surveillance methods allowed the Thinkpol and the Ministry of Love (Miniluv) to become universally feared by the citizens of Oceania, especially by the members of the Outer Party, which includes Winston Smith.

Crimestop

In the Newspeak vocabulary, the word crimestop denotes the citizens' self-awareness to immediately rid themselves of unwanted, incorrect thoughts (personal and political), the discovery of which, by the Thinkpol, would lead to detection and arrest, transport to and interrogation at the Miniluv (Ministry of Love). The protagonist, Winston Smith, describes crimestop as a conscious process of self-imposed cognitive dissonance:

The mind should develop a blind spot whenever a dangerous thought presented itself. The process should be automatic, instinctive. Crimestop, they called it in Newspeak. . . . He set to work to exercise himself in crimestop. He presented himself with propositions—'the Party says the Earth is flat', 'the Party says that ice is heavier than water'—and trained himself in not seeing or not understanding the arguments that contradicted them.

Moreover, from the perspective of Oceania's principal enemy of the state, in the history book The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, Emmanuel Goldstein said that:

Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity.^[6]

The point of Newspeak in George Orwell's Book 1984 is political control. It is with us now but called Political Correctness rather than Thoughtcrime. The Puritans had their version in an earlier century and the same enthusiasm for enforcing it. Words as Propaganda Tools have some examples. One part is Doublethink

Thought Police Muscle Up In Britain
Is a more contemporary view of a very nasty reality.

 

Thoughtcrime ex Wiki
QUOTE
Newspeak is a fictional language in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. In the novel, it is described as being "the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year." Orwell included an essay about it in the form of an appendix in which the basic principles of the language are explained. Newspeak is closely based on English but has a greatly reduced and simplified vocabulary and grammar. This suits the totalitarian regime of the Party, whose aim is to make any alternative thinking � "thoughtcrime", or "crimethink" in the newest edition of Newspeak � or speech impossible by removing any words or possible constructs which describe the ideas of freedom, rebellion and so on. One character says admiringly of the shrinking volume of the new dictionary: "It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words."

The Newspeak term for the English language is Oldspeak. Oldspeak was intended to have been completely eclipsed by Newspeak before 2050.

The genesis of Newspeak can be found in the constructed language Basic English, which Orwell promoted from 1942 to 1944 before emphatically rejecting it in his essay "Politics and the English Language". In this paper he laments the quality of the English of his day, citing examples of dying metaphors, pretentious diction or rhetoric, and meaningless words � all of which contribute to fuzzy ideas and a lack of logical thinking. Towards the end of this essay, having argued his case, Orwell muses:

I said earlier that the decadence of our language is probably curable. Those who deny this would argue, if they produced an argument at all, that language merely reflects existing social conditions, and that we cannot influence its development by any direct tinkering with words or constructions.

Thus forcing the use of Newspeak, according to Orwell, describes a deliberate intent to exploit this degeneration with the aim of oppressing its speakers.

Basic principles of Newspeak

To remove synonyms and antonyms
The basic idea behind Newspeak is to remove all shades of meaning from language, leaving simple dichotomies (pleasure and pain, happiness and sadness, good thoughts and thoughtcrimes) which reinforce the total dominance of the State. Similarly, Newspeak root words served as both nouns and verbs, which allowed further reduction in the total number of words; for example, "think" served as both noun and verb, so the word "thought" was not required and could be abolished. A staccato rhythm of short syllables was also a goal, further reducing the need for deep thinking about language. (See duckspeak.) Successful Newspeak meant that there would be fewer and fewer words -- dictionaries would get thinner and thinner.

In addition, words with opposite meanings were removed as redundant, so "bad" became "ungood". Words with comparative and superlative meanings were also simplified, so "better" became "gooder", and "best" likewise became "goodest". Intensifiers could be added, so "great" became "plusgood", and "excellent" or "splendid" likewise became "doubleplusgood". Adjectives were formed by adding the suffix "-ful" to a root word (e.g., "goodthinkful", orthodox in thought), and adverbs by adding "-wise" ("goodthinkwise", in an orthodox manner). In this manner, as many words as possible were removed from the language. The ultimate aim of Newspeak was to reduce even the dichotomies to a single word that was a "yes" of some sort: an obedient word with which everyone answered affirmatively to what was asked of them.

Some of the constructions in Newspeak which Orwell derides, such as replacing "bad" with "ungood", are in fact characteristic of agglutinative languages, although foreign to English. It is also possible that Orwell modeled aspects of Newspeak on Esperanto; for example "ungood" is constructed similarly to the Esperanto word "malbona". Orwell had been exposed to Esperanto in 1927 when living in Paris with his aunt Kate Limouzin and her husband Eug�ne Lanti, a prominent Esperantist. Esperanto was the language of the house, and Orwell was disadvantaged by not speaking it, which may account for some antipathy towards the language.

To control thought

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 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.^[3]

The underlying theory of Newspeak is that if something can't be said, then it can't be thought.

Examples of Newspeak, from the novel, include: "crimethink"; "doubleplusungood"; and "Ingsoc" .They mean, respectively: "thought-crime"; "extremely bad"; and "English Socialism", the official political philosophy of the Party. The word "Newspeak" itself also comes from the language. Note that all of these words would be obsolete and should be removed in the "final" version of Newspeak, except for "doubleplusungood" in certain contexts.

Generically, Newspeak has come to mean any attempt to restrict disapproved language by a government or other powerful entity.
UNQUOTE
Thoughtcrime is alive and well in the socialist Paradise that is England. It is called Political Correctness.

 

Room 101 ex Wiki
Room 101 is a BBC comedy television series based on the radio series of the same name, in which celebrities are invited to discuss their pet hates and persuade the host to consign those hates to oblivion in Room 101, a location whose name was inspired by the torture room in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four which reputedly contained "the worst thing in the world". Orwell himself named it after a meeting room in Broadcasting House where he would sit through tedious meetings.^[1] It was produced independently for the BBC by Hat Trick Productions.

Nick Hancock hosted the first three series of the show from 1994 till 1997. He was succeeded by Paul Merton, who hosted the show from 1999 till the show's original run came to an end in 2007. Frank Skinner hosts the revamped incarnation that started on 20 January 2012.^[2]

The 1994–2007 incarnation of the show was that of a one-on-one interview between the host and guest. Consignment of the nominated items, persons or concepts to Room 101 (theoretically banishing them from the world forever) was the decision of the host, sometimes after soliciting the opinion of the studio audience. The 2012 revamp introduced a panel format with three guests competing to have their pet hates consigned to Room 101, a decision made by the host. Guests included Ricky Gervais, Spike Milligan, Stephen Fry, Boris Johnson, Ben Miller and Ian Hislop (the only person to appear twice on the show in its original format). Fry went as far as to put Room 101 itself into Room 101.

A Dutch version of Room 101 started on 24 February 2008, but was short-lived.^[3] [ Too close to home perhaps? Editor ] An Israeli version of the show was broadcast between 2010 and 2013. An Australian version of the show hosted by Paul McDermott began in 2015.^[4][5]