Did the Left adopt George Orwell's 1984 as an instruction manual?

Oh Dark Thirty

If you have never read 1984 by George Orwell, you really should. It explains a lot about life in these times. If you have, read it again and see if you don't agree.

Language as Mind Control

Orwell was correct. If you control vocabulary, you control thought. I wrote a book in 1981, Dream Pirates, for college students who couldn't read above a third grade level. It taught me a lesson about “Newspeak” that I've never forgotten.

The publisher provided me with a vocabulary of 1,200 words. I was allowed to use only them, but could introduce ten more. I had to use them repeatedly and in a context that would help students learn them. Unfortunately, I wrote my story outline using my own vocabulary. “Unfortunately” because it was impossible to convert some concepts from my vocabulary into the limited one of the students. It was like trying to write algebraic formulas without using letters for unknown values. Allow me to provide a simple example.

I created a scene in which a person was on the outside of a group listening to their conversation. I wanted to say “...he looked over her shoulder...” “Shoulder” wasn't on the list and I had already exhausted my ten new word limit. I could say “...he looked past her head...” but that doesn't work, does it?

Think about that. A limited vocabulary limits the ability to conceptualize a thought. Most people think in their native language and if they lack a word for a thing, it's difficult for them to understand that thing. Orwell demonstrated that concept in 1984 using “Newspeak”. He imagined a world in which the overlords controlled the masses by limiting their ability to conceive of subversive ideas. Isn't that the same result achieved by Political Correctness employed today by the Left?

Control of History and Information

Unarguably, the Left set out to control the flow of information and has largely succeeded. Every extant survey of teachers and journalists show conclusively that they are in the thrall of the Left. From the entertainment industry, headquartered in Los Angeles, and the news media, headquartered in New York, and the halls of academia located throughout the nation, one hears little other than the mantra espoused by progressives, globalists, and collectivists.

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One interesting incident recently in the news, exposed the manipulation of history by the Left. Joyce Kaplan, a Harvard professor of American Studies, tweeted, “The USA, created by int’l community in Treaty of Paris in 1783, betrays int’l community by withdrawing from #parisclimateagreement today,” The fact is that this Treaty of Paris was negotiated between the United States and Great Britain, not “the int'l community”, ending the Revolution and acknowledging independence of the American Colonies. It was won by main force of arms. Furthermore, if the United States had any obligation to any other nation it was repaid many times over in two great wars of the last century.

The simple fact is that the Harvard professor was altering history in an attempt to persuade Americans to support the Paris Treaty on Climate Change.

​Climate Change is a natural cyclic phenomenon which cannot be predicted nor controlled. However, Global Climate change is a perversion of science initiated by globalists who wish to use the threat of climate change as a unifying factor. The Left is using fear of natural catastrophe to herd the masses into one world united under their control. We would be far better off using our wealth to deal with its effects rather than attempting to alter it, but that does not suit the purposes of the Left.

In the Orwellian world of 1984, the party controls all information. It alters the past to justify the present just as this Harvard professor has attempted.

Pyschological Manipulation

Where the Harvard professor may have failed in misleading the general public, she succeeds with her students. She and others in academia live in an isolated world surrounded by walls of intolerance towards contrarian ideas. She uses the natural inclination of youth to rebel to inculcate them with Leftist ideas and ideals. This is why we see students demonstrating the symptoms of Stockholm Syndrome whenever their world is broached by “the enemy”, people exercising critical thinking and freedom of speech.
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Stockholm Syndrome causes hostages to form a psychological alliance with their captors as a survival strategy. Anyone who doubts that students are hostages and teachers are captors should visit a modern classroom..

Yes, the video Modern Educayshun is a parody, but how far over the top is it really? Look at news videos of modern students rioting when faced with the prospect of those harboring contrarian ideas appearing on their campuses at Berkeley

These students are acting out Leftist strategy much like Patty Hearst participated in bank robberies after being held hostage by the Left-wing terrorist group known as the Symbianese Liberation Army during the 1970's. Stockholm Syndrome became well known after that incident.

Doublethink

One of the more interesting discussions that I've heard often repeated among those on the Right concerns cognitive dissonance. They misuse the concept in an attempt to understand the resulting behaviors of those in thrall of the Left.

We frequently hear those who follow the Left embracing ideas which are mutually exclusive. Those capable of critical thinking are uncomfortable with that. That discomfort is “dissonance” and we are aware of it (that is “cognitive”). When people discover a difference between reality and their perceptions, they suffer cognitive dissonance which may be alleviated only by changing their perceptions. Reality can't be changed.

However, the Left is not aware of any such difference. They have developed the Orwellian skill of “Doublethink”, the ability to hold two contradictory ideas in one's mind at the same time. They would have no problem harboring the idea that they are good people even though they tell lies. After all, their intentions are good.

For example, almost everyone with only an elementary education understands the scientific process. It is, as this illustration demonstrates, a cyclic, never-ending process. In other words, the science is never settled. The only time we hear “the science is settled” is when we are being told to sit down and shut up, stop critical thinking.

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However, that is just what the globalists on the Left want us to do: Sit down and shut up. When the curtain is pulled aside revealling them altering the data to inspire fear in us, the Left dutifully pays no attention.

They are practicing doublethink.

Yes, we are well past 1984, but the date is Orwell's selection of that date was arbitrary. The strategy expressed in the book is well advanced though far from completely implemented.