The whole point of this would be to remove the language of dissent from the general population. People would not be able to complain about the regime, because the faculties would not exist to articulate their dissatisfaction. Put simply, how can you have a revolution if the word doesn't - indeed, never did - exist? Newspeak was a way of ensuring total party domination over successive generations of the people.
When I first read 1984, I was like 11 or 12 years old. And it scared the crap out of me. Just because this somewhat ingeneous idea of newspeak was so fucking plausible. I've been thinking about this recently, and like, it seems that - particularly amongst people of my own generation - our vocabularies ARE shrinking. It's almost like this gradual 'dumbing down' process is being enacted upon the Australian populace.
{WHAT I DID ON MY WEEKEND}
Nothing highlighted this way off and crazy suspicion to me more than when I went with Mum and Dad to check out the new Melbourne Museum, up behing the exhibition buildings on Rathdowne street, last weekend. It's not a museum in the classic sense anymore. Gone are the oiled hardwood floors, polished leather furniture, fading brass ralings and fucking huge dinosaur skeletons. Instead we have this new shiny, modern (or is that 'moderne?') looking building, more along the lines of science works. Which hey, I mean, that's cool...it looks rad and everything else.
But the problem is inside. There seems to be an over-abundance of crap on dsiplay, without really much substance to any of it. As far as I'm concerned, museums are about displaying items of our own culture, and exhibiting other from around the world (often acquired through dubious means. But hey, that was a hundred years ago. The past doesn't matter anymore, right?). Well, the items were there alright. So many items. Just taste all the items. But the information wasn't. We ended up asking each other a billion times 'what's this then?', because the particular artifact in the display wasn't labeled. And even when it was, it really didn't tell you a whole lot.
This is dissapointing because, like, it's a museum for the MTV generation. All we're ivne is tiny little snippets of information for a fwe seconds, then hey, it's off to the next bright and colourful object that gets our short attention spans.
It's actually a little hard to articulate the point I'm trying to make here (hehehe, shades of newspeak already?). So like, all I can suggest is that you go check it out for yourself, and compare it to the museum you went to on that grade four excursion. But I will comment on two particular things that did really strike me about the whole edifice. Coincidentally, both were in the 'victorian culture' display...
Phar Lap - Mum's first comment upon walking into this little area was 'gee, talk about constructing icons'. And she was right. A huge glass case, red velvet curtains, gold handrails, and everything else. And what's it for? A big dead horse in a jar.
Neighbours - Yes. The TV show. In a museum. Are we that bereft of cultural artifacts that we have to put actual sets from a fuckint TV series - and not a good one like frontline mind you - on display in the bloody state museum?! Fucking hell, if this is the best we can do, I say close the bloody place for 200 years and wait until we have something worth displaying.
But I mean, this is just one sign of quite a few that Australians as a whole - and kids especially - appear to be 'dumbing down'.
{NERD ROCK}
I am a bit of a nerd, yeah. I watch a whole lot of discovery channel on foxtel. I wanna get the extra package with the history channle as well. Often, I'd ratehr read a book than watch TV. I find weird little museums really interesting. Same goes for the old newspaper room at the state library. I read the age and watch the SBS world news every day. I like learning. Just call me Lisa.
"So what?" I hear you say. The sad thing is, a lot of people my age don't. They don't know even that the Whitlam dismissal happened, let alone what it was. They've never even heard of the holocaust?! They vote to waste a shitload of money that could be better spent on a republic because it would be 'a nice change?'.
By the way, I'm 19, well and truly old enough to vote. So are these people.
This is not a good thing.
What 's so bad about this though, is if we are being 'dumbed down', well, WHY? What purpose does a less intelligent population achieve?
In a word?
{SHUT UP AND SHOP}
Television, newspapers, magazines, and pop songs are turning us int consumer drones. Mindless, salivating automatons conditioned to switch our brains off and buy, buy, buy. I alluded to this in death to the capitalist running dogs of american music videos: The market we represent, aged approximately from 13 to 35, is the one with the most disposable income. We don't have dependents, often we have other people paying our bills. So we're quite obviously the biggst target for the concerns that manufacture, market, and at the same time profit from 'youth culture'. We're targeted for everything. Fast food, clothes, shoes, mobile phones, music. All consumer items that are as much fashion as they are a product on the shelves.
I mean, I can fucking talk. I've got my fashionable emo glasses on, my mobile phone is sitting on the desk next to me, I've just downed a cheeseburger and I'm swilling on a large coke. We're all the victims. And this is what a stupid population is so useful for: people who'll greedily just shop away and ignore any inconvenient distractions like how fucked up their world really is.
{TELEVISION: THE DRUG OF A NATION (breeding ignorance and feeding radiation)}
What role does the favourite demon of left wing propaganda outlets (such as this site), the media, play in the subjugation of the future voters? Well, most of it. Current affairs and news programs are as driven by ratings as the rest of the network's stock. Ratings = advertising space = profit = one more ivory back scratcher in the Packer Mansion bathroom.
We have no real free press in this country anymore (apart from the internet, I'll get to that later). There's no really effective public broadcasting available. I live in a suburban melbourne house with five televisions. Not one of them will pick up channel 31.
If that's not a potent fucking symbol of consumerism versus the free press, I don't know what is.
Now, consider the way the commercial media, such as news programs, portray social problems?
As write this, the channl 10 'first at five' news is on in the background. We've just had a 7 minute article on Gary Ablett, with some dickhead with a camera and micramaphone walking around Geelong asking people what they think of the guy who has some extremely dodgy connections to the highly suspicious death of a young woman. Funnily enough, 90% of those interviewed are talking about Ablett the champ, not Ablett the potential convited criminal. Hah. And we thought the days of the untouchale footy player were over, hey Rach?
Then after this, we have approximately 30 seconds on a fire in which 9 squatters nearly died in melbourne last night. Mal Walden puts just the tiniest hint of pseudo-outrage into his voice as the narration concentrates more on the fact that the firefighters had their job hampered by the profusion of needles on the ground than the fact that NINE PEOPLE ALMOST DIED.
Oh what, they don't matter as much because they're 'junkies', and not worth our concern? Imagine if it was like a young family, let's say a married couple and kids under 10. I can already see the close up shot of the burnt plastic tricycle in my mind already.
Just consider the contrast in the way these two particular stories, and the way the protagonists are portrayed in them for a moment.
As for print medai: don't get me fucking started on the New Idea of newspapers, the Herald Sun, we'll be here all night. Although the Age is just as bad with it's pretensions to psuedo-intellectualism. But at least they're not completely overt and obvious about it.
{LANGUAGE CREATING BARRIERS}
Okay, back to this notion of newspeak. Let's consider the implications associated with just a few simple words and phrases, and the way the media and even peer socieites have shaped our associations of them.
drugs - what comes to mind when you think of this? Caffeine? Pharmaceutical products like (shudder) Ritalin? By definition, any chemical that alters your natural state and disposition is a drug. What are 'drug's in the common syntax? Heroin? Marijuana? Smackies stealing Granny's handbag and shooting up in city alleyways?
gay - pertaining to homosexuality. Those of you who know me will know how shitty I get wehn people say things like this as an insult or in an otherwise derogatroy manner. But in the playground, a legitimate sexual choice was always the worst of insults to some: being called a 'poof' or 'fag' or 'lezo' was like the defcon 3 of taunting.
black and white - notice how they pertain to race, as well as the nature of things. Something bad or evil is always 'dark' or 'black'. the 'black' race is oppressed in this country, as pretty much all over the world. But 'white' is seen as good and pure. White is the colour of wedding dresse because it traditionally denotes purity (I'm not telling you waht custom that stems from though...eww...).
I saw a poster ages ago that just sums up this particular case, as well as the biasing of language in general that I'm referring to here, so percectly:
black spot
black mark
black mass
black magic
black sheep
black market
black listed
WHITE LIES
{WWW.GETAFUCKINLIFE.COM}
Okay, so what about the internet? One area where us younger generation types have it over the older generations who for the most part construct our reality. (Hi 5 are are just pawns of capitalist oppression!). Well, it's portrayed in the form of two distinc folk myths:
folk myth #1 - the internet is dangerous: How many articles are there on dirty old men stalking your children on the internet? How many minor panics over pornography and race hate groups? The internet is in fact the last effective means of that free press I was talking about before. That's what scares people about it. Because there's no regulation over can or can't be said on here. Would the Herald Scum publish this article I'm writing now? Of course they wouldn't. But I can just get on here and type it up and hopefully a few people will read it and get something from it. How much do people have a cry about 'protecting your kids from teh veils of the inertnet?' 'Websafe?' 'Net Nanny?'. It's as if you should be shielding your kids from this like it's some sort of plague, rather than teaching it to learn and become more open minded from it.
folk myth #2 - the internet sucks people in away from reality: I actually subscribe to this one a bit. I mean, how much shit talk and crap goes on over the internet, just in the field of punk rock/hardcore alone? I've been guilty of this myself heaps of times, and no doubt I will be again. there is the potential for this tool we have in our hands to just become another great, colourful, shiny distraction from reality.
{END HITS}
To sum up, let's be realistic. There ISN'T a whole lot we can really do about this apart from educationg ourselves. Like it or not kids, we have to exist within capitalism.
It's like this, we all love midian and love going to shows there, why do we behave in ways that cause residents to complain and ultimately will result in us losing the venue? To quote boysetsfire, "we've sold ourselves out".
The same applies to those who love to 'oppose capitalism' at every turn. You're ultimately just going to end up shooting yourselves in the foot. We live in a cpitalist society. You will not change that. You are incredibly arrogant and concieted to think you will. what you can do hower, is compromise. Live within that system as much as you are comfortable with. But never for a second just submit and becom part of the masses lining up to be force fed their own opinions on everything from fashion to the situation in the middle east. Because if you try to oppose that capitalist machine, you will become a victim of it. Like the way S11 and M1 shot itself in the foot by destroying it's own credibility before it even started. Your best bet is to just accept that reality and live with it.
Getting a job and paying the rent and doing all those things 'normal' people do doesn't equate drooling, staring at the two minutes hate and chanting 'I love big brother'. It's not selling out. It's the most practical way of being able to exist. You can be happy withyourself and hold on to your convictions, yet still pay the rent and put food on the table (and new merch on your back). Because while they can tell you waht to think, as long as you retain your individuality, they can't actually make you think it. They can't stop you from questioning what you're told. And they can't stop you from being your own human being.