Newspeak…

‘’an imaginary form of language in George Orwell’s 1984, in which the size of vocabulary and ranges of meaning were so restricted that this in itself restricted the concepts and thoughts that a person was capable of formulating’’

George Orwell wrote his novel ‘1984’ on the Island of Jura in Scotland, during the 1947-48 periods. The final manuscript of the novel was sent to ‘Secker and Warburg’ editorial house. They published ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ on the 8th of May 1949. The novel success demanded that it was published in 65 more languages, the greatest number for any novel published. The Newspeak language used ‘1984’ are ‘contemporary bywords for personal privacy lost to the state’. Newspeak is known to say the opposite of what it means.
Here are some examples:

‘Ministry of Peace’ deals with War, ‘Ministry of Love’ deals with Law and Order.

Newspeak was the official language of Oceania and was created to meet the needs of English Socialism. In 1984 no one used Newspeak, as their only means of communication. In the Times Newspaper, some of the principal articles were written in Newspeak. But this was hard and could only be done by a specialist. Newspeak was expected to take over from Standard English or ‘Oldspeak’ by the year 2050. Since the appearance of Newspeak it has been used more widely in Politics especially. Politicians will use Newspeak in their everyday speech.
Its expressions were constructed to give exact and very often slight expression to every meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express, while not including all other meanings and also the possibility of arriving at those meanings via indirect methods. This was done partially by the formation of new words, but mainly, eliminating unwanted words and by ‘stripping such words that remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary meanings’. An example of this is the word ‘free’. It still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be used in such statements as ‘This dog is free from lice’ or ‘This field is free from weeds’. It could not be used in its old sense of ‘politically free’ or ‘intellectually free’ since political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts, and were therefore of requirement, nameless. Apart from the control of definitely ‘heretical’ words, the lessening of vocabulary was regarded as an end in itself, and no word that could be dispensed with was allowed to continue to exist. Newspeak was designed not to extend but to fade the range of thought, and this purpose was circuitously assisted by cutting the choice of words down to a minimum. Newspeak was founded on the English language as we now know it, though many Newspeak sentences, even when not containing newly-created words, would be barely comprehensible to an English-speaker of our own day.

Further from my last entry I have conducted some further research into Rousseau.

Theory of Natural Man

''The first man who, having fenced in a piece of land, said "This is mine," and found people naive enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody''

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 1754

This is an interesting quote, about people being naive. Rousseau looked to a hypothetical State of Nature as a normative guide. Rousseau deplores Hobbes for asserting that since man in the "state of nature . . . has no idea of goodness he must be naturally wicked; that he is vicious because he does not know virtue".

Rousseau never suggests that humans in the state of nature act morally, in fact, terms such as "justice" or "wickedness" cant be applied to pre-political society as Rousseau understands it. Morality proper, eg, self restraint, can only develop through careful education in a civil state. Humans "in a state of Nature" may act with all of the ferocity of an animal. They are good only in a negative sense, in so far as they are self-sufficient and therefore not subject to the vices of political society.

Rousseau argues that sovereignity (or the power to make the laws) should be in the hands of the people, he also makes a distinction between the sovereign and the government. The government is composed of magistrates, who enforce the general laws and make sure that they are obided. The "sovereign" is the rule of law, ideally decided on by direct democracy in an assembly (or government). Under a monarchy, however, the real sovereign is still the law. Rousseau was opposed to the idea that the people should exercise sovereignty via a representative assembly.

I think this is interesting, and i think on the whole i have to agree with rousseau. I think that some things should be in the hands of the people. Although in this day and age there would be no way to influence people enough. This is for many reasons. One of which will be that there are so many cultures and religions present in our society, that there is no way that everyone will obide to the laws of one government.

A lot of this goes over my head but from reading about these different philosophers i am beginning to grasp an understanding of what they are about and what they believed in, and now know a lot more about politics and the way in which it has evolved.

Jo Foxon

I have been writing an assignment about Rousseau and Hobbes and have been thinking about their philosophys. They both have very good arguments as to why we should 'obey the state'. I think it is important to obey rules, or obey the sovereign because without it the world would be chaos. There are so many nasty evil people out there who, if left without a ruler would make the state a dishonest and chaotic place to be. I think that is important in these times where, thieveing and rape are rife that there is some sort of pressure applied from the law to prevent this kind of thing happening.

''No more laws! No more judges! Liberty, equality, and practical human sympathy are the only effective barriers we can oppose to the anti-social instincts of certain among us''

(Peter Kropotkin, Law and authority (1886) repr. in The Anarchist Reader, 117)

This quote has left me wondering if the restriction of what people can do is what makes people rebel to do things. Is the fact that you can't steal enough to make someone steal?! And if stealing was allowed would it be a thing of the past?!

Hobbes believed that the fundamental law of nature was to seek peace , if others are doing so, but otherwise to use the advantages of war. This and Hobbes' other 18 laws, were said to be the 'theorems of reason'. This has led me to think that the idea of seeking peace may be something that we as humans can learn from.

Over and out

Jo Foxon

Firstly I should probably introduce myself. I am Joanna Foxon and I have been asked to start a a blog by my lecturer, the concept of this has suprised me.

Why an earth would anyone want to read about what I think? Im studying Journalism and Events Management at University and I'm in my (second) first year (yes I know, what a failure). During the period of deciding to write this blog, I was faced with the challenge of what to write it about. After some long hard thinking, I have decided to stray from the norm and write about my fears of failing this year at University.

Interesting subject I know.

Being a very sociable person I find it very hard to focus on the more important things in life. This could be anything from going to a lecture at 9am in the morning through to getting a job. I find it very hard to get motivated. I think the reason for me picking myself off the floor from last year lies with my friends and family. To me they are irreplaceabable and their opinion of me will always be the one that matters.

If i have any doubt that they think less of me i always try to correct that fault in myself. The problem is with my friends and family is that they refrain from telling me my flaws the majority of the time. This leaves me with the task of self reviewing myself every couple of days. Yes, every couple of days, my life doesn't take long to come off track. But i find that fun and interesting and at least then I have the drive and motivation from within to correct my flaws. I know this may all seem like a load of gabble, but my revolutionary plan is to record my flaws and the way i plan to correct them in my blog. Maybe other people can learn from my mistakes. My main aim is to make people proud of me, yet its something i find so hard to do. All it would take is for me to say ''No, im staying in tonight to do some reading'' but yet some force within me tells me otherwise. Maybe this blog will act as my religion and I will read back on it to learn from mistakes and to live how I want to live according to this blog. Heres hoping it works and perhaps in three years time i will have this blog to thank for my Degree.

First port of call is a shower and a trip into town to chase up a job...its working already!

Thanks for listening

Apologies for the sketchyness, i am a blog virgin!

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