ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis) (08/15/85)
_ I hereby confess a repulsion to the idea, frequently expressed in
this newsgroup, that the word `free' is meaningless.
After all, do we not read in Orwell's 1984 that:
The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of
expression for the worldview and mental habits proper to Ingsoc, but
to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that
when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak
forgotten, a heretical thought -- that is, a thought diverging from
the principles of Ingsoc -- should be literally unthinkable, at least
so far as thought is dependent on words. Its vocabulary was
constructed as to give exact and often subtle expression to every
meaning that a Party member could hope to express, while excluding
all other meanings and also the possibility of expressing them by
indirect methods. This was done partly by the invention of new words,
but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words and by stripping such
words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of
all secondary meanings whatever.
To give a single example. The word FREE 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 the old sense of "politically free" or "intellectually free",
since political or intellectual freedom no longer existed as concepts.
...
Newspeak was designed not to extend but to diminish the range of
thought, and this purpose was indirectly assisted by cutting the
choice of words down to a minimum.
On the other hand, there are excellent reasons for purging our so
called `minds' forever of this idea. After all, was not the idea of
`liberty' so horribly abused (with respect to blacks, women, native
americans, latinos, &c) in this so called `land of opportunity' as
below?
We hold these rights to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable
rights, that among these are life, liberty, etc...
And we must never forget Joseph's McCarthy's despicable Crusade for the
`Free World' to stamp out those damn communists. The words `free' and
`liberty' have been used to manipulate us for too long.
Maybe Rosen's right. If we cannot rigorously define the Sacred Cow
(`free'), we oughta nuke it.
SMASH FREEDOM!!!
-michaelrlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (08/18/85)
> _ I hereby confess a repulsion to the idea, frequently expressed in > this newsgroup, that the word `free' is meaningless. [ELLIS] And then you proceed to quote Eric Blair himself on the topic of Newspeak. If anybody is engaging in Newspeak around here, it's those who say "now let me redefine this term to mean what I want it to mean so that it can be perceived that the thing meant by the original used definition of the term can magically be perceived to exist". Where we are talking about something that we have reasonable understanding of, something we are realtively sure of, like human capability for rational evaluative analysis, or (maybe better) the human capability to decide to condition the mind to behave and react in new (chosen) ways, when we are talking about such a thing, why must we recall a definition that is used to describe something else entirely that represents an implied fallacy and thus does not exist in reality? Why not a new word to describe this? I think we are all agreed that this thing I've described (by whatever name) exists (potentially, if learned) in the human mind. The questions are 1) what name should we give it? 2) does it qualify as "free"? -- Meanwhile, the Germans were engaging in their heavy cream experiments in Finland, where the results kept coming out like Swiss cheese... Rich Rosen ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr