Journal ahbi's Journal: ThoughtCrime and 1984
from: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/25/2040200
One would do well to actually read 1984 (as opposed to just scream its title every time the Right does something you don't like).
1984 was an comment by Orwell on the Communists. Orwell, himself a socilaist, learned to hate and fear the Communists after the Spanish Civil War.
Big Brother was an obvious stand-in for "Uncle Joe" Stalin.
In 1984 you will see:
* The Ministry of Truth, the media manipulation of news and history (ala the recent Reugter's Photoshopping of pictures from the Israel/Lebanon war; Dan Rather's falsification of documents)
* NewSpeak, the changing of language to make certain thoughts impossible (ala the politically correct language redefinition we experienced in the 70s/80s e.g. "differently abled" for "handicapped", in Sweden "husmor" replaced by "hemmafru" or their English cognates "housewife" with "stay-at-home-mom")
* DoubleThink, the simultaneous holding of two or more mutually exclusive ideas (e.g. "homosexuality is something you are born with" and "homosexuality is a personal and private decision"; or "racism is always wrong" and "affirmative action is the right thing to do")
* ThoughtCrime, making the mere ability of thinking something a crime. You see this all the time in Hate Crime legislation (what murder wasn't already a crime
* also the breakdown of the family and sexual relationships (which has less obvious parallels but "PolPot & the child turns their parents in" (like Winston's neighbor) would be an example)
* furthermore the mild anti-semitism, the hatred of Goldsteinism, today you see this all the time however this is mostly thinly veiled as an attack on "Zionism"
We really shouldn't be surprised by the EU and The Left's fascination with this kind of behaviour. Orwell saw and predicted it nearly 50 years ago.
