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 and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of those ends, it is the right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government. . . .
Orwell says that the nearest one can come to a Newspeak translation is to âswallow the whole passage up in the single work
crimethink. A
full translation could only be an ideological translation, whereby Jeffersonâs words would be changed into a panegyric on absolute government.â Let us, anyway, try:
We say that truth writed is truth unwrited, that all mans are the same as each other, that their fathers and mothers maked them so that they are alive, free from all diseases and following not food but the feeling of having eated food. They are maked like this by their parents but Big Brother makes them like this. Big Brother cannot be killed but he is to be killed, and in his place there will be himself. . . .
Nonsense, like saying that the sun will come out at night. Or, for that matter, that Big Brother is doubleplusungood when, by sheer definition, he cannot be.
In 1984 we are only in the initial phase of the control of thought through language. The Stateâs three slogans are WAR IS PEACE; FREEDOM IS SLAVERY; IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH . Orwell has informed us that the term
freedom
can have no absolute, or political, meaning, and yet here it is, with just that meaning, blazoned on the Stateâs coinage. Moreover, the State is using paradox in an untypically witty manner: it is the last kick of wit, we must suppose, before the endless night sets in. We are being told, very pithily, that war is the normal condition of the new age, as peace was of the old, and that it is through fighting the enemy that we best learn to love the tranquillity of our bondage. To be left to choose our own way of life is an intolerable burden; the agony of free choice is the clank of the chains of servitude to oneâs environment. The more we know the more we are a prey to the contradictions of thought; the less we know the better able are we to act. All this is true, and we bless the State for ridding us of the intolerable tyrannies of democracy. Men and women of the Party are now free to engage in intellectual games.
Winston Smithâs work
is
an intellectual game, and a highly stimulating one. It consists in expressing doublethink through Newspeak. He has to correct errors in back numbers of
The Times â
meaning, in uningsoc terms, to perpetrate lies â and to compose his corrections, which often amount to full news items, in a language which, restricting semantic choice, promotes ingenuity. (Incidentally, we may ask why separate copies of
The Times
are allowed to exist, since the collection of them for destruction must be a great nuisance. Why shouldnât it appear as a wall newspaper?) The fascination is that of composing a long telegram. Indeed, Newspeak is recognizably based on press cablese. Orwell must have relished the exchange between Evelyn Waugh and the
Daily Mail
, when that great popular organ sent him to cover the conflict in Abyssinia: WHY UNNEWS â UNNEWS GOODNEWS â UNNEWS UNJOB â UPSTICK JOB ASSWISE . Newspeak is, God help us, fun. Doublethink is, God help us again, absorbing mental acrobatics. There may be dangers in living in 1984, but there is no need for dullness.
Consider the situation for eighty-five per cent of the community â the proles. There is a war going on, but there is no conscription, and the only bombs that fall are dropped by the government, just to remind the population that there
is
a war going on. If consumer goods are short, that is an inevitable condition of war. There are pubs, with beer
Orwell says that the nearest one can come to a Newspeak translation is to âswallow the whole passage up in the single work
crimethink. A
full translation could only be an ideological translation, whereby Jeffersonâs words would be changed into a panegyric on absolute government.â Let us, anyway, try:
We say that truth writed is truth unwrited, that all mans are the same as each other, that their fathers and mothers maked them so that they are alive, free from all diseases and following not food but the feeling of having eated food. They are maked like this by their parents but Big Brother makes them like this. Big Brother cannot be killed but he is to be killed, and in his place there will be himself. . . .
Nonsense, like saying that the sun will come out at night. Or, for that matter, that Big Brother is doubleplusungood when, by sheer definition, he cannot be.
In 1984 we are only in the initial phase of the control of thought through language. The Stateâs three slogans are WAR IS PEACE; FREEDOM IS SLAVERY; IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH . Orwell has informed us that the term
freedom
can have no absolute, or political, meaning, and yet here it is, with just that meaning, blazoned on the Stateâs coinage. Moreover, the State is using paradox in an untypically witty manner: it is the last kick of wit, we must suppose, before the endless night sets in. We are being told, very pithily, that war is the normal condition of the new age, as peace was of the old, and that it is through fighting the enemy that we best learn to love the tranquillity of our bondage. To be left to choose our own way of life is an intolerable burden; the agony of free choice is the clank of the chains of servitude to oneâs environment. The more we know the more we are a prey to the contradictions of thought; the less we know the better able are we to act. All this is true, and we bless the State for ridding us of the intolerable tyrannies of democracy. Men and women of the Party are now free to engage in intellectual games.
Winston Smithâs work
is
an intellectual game, and a highly stimulating one. It consists in expressing doublethink through Newspeak. He has to correct errors in back numbers of
The Times â
meaning, in uningsoc terms, to perpetrate lies â and to compose his corrections, which often amount to full news items, in a language which, restricting semantic choice, promotes ingenuity. (Incidentally, we may ask why separate copies of
The Times
are allowed to exist, since the collection of them for destruction must be a great nuisance. Why shouldnât it appear as a wall newspaper?) The fascination is that of composing a long telegram. Indeed, Newspeak is recognizably based on press cablese. Orwell must have relished the exchange between Evelyn Waugh and the
Daily Mail
, when that great popular organ sent him to cover the conflict in Abyssinia: WHY UNNEWS â UNNEWS GOODNEWS â UNNEWS UNJOB â UPSTICK JOB ASSWISE . Newspeak is, God help us, fun. Doublethink is, God help us again, absorbing mental acrobatics. There may be dangers in living in 1984, but there is no need for dullness.
Consider the situation for eighty-five per cent of the community â the proles. There is a war going on, but there is no conscription, and the only bombs that fall are dropped by the government, just to remind the population that there
is
a war going on. If consumer goods are short, that is an inevitable condition of war. There are pubs, with beer
Similar Books
