Desperate Madness “You Are a Slow Learner, Winston,” the Total Surrender of Common Sense Desperate Madness Said O’Brien Gently
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August 23, 2019 Volume 04, Number 02 A journal for restless minds Desperate Madness “You are a slow learner, Winston,” The total surrender of common sense Desperate Madness said O’Brien gently. The total surrender of common sense Deacon’s Diner “How can I help it?” he blubbered. “How can I help but see what is in Food for a restless mind he dystopian novel, Nineteen front of my eyes? Two and two are Eighty-Four, by the English four.” writer George Orwell, was “Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes published in 1949. Set in the they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them Tyear 1984, it describes a world of perpet- at once. You must try harder. It is not ual war, government overreach, omni- easy to become sane.” present government sur- veillance, totalitarianism, rwell was a Colloquī is a Deacon’s Corner historical negationism1, writer, that is weekly journal. Its mission and propaganda, and the to say he em- purpose: to encourage serious O repressive regimentation ployed the English lan- discussion, to promote reasoned of all persons and behav- guage “as an fine instru- debate, and to provide serious content for those who hope to iors within society. ment for expressing, not find their own pathway to God. for concealing or pre- There is an unsettled venting, thought.” In an Each week Colloquī will contain familiarity to Orwell’s essay, Politics and the articles on theology, philoso- imagined future, now phy, faith, religion, Catholicism, English Language, Or- thirty-five years past, vividly illustrated and much more. well noted the decadence then on dis- in this brief dialogue between Winston play in the use of the English language. Be forewarned! Articles may Smith and O’Brien who is trying to con- and often will contain fuel for vince Winston that “whatever the Party Most people who bother with the controversy, but always with holds to be truth, is truth.” O’Brien holds matter at all would admit that the the express intent to seek the English language is in a bad way, but up four fingers, but wants Winston to Truth, the whole truth, and it is generally assumed that we cannot nothing but the truth, so help us see five. by conscious action do anything about God. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 1 CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 seem to have no eyes behind them. killing off your opponents when And this is not altogether fanciful. you can get good results by doing it. Our civilization is decadent and A speaker who uses that kind of so." Probably, therefore, he will say our language—so the argument runs—must inevitably share in the phraseology has gone some dis- something like this: tance toward turning himself into a general collapse. It follows that any While freely conceding that the Soviet machine. The appropriate noises are struggle against the abuse of lan- regime exhibits certain features which coming out of his larynx, but his guage is a sentimental archaism, the humanitarian may be inclined to like preferring candles to electric brain is not involved as it would be deplore, we must, I think, agree that a certain curtailment of the right to light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. if he were choosing his words for himself. If the speech he is making political opposition is an unavoidable Underneath this lies the half- is one that he is accustomed to concomitant of transitional periods, conscious belief that language is a and that the rigors which the Russian make over and over again, he may natural growth and not an instru- people have been called upon to un- be almost unconscious of what he is ment which we shape for our own dergo have been amply justified in saying, as one is when one utters purposes. the sphere of concrete achievement. the responses in church. And this Now, it is clear that the decline of a reduced state of consciousness, if The inflated style itself is a kind of language must ultimately have po- not indispensable, is at any rate euphemism. A mass of Latin words litical and economic causes: it is not favorable to political conformity. falls upon the facts like soft snow, due simply to the bad influence of blurring the outline and covering In our time, political speech and this or that individual writer. But an up all the details. The great enemy effect can become a cause, reinforc- writing are largely the defense of of clear language is insincerity. ing the original cause and produc- the indefensible. Things like the When there is a gap between one's ing the same effect in an intensified continuance of British rule in India, real and one's declared aims, one the Russian purges and deporta- form, and so on indefinitely. A man turns as it were instinctively to long may take to drink because he feels tions, the dropping of the atom words and exhausted idioms, like a himself to be a failure, and then fail bombs on Japan, can indeed be de- cuttlefish spurting out ink. In our all the more completely because he fended, but only by arguments age there is no such thing as which are too brutal for most peo- drinks. It is rather the same thing "keeping out of politics." All issues that is happening to the English ple to face, and which do not square are political issues, and politics it- language. It becomes ugly and inac- with the professed aims of the polit- self is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, curate because our thoughts are ical parties. Thus political language hatred, and schizophrenia. When has to consist largely of euphe- foolish, but the slovenliness of our the general atmosphere is bad, lan- language makes it easier for us to mism, question-begging and sheer guage must suffer. I should expect have foolish thoughts. cloudy vagueness. Defenseless vil- to find—this is a guess which I have lages are bombarded from the air, not sufficient knowledge to verify— The political dialects to be found in the inhabitants driven out into the that the German, Russian and Ital- pamphlets, leading articles, mani- countryside, the cattle machine- ian languages have all deteriorated festoes, White papers and the gunned, the huts set on fire with in the last ten or fifteen years, as a speeches of undersecretaries do, of incendiary bullets: this is called result of dictatorship. course, vary from party to party, pacification. Millions of peasants are but they are all alike in that one robbed of their farms and sent But if thought corrupts language, almost never finds in them a fresh, trudging along the roads with no language can also corrupt thought. vivid, homemade turn of speech. more than they can carry: this is A bad usage can spread by tradition When one watches some tired hack called transfer of population or rectifi- and imitation even among people on the platform mechanically re- cation of frontiers. People are impris- who should and do know better. peating the familiar phrases— oned for years without trial, or shot Political language—and with varia- bestial, atrocities, iron heel, blood- in the back of the neck or sent to die tions this is true of all political par- stained tyranny, free peoples of the of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: ties, from Conservatives to Anar- world, stand shoulder to shoulder— this is called elimination of unreliable chists—is designed to make lies one often has a curious feeling that elements. Such phraseology is need- sound truthful and murder respect- one is not watching a live human ed if one wants to name things able, and to give an appearance of being but some kind of dummy: a without calling up mental pictures solidity to pure wind.2 feeling which suddenly becomes of them. Consider for instance some stronger at moments when the light comfortable English professor de- Fast forward to 2019. Little has catches the speaker's spectacles and fending Russian totalitarianism. He changed; the English language is on turns them into blank discs which cannot say outright, "I believe in CONTINUED ON PAGE 3 2 CONTINUED FROM PAGE 2 Non-Human Reproductive Sys- ing that she hopes the publication tems,” the paper was published … will inspire feminists and other hospice care and life support, some in a journal called Dissenting Voices, “social justice”-minded individuals would say suicide watch but who then which is published and edited by to “incorporate non-human bodies is attending watch? Political correct- the Women’s and Gender Studies into their own feminist perspec- ness has metastasized the language so program at the College at Brockport tives.” State University of New York. severe, recovery is no longer possible. “If we are going to argue fairly for “All issues are political issues, and The published piece aims at dis- the rights of all beings in a world politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, cussing the “sexual exploitation of soured with sex and gender-based non-human bodies, specifically oppression, then dairy cows de- folly, hatred, and schizophrenia,” is dairy cows.” The author notes that serve to be taken into account when the same notwithstanding the inter- “as a vegan and animal rights activ- discussing issues of reproductive vening years since Orwell wrote them. ist,” she feels compelled to reveal women’s health,” April, who then the “feminist aspects of animal agri- compares barren female cattle to ommonsense has turned a culture,” a topic she says is unfortu- human women who choose not to bilious green, an uncommon nately “under-researched,” but is have children, writes.