James B. Meigs: Politicians Play Orwell's Word Games

   Newspeak aims to control though by controlling language. Contra Syme in 1984, language cannot completely control thought--but as the left has demonstrated since the late '80s, it can be surprisingly influential. More recently: who would have predicted that the mere word 'transwoman' would have been as effective as it has been in encouraging acceptance of the patently contradictory idea male woman?
   The left's late-'80s term for its main project was 'political correctness,' (PC) a term taken from '50s-era communists. Apparently less-radical communists used it to ridicule their more-radical colleagues: political correctness (ideological orthodoxy) stood opposed to--and trumped--regular old correctness--truth, factuality, rationality, validity. We call basically the same thing 'woke'--but PC is better, emphasizing what is truly important about the movement.
   And, as Hannah Arendt has written: the abandonment of truth and reason central to PC is the true core of totalitarianism.
   Anytime the left says "social justice"--now often just shortened to "justice"-- they actually mean leftist ideology--and the rest of us should always point this out. "Economic justice" would really be, e.g.: prosecuting shoplifting, vandalism of public property, fare evasion, fraud, theft, &c. It would also comprise "allowing" people to keep more of the money they earn. In fact, leftists mean: taking money from people who earned it and giving it to those who didn't...and: to the cronies and catspaws of the left.

   Meigs is right--conservatives do it to. But on this score, their efforts are so puny and ineffective that it's almost misleading to even mention them. We should never suggest that they are at all comparable to those of the left. The left is an extremely linguistic and "intellectual" (in the bad sense) movement. That is: it's built on pseudoacademic bullshit and the manipulation of language and interpretation. The right has its own problems...but they aren't these. It's only somewhat of an exaggeration to say that the right's most famed attempt at Newspeak was 'freedom fries,' a jokey renaming of French fried in the Congressional cafeteria meant to poke France for refusing to go along with our ill-advised Iraq adventure. Hardly stacks up against 'transwoman' et al...