1984 Blog 1

I believe Newspeak stiffles the thoughts in 1984 more than blackwhite and double think Newspeak is alter the citizens of 1984's vocabulary to in the long run make them too stupid to think of thought crimes. Like in the book when they were going over the Newspeak dictionary they wanted to get rid of words like excellent and stupendious becuase they were too big, they created too much thought. Also, in the back of the book it tells how the Declaration of Independence preamble, "We the people..." can be summed up into one word with Newspeak, crimethink. They wanted fewer words sot he people wouldn't be able to get the feelings of freedom and revolution.

In our world today there are still leaders who use their words to distract us, the people. I call it the slight of hand - like in magic tricks. An example would be Nixon with the Watergate Scandal. He had other people take the fall for him. They may have been involved, but not the leader - slight of hand - becuase the people wanted someone to blame and he gave them someone. However, he was caught.

There are also institutions around today that use words to distract us. For example the health care system. There are so many health care commercials that promise affordable health care with fixed rates and no one will ever be turned away, but once the fine print is read it really doesn't cover everyone. Or if it does cover you, but then you need the insurance to pay for bills, like in the Micheal Moore documentary, Sicko, the company sends someone to look at your paper work desperate to find some way out of paying. They promise to get your money, but they don't always go through with their promises.