• Newspeak in 1984

    • The concept of limiting thought through language
      • I thought this was similar to modern programming languages
      • It becomes a grammar or library (vocabulary) that makes it difficult to write in a messy way
  • from From Newspeak to Cyberspeak: A History of Soviet Cybernetics

  • A language bound by the Ideology of the Soviet Union

  • Connecting scientists, politicians, and philosophers

  • Words should only have descriptive meanings, and the evaluation of words such as good and bad should change depending on the context and the reader’s values

    • The state of goodness or badness that “internationalism” holds can differ depending on the context and the reader
  • However, in Newspeak, words are associated with evaluations of good and bad

    • Internationalism is associated with goodness
      • Even with the same meaning, cosmopolitanism is associated with badness
    • Even with antonyms, patriotism is associated with goodness, while nationalism is associated with badness
    • image
      • This represents antonyms of descriptive meaning on the top and evaluative meaning on the left and right
        • Left represents goodness, right represents badness
  • These are called “ideologemes”

  • Having two “antonyms” in this situation creates ambiguity in Language

    • By manipulating Newspeak, any claim can be made “ideologically good” p25