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Comment by gotoeleven | Hacker News Reader

"The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible"

I'm genuinely curious do the woke brigades of twitter not have the self awareness to recognize what they're doing? Or do they just not care? Would they be happy with a language designed to make 'harmful' thinking impossible?

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Both "woke" ideology and MAGA ideology use words in this way.

- Make America Great Again

- Black Lives Matter

- Stop the Steal

- Homophobia

- Drain the Swamp

- Ableist

- America First

All of those exist to make it difficult to express an opposing viewpoint. Orwell would have recognized this.

Part of this has to be that catchphrases are more viral and are an effective way to signal allegiance to a group verbally due to their brevity.

It's everything I don't like in a single package. Unthinking, unoriginal, incendiary, devoid of specific meaning, used as a tribal marker, and used to elevate the status of the speaker without having contributed anything.

The challenge of our time is to find a way for rationality to survive in the face of the effectiveness of slogans and simplification. You may not like it but most humans are susceptible. We are bundles of emotions longing to be a part of something larger than ourselves. This is why when I jay-walk I don’t just jay-walk I also shake my fist and yell power to the pedestrians. It’s vastly more Satisfying to my animal mind- Body.

The recent "Jan 6 was an act of love" (for Trump) is another good example. It was both true-in-a-sense (oxytocin doesn't make you less racist), and brilliant, in much the same way that "Proud Boys" was clever, but it seems to sail right over peoples' heads (Or they're just pretending not to get it. I can't tell.).

And some older political phrases could also be added to your list; for me the archetype is "Pro Life" vs. "Pro Choice".

Catchphrases are not what I associate with wokeism. Instead it's the redefinition of words already clearly defined before wokeism appeared. Such as

Man

Woman

Gender

Violence

Racism

These, and other words, appear to be redefined, (or hijacked) quite successfully, implying interpretive precedence by woke authority.

With that, discussing such topics becomes very difficult, in particular if such definitions are applied to the discussion itself.

The young always have the power, perhaps the duty, to change the language they are given. That this generation is allowing people that don’t fit into narrow slots of gender to have more freedom and respect isn’t such a bad thing. If you value freedom, can you not recognize allies in your fight for freedom? And racism discussions were never going to simple, after the habit of ignoring the evil of mistreating people due to their skin color became habitually overlooked by the folks with pinker skin.

It's not the cognitive dissonance that one would assume it to be. They've studied their methods well. Marx and Mao would be proud.

https://nypost.com/2020/06/25/blm-co-founder-describes-herse...

I'd think Marx would be turning in his grave. Identity politics only serve to divide the working class when they could come together on more important matters that unite them across party lines.

People need not know anything about Marx to invoke him. He's much more useful as a boogyman -- besides, aggressive enough badmouthing him will discourage others from finding anything serious out about his beliefs or positions.

More to the point - the propaganda that BLM is a "Marxist domestic terrorist group" effectively discourages people from studying the group's actual beliefs or positions.

I've studied the BLM's background out of curiosity and find those four words to be a fairly accurate description. I'd compare them with the Red Guard from Mao's China.

In a traditional society, like america in 70s, those types would be outcasts. The woke ideology gives them an attractive alternative: pledge allegiance to the camp and become a "social justice warrior" - an honorable title that makes its holder think they are fighting for the greater good. What are their alternatives, really? A cashier in Walmart? They are easy to understand. Those one level above who steer the mob (ibram kendi and the like) are smart, rational and probably sociopathic. They are designing the newspeak, but IMHO lack competence and influence to make a difference (upsetting a few people doesn't count).

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