What is Orwellian to you?

[Carolina]

Orwellian to me are daily absent mindedly actions.

[[deleted user]]

Kenny wrote: "What is Orwellian to you?"

The world we live in.

[Jdcomments]

Government encroaching into our freedoms in the name of the "common" or "greater" good.

[Namrata]

I can relate to this and hope it doesn't come true in India with the way things are going on here in the name of revolution and largest democratic elections ever!!! But I agree to Kenny.. Its definitely the world we live in..

[Jeff]

We should not speak about this. It is thought crime. No saccharine tablet for your dessert tonight.

[Kallie]

Jeff wrote: "We should not speak about this. It is thought crime. No saccharine tablet for your dessert tonight."

HaHa. Our 1984 may be insidious.

[Robyn]

England now with cameras on every street corner and MI5 +6.

[R. Michael]

A lot of what our government is taking baby steps toward now.....

[Fred]

All in the name of our safety and security. There are so many people who want to do harm to the U.S. our Allies and our way of life.
In Star Wars Episode II the republic dies to cheers for Palpatine as the new Emperor. The whole fear thing is starting to wear thin on me.
Any one else?

[Kandice]

Jdcomments wrote: "Government encroaching into our freedoms in the name of the "common" or "greater" good."

I think this says it in a nutshell. The only expansion I would make is that it needn't be a government encroaching on or eliminating your freedom for your "supposed" own good. Anyone in authority of any kind can do the same.

[Kallie]

Kandice wrote: "The only expansion I would make is that it needn't be a government encroaching on or eliminating your freedom for your "supposed" own good. Anyone in authority of any kind can do the same.
"

Yes. Barbara Ehrenreich wrote "For Her Own Good" about how, in the late 19th century, medical and 'domestic science experts' revamped the image of the ideal female as sickly, dim-witted, and suited only to keep house if she was middle class, and work in factories if she was poor. This suited the needs of capitalist consumerism nicely, because women then bought what they or their households had formerly produced.

[Holly]

To me, mindless conformity is Orwellian.

Aside from anything at a governmental level, look at how our choices as consumers keep shrinking. Music, restaurants and vehicles are just the most glaring examples of how our options are becoming more limited. There just seems to be less and less out there for those whose tastes do not meld with the top 40/blockbuster/bestseller/corporate franchise mentality.

[Jdcomments]

Kandice wrote: "Jdcomments wrote: "Government encroaching into our freedoms in the name of the "common" or "greater" good."

I think this says it in a nutshell. The only expansion I would make is that it needn't b..."

Does anyone but the government really have the authority to control us if we do not let them?

If the government is the only entity sanctioned with the power to coerce with force, shouldn't we differentiate that from the influence we allow so-called experts to exert over us through moral suasion ,intellectual intimidation or mindless acquiescence?

[Kallie]

Jdcomments wrote: "Does anyone but the government really have the authority to control us if we do not let them? "

Religion exerts a powerful force, especially in one's family. Cultural ideas of how men and women are supposed to behave also affect not only our behavior but our thoughts about ourselves and others. Sure, one may grow up to question those forces, but meanwhile, they have considerably influenced (and have influenced them no less for being largely unconscious) our attitudes and choices. In effect, these cultural influences control our lives until we become aware of and question them, and even then they are still strong influences.

[Jdcomments]

Kallie wrote: "Jdcomments wrote: "Does anyone but the government really have the authority to control us if we do not let them? "

Religion exerts a powerful force, especially in one's family. Cultural ideas of ..."

True- they have a tremendous influence, but not the ability to physically force us. They cannot jail us or seize our assets or execute us. Therefore, regardless of how profound the influence, it is still contractual- we must agree to be bound by it.

This is obvious from the changing demographics of religious participation in the US and Europe. While government has gotten much stronger, religion has diversified and gotten somewhat weaker for many.

You can give up your religion or all faith if you want, but don't try that with your taxes!

We will always be subject to influence by others, but only the government can force us to do things.

[Kallie]

Jdcomments wrote: "Kallie wrote: "Jdcomments wrote: "Does anyone but the government really have the authority to control us if we do not let them? "

Religion exerts a powerful force, especially in one's family. Cul..."

As I said, we can only disagree with and resist a control of which we are aware. Culture is powerful. Even after awareness comes, we struggle against conditioned behavior. For example, young women in classrooms are observably less vocal than their male counterparts; this is not because they don't know as much or care about expressing what they know, but because they are conditioned not to be 'pushy' and 'unfeminine.' Entire worlds of activity and inhibitions exists outside anything the government can or would bother to control.

[Jdcomments]

Of course there is- anything can influence you. But to equate them all is wrong both morally and practically.

No one ever says the government "influences" them- it decides for them and then enforces its decisions. Anything but the government can be essentially chosen or not in a free society.

As I said- try choosing to not pay your income tax and see what happens!

[Kallie]

Jdcomments wrote: "Anything but the government can be essentially chosen or not in a free society. "

This is where we disagree.

[Kinan]

North Korea, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran etc. are Orwellian.
These are the kinds of states Orwell wrote the book about, not your liberal governments. if you're calling the world right now Orwellian and are criticizing your government online without reasonable expectation of being tortured until you are a shadow of your former self then shot in the head after g , then you're being a hipster and are insulting the suffering of the real victims of Orwellian states in the Russian Gulags and in Cambodia under Pol Pot and even now in places like Syria and North Korea.

[Kallie]

Kinan wrote: "North Korea, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran etc. are Orwellian.
These are the kinds of states Orwell wrote the book about, not your liberal governments. if you're calling the world right now Orwellian ..."

This is what I was responding to:

Does anyone but the government really have the authority to control us if we do not let them?

Of course totalitarian governments are far worse and cannot be compared to the forms of control we live under. But to assume that because we do not live under that oppression we do no experience various kinds of control that limit and even harm us, and that those kinds of control cannot increase, could be a mistake.

[Kallie]

Kinan wrote: "North Korea, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran etc. are Orwellian.
These are the kinds of states Orwell wrote the book about, not your liberal governments. if you're calling the world right now Orwellian ..."

Also, the liberal government (here for example) may not behave so liberally toward some as it does to you. Part of the problem is we are throwing around words like 'free' and 'liberal' as if they have one definition when I really don't know what that means to you.

[Adriano]

Many things, double speak being one: it's everywhere.

[Kallie]

Smiley face. Smiley, smiley, smiley face. Barbara Ehrenreich describes this attitude so well in 'Bright-sided.'

[Paul Martin]

Kinan wrote: "North Korea, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran etc. are Orwellian.
These are the kinds of states Orwell wrote the book about, not your liberal governments.


Wrong. He didn't write the book "about" states like that, he wrote the book as a warning of how bad a state can become. So, when you have clear indications that (for example) the US is becoming more, and not less, like the world decribed in 1984, this is precicely what Orwell was talking about. The point isn't that the US is now just like Oceania, the point is that it is moving towards that. Slowly, yes, but still moving.

[Paul Martin]

Mehrzad wrote: What are you taking about???

This is what I'm talking about: there is nothing hipsterish or dishonest about calling criticizing a state for being "Orwellian", just because it is not nearly as bad as North Korea or Iran.

Mehrzad wrote: I think everybody got what Kinan wrote!!!

Yes, I understand what he wrote too, but I challenge the notion that the term "Orwellian" is only to be used about a state which lives up to the standard of Oceania in 1984.

Mehrzad wrote: however I don't understand what you are talking about!!! not my liberal government???
I wrote that I was born in Iran and I am living there.

What are you talking about? I made no comment about you or where you grew up.

Mehrzad wrote: And FYI go look for the date that "Animal Farm" was published. He did not foresee a future possibility."

The one does not exclude the other. He was indeed telling us that "history repeats itself", but it was also meant as a warning of the increasigly totalitarian regimes around the world. In light of that, it is indeed appropriate to call something "Orwellian" when a state does something that takes it closer to what Orwell feared could/would happen.

Mehrzad wrote: And it is really arrogant of "Kinan" to repeat George Bush's words here as his own" I mean to look down on other countries and think that you are superior to them because your society passed it's Orwellian days before others is arrogant."

...I have no idea why you're telling me this? It has nothing to do with my comment.

Mehrzad wrote: by the way whatever you or Kinan heard, I've seen it I've felt it and I don't need you to tell me what you heard from somebody who heard it from somebody else and so on and on ....

Again, what are you raving about? What have I heard and what am I trying to tell you that I "heard it from somebody else and so on and on"? You make no sense. I am very much aware that things are terrible in Iran, and I'm sure you've personally experienced what a totalitarian regime is like, but I have never said otherwise, so stop making these ridiculous accusations.

[Paul Martin]

Mehrzad wrote: "Dude you're so tense and may by smoking the wrong joint (kidding) :D

What "ridiculous accusations"?

whhhhhhhhhhat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's not about me Or you or even Kinan it about "What is Or..."

Alright, you and I are clearly completely unable to communicate with each other (I don't understand a thing of what you just said), so I guess it's best to just stop :p

All the best!

[Steven]

Great Britain. Where I live.

Regards from Airstrip One,

Steven Lawrie

[Steven]

Exactly.

[Holly]

I seceded from the union when I became a homeowner. I now live in the North American Celtic Republic where hounds outnumber humans by a 2 to 1 ratio. Life here is pretty sweet!

[Kallie]

Holly wrote: "I seceded from the union when I became a homeowner. I now live in the North American Celtic Republic where hounds outnumber humans by a 2 to 1 ratio. Life here is pretty sweet!"

Here too! As a consequence, we're very earthy.

[Kallie]

Holly wrote: "I seceded from the union when I became a homeowner. I now live in the North American Celtic Republic where hounds outnumber humans by a 2 to 1 ratio. Life here is pretty sweet!"

Here too! As a consequence, we're very earthy.

[Susan]

Vancouver Olympics 2010

(The actions by the government around the Olympics rather than the sporting itself).

[Jaka]

Mindless conformity...

It's quite simple. Four legs good, two legs bad. Full stop-nothing added or changed.

People are "pigs", animals are not. Animals do not lie consciously, even for the price of their own life.

[Andrew]

I remember when 1984 arrived and nothing happened. I was wrong. The web was dawning, so was email, the pc, the fax and a brick-like mobile phone.

[Abanoub]

Egypt

[Fred]

Congressmen Neugenbaur, 19th Congressional district TX, had a Vietnam vet who wanted an appointment to discuses vet suicides arrested and held for six days in a psych ward this past April.
That's Orwellian
The gentlemen has since been released and is now suing the congressman, PD, and the psych ward. More posts as the case moves forward

[Diegobass]

Es el mundo real y estamos en proceso de lavado de cerebro...

[Vesna]

Orwelian is way which many countries go today, people who make decisions in many countries are like a pigs in Animal farm. All people should be equal but we often have situations that some people are more equal than others. Orwelian too is modernization and of course consequence of this is estrangement between people.

[Papaphilly]

The fact that we as a society have become so politically correct that you can no longer have an opinion that someone finds offensive.

[M]

TMZ

[John]

Kinan wrote: "North Korea, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran etc. are Orwellian.
These are the kinds of states Orwell wrote the book about, not your liberal governments. if you're calling the world right now Orwellian ..."

Exactly.

If you live in an Orwellian state, you would not be allowed to say so. Anywhere.

Believing one is a poor, helpless victim of an all-powerful state is an attractive pose; it lets one see himself as helpless and free from the consequences of his own choices and decisions.

The key to the Orwellian state is that it is so all-powerful there is not even room to hope--let alone complain aloud.

[Matthew]

John wrote: "Kinan wrote: "North Korea, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran etc. are Orwellian.
These are the kinds of states Orwell wrote the book about, not your liberal governments. if you're calling the world right ..."

Thank you, John. It is far too common in these forums to hear people say that they live in an Orwellian state simply because there's closed-circuit cameras, advertisements everywhere, or have to put up with a little PCness. If this is seriously people's idea of a dystopian nightmare, then they haven't the faintest idea of what that would entail.

[Papaphilly]

Matthew wrote: "John wrote: "Kinan wrote: "North Korea, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran etc. are Orwellian.
These are the kinds of states Orwell wrote the book about, not your liberal governments. if you're calling the..."

In all fairness, the question asked what Orwellian was to them. An opinion. There is no wrong answer. BTW, "a little PC" as you put is designed to stifle open conversation by demonizing thought. The idea there is "proper" thought and all others must be shouted down. That is the very essence of how it starts. Not the my country is worse to live than yours, but the idea of shutting down the free expression of ideas.

[Matthew]

Papaphilly wrote: "Matthew wrote: "John wrote: "Kinan wrote: "North Korea, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran etc. are Orwellian.
These are the kinds of states Orwell wrote the book about, not your liberal governments. if yo..."

This is true, but it shows a lack of perspective and experience, I think, on the part of certain individuals.

Speaking of which, Political Correctness was not designed to "stifle open conversation" or "demonize thought". It was conceived with the idea that people should be more mindful and sensitive in how they say about other people and take into account that words matter.

How it has been used and abused, not to mention perceived, is entirely subjective. And in my experience, those portraying it as censorship or comparing it to Newspeak and the Thought Police is done all-too-often to defend ignorant and hateful statements whenever the speaker is called on them. But I'm glad you said that, because it's the perfect example of calling something "Orwellian" that does not merit it.

[mkfs]

Matthew wrote: "Political Correctness was not designed to "stifle open conversation" or "demonize thought". It was conceived with the idea that people should be more mindful and sensitive in how they say about other people and take into account that words matter. "

That is definitely where it differs from Doublespeak and Newspeak. Political Correctness is an (often misguided) attempt to correct perceived grievances with how the language evolved. It's one thing to avoid using ethnic slurs, but when you start claiming that the use of 'he' for impersonal pronouns and 'she' for indefinite pronouns in English is patriarchal oppression, and that this usage should be reversed (because that makes sense) or replaced with something like hir ... well, at that point, you really have to ask yourself what you're trying to accomplish.

Ignorance is Strength! Unfortunately.

[Papaphilly]

Matthew wrote: "Papaphilly wrote: "Matthew wrote: "John wrote: "Kinan wrote: "North Korea, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran etc. are Orwellian.
These are the kinds of states Orwell wrote the book about, not your liberal..."

Actually you are wrong about Political Correctness. It was designed to stop conversation from the very start by labeling the conversation not liked as bad or hate speech. The modern use of it as we understand it today started in the late nineteen eighties or early nineties by conservative thinkers reacting to perceived social threats by liberal thinkers and academics. The attack on family values and American values comes out of this time period or the very term being called a "Liberal". It was meant to stop a person dead in their tracks and it worked.

Of course the liberal side of the equation responded in kind with calling the conservative side with their own version of political correctness racist, hate speech, anti-immigrant or anti-woman terms and it worked too.

If you do not think this is not Orwellian, that is fine. I grant you that it does not rise to the level of Doublespeak (it depends on what is is), but it is not as far off as think with the thought police. Our schools are chock full of books being challenged because someone finds them offensive. It is not that they do not want their children reading them, they do not want any children reading these books and that is policing thought by another means.

Before you think I am being paranoid, I suggest you read American history on the late forties to the mid-fifties and about Joe McCarthy, morality codes, and HUAC. It is truly scary reading on this period of history. I also suggest watching the documentary "The Revisionsaries". It is very scary what is happening with our education system today.

It is a short step from political correctness to being told what you may think.

[Matthew]

Papaphilly wrote: "Matthew wrote: "Papaphilly wrote: "Matthew wrote: "John wrote: "Kinan wrote: "North Korea, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran etc. are Orwellian.
These are the kinds of states Orwell wrote the book about, ..."

Again, it seems to me you are speaking from personal, and quite possibly political, opinion. I mean no offense, of course, but it seems that your perceptions mirror those who created the term in the first place. And this took place the 1990's and was done by politically conservative individuals to strike back at those who criticized them for taking positions that they saw as inherently elitist, racist and sexist.

And far from being censorship of speech or thought, these were accurate accusations based on what people on the far right have had to say. The justification that "this is political correctness gone mad!" is no different than the claim of censorship or reverse discrimination. It's made in defense of positions that cannot be defended rationally or morally.

Not only that, but claiming PCness is censorship ignores the central fact that no one is being deprived of their right to say anything. Calling a person sexist, racist, homophobic, or elitist for saying something sexist, racist, homophobic or elitist isn't censorship. It's criticism.

Boycotting a person for doing the same thing or demanding their sponsors pull funding is asking that others withhold financial support. Again, it does not curtail anyone's right to say what they think. Freedom of speech does not entail freedom from criticism, otherwise it only works one-way and is meaningless.

And considering your opinions on HUAC, McCarthy and creationism, I would think you'd agree. The very term "political correctness" is derived from Stalinist Russia to describe thought that wasn't considered "deviation". It is, in effect, the same act as calling someone a "communist" - basically using a loaded word to denounce them, shame them into silence, and make people reject their opinions. And that effort is being spearheaded by people of similar views to McCarthy and Don McElroy.

[Kallie]

Mkfs wrote: "when you start claiming that the use of 'he' for impersonal pronouns and 'she' for indefinite pronouns in English is patriarchal oppression, and that this usage should be reversed (because that makes sense) or replaced with something like hir ... well, at that point, you really have to ask yourself what you're trying to accomplish...."

Seriously, who specifically does this??

[Matthew]

Mkfs wrote: "Matthew wrote: "Political Correctness was not designed to "stifle open conversation" or "demonize thought". It was conceived with the idea that people should be more mindful and sensitive in how th..."

Yes, I have heard this sort of nonsense argued, but only in the ivory tower and very rarely outside of it. Hence why I was so happy to leave after a few too many years time. Lucky for all of us, such arguments are not taken seriously much in the outside world and, barring some unforeseen overthrow of society by a small cadre of post-doc students, will never be enshrined in law.

[mkfs]

Matthew wrote: "Lucky for all of us, such arguments are not taken seriously much in the outside world"

Perhaps the argument is not fully spelled-out, but it is certainly followed. I've lost count of the less professional writers (e.g. bloggers, columnists) who use the feminine for the impersonal pronoun, presumably out of the misguided notion that it's somehow more fair.