This day in history - June 8, 1949: George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four is published

By Richard K. Barry

 

As I watch and listen to Republicans go about their daily business with their constant use of doublespeak, George Orwell is never far from my mind. It seems, though, that Orwell never used the term doublespeak but rather coined newspeak and doublethink.

Apparently someone helpfully combined these other terms and came up with doublespeak as a word that Orwell might have coined, to the point that most think he did.

One source defines newspeak as "deliberately ambiguous and contradictory language used to mislead and manipulate the public." 

Doublethink is defined as "thought marked by the acceptance of gross contradictions and falsehoods, especially when used as a technique of self-indoctrination." 

Doublespeak is defined as:

Language that deliberately disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words. Doublespeak may take the form of euphemisms (e.g., downsizing or layoffs), making the truth less unpleasant, without denying its nature. It may also be deployed as intentional ambiguity, or reversal of meaning (for example, naming the state of war "peace"). In such cases, doublespeak disguises the nature of the truth.

As an example of Orwellian language, I need only go back a couple of days to a post I did on New Hampshire Congressman Charlie Bass's attempt to sugarcoat what the Ryan budget plan wants to do to Medicare.

He writes:

The Budget Resolution [i.e., the Ryan Budget Plan] ensures that Americans aged 54 and younger will still have Medicare when they retire by implementing a new, sustainable model of Medicare.

He goes on to say that Democratic attempts to characterize the plan as "ending Medicare" are "blatantly and wholly false, and have been deliberately crafted to mislead and frighten voters."

I don't know, Representative Bass; I don't think George Orwell would have any difficulty recognizing what you and your friend are up to.

Yes, someone is engaging in deliberately ambiguous and contradictory language and gross contradictions and falsehoods in an attempt to disguise the nature of the truth, and it's not the Democratic critics of Ryancare. It's you.

War is not peace, and a privatized voucher system is not Medicare.

(Cross-posted to Lippmann's Ghost.)