[HN Gopher] Orwell: The Rewrite
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Orwell: The Rewrite
Author : samclemens
Score : 17 points
Date : 2024-06-11 17:29 UTC (5 hours ago)
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| Animats wrote:
| The gay retconning is strong here. Orwell has been accused
| elsewhere of being homophobic. Neither side has a convincing
| case.
|
| Orwell was an cynical observer, not an organizer. Orwell on
| socialists, from "The Road to Wigand Pier":
|
| _" In addition to this there is the horrible-the really
| disquieting-prevalence of cranks wherever Socialists are gathered
| together. One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words
| 'Socialism' and 'Communism' draw towards them with magnetic force
| every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac,
| Quaker, 'Nature Cure' quack, pacifist, and feminist in England."_
|
| That book is about why socialism in England never got much
| traction. Yes, in the late 1940s and 1950s, the UK had "lemon
| socialism" - the government ended up owning the steel, coal, and
| railroad industries, all of which were in trouble. That was not a
| people's movement.
|
| For the organizer's point of view, see Saul Alinsky's "Rules for
| Radicals".[1] Alinsky is all about how to organize and win,
| working from the bottom. Alinsky was a labor organizer. His
| approach is independent of political position.
|
| Orwell offers cautionary views, but he's too cynical to propose
| solutions.
|
| [1] https://www.openculture.com/2017/02/13-rules-for-
| radicals.ht...
| rewnbih wrote:
| > the mere [word] 'Socialism' ... draw towards them with
| magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-
| wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, 'Nature Cure' quack, pacifist, and
| feminist in England.
|
| A list, I find, of desirable companions.
| kleer001 wrote:
| Heaven has the best climate, Hell has the best society.
| cardanome wrote:
| As someone who has adored Orwell a great deal in my youth I do
| have to say that his works are vastly overrated for as far a
| literally merits go.
|
| They are popular because they offer an easy way to project your
| own political opinions and biases into them. They are tempting by
| their simplicity while offering a way to show off how
| intellectual your are. That thing you don't like? Literally 1984!
|
| Again, I am saying this as someone who has been very fascinated
| by his works and always will be be. You can like something while
| recognizing its flaws. Orwell hasn't introduced anything
| substantial that hasn't been done better by other authors.
|
| Some of the ideas he partially helped popularize like the concept
| of language shaping how we think has been pseudo-scientific
| nonsense that is still actively harming society today. Except
| instead of being applied by authoritarian regimes it is political
| activists that waste their energy on useless battles trying to
| police language. The childish idea that we could change society
| by changing how we speak is just too tempting .
|
| Orwell was also not a great human being but I think it is fine to
| separate the author from the works.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| As someone who speaks English, Japanese, and computer
| programming languages, I will say that language _absolutely_
| affects how we think. My trains of thought are very different
| from someone who only speaks English or Japanese, let alone
| someone who doesn 't speak programming; and I definitely can't
| fully relate to someone who speaks Spanish, Chinese, etc.
| either.
|
| As far as I'm concerned, that theory is not psuedo science.
| Yoric wrote:
| While I'm also multi-lingual, and I also strongly believe in
| (some version of) the Sapir Whorf hypothesis, to the best of
| my knowledge, it has never been demonstrated.
|
| See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity
| .
| johnisgood wrote:
| https://mw-live.lojban.org/papri/Sapir-Whorf_Hypothesis
|
| There was a great writing about it, in great detail. I
| remember it being "lojban.txt", but I cannot seem to find
| it. :(
| cardanome wrote:
| Note that Orwell promotes an hard form of the Sapir Whorf
| hypothesis called linguistic determinism meaning that a
| language would make it impossible think certain thoughts.
| This is obviously wrong.
|
| Have you ever experienced anything for which you didn't have
| the words to explain? This already proves that you can feel
| and think things that are not easily expressed in the
| languages you know. Also some people don't even think in
| words but are more visual thinkers.
|
| But even for the softer version, linguistic relativism, these
| is not much hard evidence.
|
| You subjective experience is not easily measurable. Yes, the
| act of learning new languages can gives you new perspectives
| and enrich you as a person because it gives you access to a
| whole new culture but that is different to saying you can
| suddenly experience new forms of emotions because you didn't
| have the words for it before or see more colors.
|
| I recommend this Tom Scott video on the issue:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmZdGo6b5yA
| bpshaver wrote:
| Have you read his essays and criticism? This seems like the
| take of someone who has only consumed his best-known novels.
| Animats wrote:
| > They are popular because they offer an easy way to project
| your own political opinions and biases into them. They are
| tempting by their simplicity while offering a way to show off
| how intellectual your are. That thing you don't like? Literally
| 1984!
|
| That reflects Orwell's status as an observer. He himself did
| not initiate political action.
|
| > Some of the ideas he partially helped popularize like the
| concept of language shaping
|
| It's not well known, but "Newspeak" was quite real. During
| WWII, Orwell worked for the British Ministry of Information.
| One of his jobs was translating news broadcasts into "Basic
| English", a 1000 word vocabulary for non-native speakers. Those
| broadcasts were sent out to the colonies (India, Hong Kong,
| etc.). Political ambiguity had to be made concrete to fit into
| the limited vocabulary. Orwell thus discovered that translation
| into Basic English was a political act.
|
| See "Orwell - the Lost Writings".[1]
|
| [1] https://archive.org/details/orwelllostwritin00orwe
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| You're saying Orwell's concepts on language are outdated
| nonsense, but one of the biggest movements in modern politics
| is organized through a website literally called "Truth Social"
| where the content is mostly intentional lies about basic
| verifiable facts, and markets itself as an unbiased platform
| for free speech while silently censoring any dissenting
| opinions.
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