Good seeing some of you at the excellent FiRe Conference.
I have an article in a new book of critical essays about George
Orwell. But the following is cribbed from a recent speech by Bill
Moyers. Frankly, I do not always find him "on".
But this time he is
---
"Without a trace of irony, the powers that be have appropriated the
Newspeak vernacular of George Orwell's 1984. They give us a program
vowing no child will be left behind, while cutting funds for
educating disadvantaged children; they give us legislation cheerily
calling for clear skies and healthy forests that give us neither,
while turning over our public lands to the energy industry.
In Orwell's 1984 the character Syme, one of the writers of that
totalitarian society's dictionary, explains to the protagonist,
Winston, 'Don't you see? Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak
is to narrow the range of thought? Has it ever occurred to you,
Winston, that by the year 2050 at the very latest, not a single human
being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we're
having right now. The whole climate of thought,' he said, 'will be
different. In fact, there will be no thought as we understand it now.
Orthodoxy means not thinking, not needing to think. Orthodoxy is
unconsciousness.'
'Hear me: an unconscious people, an indoctrinated people, a
people fed only partisan information and opinion that confirm their
own bias, a people made morbidly obese in mind and spirit by the junk
food of propaganda is less inclined to put up a fight, ask questions
and be skeptical. And just as a democracy can die of too many lies,
that kind of orthodoxy can kill us, too.'"
-- from Bill Moyers' address at the National Conference on Media Reform.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/16/1329245
_______________________________________________
http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
