{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3381", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 3381, "subject": "Let a thousand averns bloom!", "messages": 3, "voices": 2, "first": "2002-07-29T15:47:22+00:00", "last": "2002-07-29T22:35:05+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com" }, "date": "2002-07-29T15:47:22+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Let a thousand averns bloom!", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I believe it was blattid who fairly recently complained that \nhe did not grok how or why some people keep saying that the\nAscians are \"Orwellian\" with their Correct Thought when it\nis clearly and only Mao's little red book." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "A couple of clarifications:\n\nFirst, yes, it was I.\n\nSecond, I do not mean (nor did I mean to imply) that Ascian\nCorrect Thought is _exclusively_ a parable of the Maoist\nCult of Personality.\n\nHowever:\n\nThe approach to thought control taken by the Ingsoc Party\n(more specifically, one supposes, Ministrue) in NINETEEN \nEIGHTY-FOUR is fundamentally different (in my opinion) from\nthat taken by the Group of Seventeen in tBotNS; the former\nseeks to redesign grammar and vocabulary so that thoughtcrime\nis literally unthinkable, but to leave enough flexibility that\nmore or less anything can be thought. \n\nThus -- suppose, for example, that they decided that cruelty\nwas going to be part of the \"unthinkable.\" The word \"cruelty\"\nwould simply be removed from the language, and replaced with\n\"unkindness,\" thus (in the logic of Newspeak) making \"cruelty\"\na non-concept, existing only as the negative shadow of \n\"kindness.\" By the logic of Newspeak's designers, then, nobody\ncould be cruel; they could only be \"unkind,\" and nobody would\nwant to be \"unkind\" because ... \n\nWell, this is kind of where the logic of Newspeak falls apart.\nOne could, perhaps, make a pseudo-Nietzschean sort of argument\nthat nobody wants to be \"un-\" anything because that negative\nprefix makes it a resignation of power or some such nonsense;\nbut Nietzsche would sneer at such an argument and, frankly, so\ndo I. \n\nThe approach of Ascian \"Correct Thought\" is somewhat different.\nIt does not seek to change the _form_ of the language, but to\nlimit -- by what mechanism we are not told -- the actual things\nthe people are allowed to say (and so, presumably, to think). \nLike Newspeak, the basic idea of imprisoning minds this way \nis (Skinnerian or Whorf-Sapirean) nonsense, and Loyal to the \nGroup of Seventeen's story of the just man shows how Correct \nThought can be manipulated to think the \"incorrect\" (or \n\"unthinkable\") -- on this much, at least, we are agreed?\n\n\nMy point is that the Ingsoc approach is more subtle and, in a \nword, structural, allowing an essentially infinite array of \nthinkables while fencing off certain areas as unthinkable --\na bounded infinity of utterances, if you will. The Ascian \napproach is radically different; it uses brute iterative force \nto say \"Here are the thinkable thoughts; there are no others.\"\n\nI take this to be an extrapolation-to-the-final-stage of the\nMaoist _type_ of \"political correctness.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "OTOH, to the best of my knowledge, even at the height of the \npersonality cult the Chinese did not make a practice of \nspeaking exclusively in quotes from the little red book. \nSo the historical context of the little red book\ndoes not contain the aspect of Approved Texts/Correct Thought." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I cannot speak of the Chinese, except from the somewhat random\nreports I recall of people being sent to camps for \"re-education \nin Chairman Mao thought\" during the Cultural Revolution. (The\nthought of the Cultural Revolution inspired the Subject: line of\nthis posting, of course.) I can give anecdotal evidence of folks\nI knew in Berkeley in the mid-'70s, who had a Chairman Mao quote\nfor every occasion and who judged all opinions (even, it seemed \nat times, all utterances) against Chairman Mao Thought. These\npeople took Mao's quotations as the set of axioms from which all \npolitcally \"correct thought\" must flow. \n\nIt seems to me to be a relatively small step, a relatively small\n_satirical_ and extrapolative step, from there to simply closing\noff the minds of the followers to all other thoughts completely. \nAnd so I believe that to say that \"the historical context of the \nlittle red book does not contain the aspect of Approved Texts/\nCorrect Thought\" is orthogonal to the point I am making.\n\n(Incidentally, it might also be worth considering the question \nof whether, when Mr Wolfe was writing these books, he had read \nRichard Dawkins' seminal 1976 book THE SELFISH GENE -- the title \nitself might tickle his sense of self-referentiality! -- which \nintroduced the concept of _memetics_. There has always been a \nmemetic flavor to Ascian \"Correct Thought\" in my head.)\n\n--Dan'l\n\npolitical power grows from the barrel of a gun" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Straight", "address": "straight at email.unc.edu" }, "date": "2002-07-29T21:17:43+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Let a thousand averns bloom!", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Great post. Great title. Great discussion.\n\nMaybe Ascia is what you get when Mao reads Orwell. That is, I agree with\nDan'l that Ascia's (\"say only this\") policy has more of a Maoist flavor\nthan Orwell's (\"don't say that\") policy, but mantis is right that it's\nOrwell that actually came up with the scheme of trying to control thought\nby controlling language.\n\nOne point that might be crucial: is the Ascian language scheme a plot to\nkeep the people in line, or is it genuine zeal for the Group of 17 run\namok? Dan'l's example was of a ferverent Maoist quoting Mao in every\nsituation. And remember that story I sited a few months back of the\nMuslim woman who was said to have communicated exclusively with quotations\nfrom the Quran for decades?\n\nOr, what if the Ascian language arose spontaneously as a sort of\nmore-loyal-than-thou one-upmanship, in an environment of snitching and\nparanoia, and then ossified into a permanent part of the Ascian\nculture? I find that idea much creepier than that of a deliberate plot\nto control thought and expression.\n\n-Rostrum" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com" }, "date": "2002-07-29T22:35:05+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) Let a thousand averns bloom!", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Rostrum asks:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "One point that might be crucial: is the Ascian language scheme a plot to\nkeep the people in line, or is it genuine zeal for the Group of 17 run\namok? Dan'l's example was of a ferverent Maoist quoting Mao in every\nsituation. And remember that story I sited a few months back of the\nMuslim woman who was said to have communicated exclusively with quotations\nfrom the Quran for decades?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In the case of my acquaintances in 70's Berkeley, well, no; it wasn't \njust \"zeal,\" it was political correctness in its original, non-ironic \nsense. These people were quite capable of saying \"he's not politically\ncorrect\" as a complete and utter condemnation of a person's opinions;\ntheir use of Mao quotes was an assurance that what followed was correct.\n\nNow, as to the Moslem woman ... that's an interesting case; I suspect\nit of being a case of deliberately self-applied thought control. \n\nI could be wrong though. It's happened before. 8*)" } ] } ] }