The psychology of power applied against us; the transition from Newspeak to No-speak!

BY STEVEN KASZAB

In his political satire, 1984, George Orwell famously developed a notion of an official language for the authoritarian state, called Newspeak. The purpose of Newspeak was “To diminish the range of thought…by cutting the choice of words down to a minimum.” Newspeak was a constructed language that reduced the range and scope of meanings available to a bare minimum, thus controlling thought.

Many authoritarian and democratic nations with established National Intelligence Services redirected them into State Security Agencies; semantically reframing the role these agencies play, thus allowing ruling parties and their henchmen to identify their own interests within their nations. This has happened throughout Africa, Central and Latin America, the Caribbean and some believe in North America too. The ruling party’s endless pursuit of redefining their nation’s agenda suggests a variation called “No-Speak.”

As opposed to Newspeak, which restricts meaning to an authoritarian minimum, the aim of No-Speak is to say nothing while appearing to say something. This tactic seems to assert something definitive and accountable while in fact leaving the communicator with room to say whatever they like. The intention of the messenger is to undermine all systems of belief except for what is being presented.

There are three approaches to undermining meaning. Silent No-Speak has government ministers and their officials ignoring legally mandated requests by establishing controlled Access for Information Acts of Law.

The second form is described as Lying No-Speak. This is an act that appears to support democratic principles of governance, all the while actively subverting them. A Minister appears to be supportive of open government, while in fact is actively working for the opposite goal.

The third form is Noisy No-Speak, which occurs when Ministers undermine the meaning of a society’s commonly accepted terms, perverting their understanding. The words most used are “transformation and reshaping,” referring to perhaps a department of the government that needed to be cleansed of corruption and mismanagement. A Minister would say the said department would go through an aggressive reshaping that will transform it. Of course the opposite will happen. Corruption will possibly continue in the shadows while the impression of change is publicly seen.

Authoritarian regimes manipulate language in an attempt to control the narrative, presenting to the public a created illusion of what reality really is within the community, neighbourhood or nation itself. Within every well tuned dictatorship lies an effective marketing agency, a group of savvy agents of psychological groups, advising Ministers of what, why and how to present themselves and the government they serve.

By understanding NewSpeak, Silent No-Speak, Lying No-Speak and Noisy No-Speak, an educated individual can realize the national farce being presented to them.

In democratic nations like Canada and the US, these manipulative language patterns persist. Is their public language seemingly empty of answers or concrete information? Is presentation more important than the message? Do your government officials promise the something will be transformed or reshaped for the betterment of us all?

Read Orwell’s 1984, and come to your own conclusions.