A Request on Language

[MarsProbe]

I can call my country Orwellian if I wish because it is we have cameras watching us everywhere I go to school, 2 cameras watch me go in there's another in most corridors and a few classrooms have them, I go on the street and there's a camera on top of a lamppost the bloody things are everywhere.

Agreed. We are the working class after all, it's our job to view our government as the great evil.

 

[TwistedEllipses]

Jez...a crackdown on the use of 'orwellian'?

...how Orwellian...

...Just kidding, I agree it doesn't make sense. 'Orwellian' in the context of Orwell's other works such as 'down and out in Paris', doesn't work at all.

Can we also can out 'Machiavellian' too? he was a brutal realist, but not a callous bastard.

 

[Masika]

Would someone be able to explain what exactly Orwellian means. Because I do agree with Eclectic Dreck. Alot of what was said is and what isn't are quite similar. Too similar in my opinion to have any real significant difference.

If I had to boil it down to two essential themes, I'd say they were:

--The idea that the government needs no justification for intrusion into your life;

and

--The idea that reality is whatever we agree it is, especially when 'we' doesn't mean everybody, but only those who are in charge.

Especially when you connect the two, as when the Ministry of Love doesn't have to justify the way it treats you because it's not torturing you, it's instilling love, and why would anyone in their right mind refuse love?

Alright, that makes things a whole lot simpler. Thanks. Mind answering a few other questions I have on this subject?

 

[Noamuth]

Maybe we need an Orwell equivalent of Godwin's Law?

I actually see more references to Hemmingway around the place (IRL and Internet) than Orwell, which suprises me a lot.

(Fun aside: I was saying to someone at college "I used to live near to where Orwell wrote 1984" and he replied ":A Space Odyssey?" I had to sit down for a while because I was laughing so hard)

We can call it the 'Nineteen Eighty fLaw'

Burumtish.

*groan*

Well done, well done.

 

[Goldbling]

Whenever my friend brought up something related to human psychology, she would say, "That's really Flies."

As in, Lord of the Flies.

Most annoying thing ever, seriously.

That book sucked, I want my month back

 

[Jhaotic]

Completely agree with the poster, here here!

 

[Noamuth]

Whenever my friend brought up something related to human psychology, she would say, "That's really Flies."

As in, Lord of the Flies.

Most annoying thing ever, seriously.

Just put her name instead of stupid or annoying, in the same way. Maybe she'd get it.

 

[justnotcricket]

I know what you mean, this sort of thing can get irritating, can't it? In the end it comes down to the extent to which things are taken - you can control the curriculum, fine, but once you start forcing it to take nothing but a particular political bent, *then* things start getting a little off.

My pet irritation of this kind is when people who have a light cough and a blocked nose persist in claiming they have the 'flu. Seriously, its just a cold, there's no shame in that!

 

[meglathon]

No no we cant since it the basic of what the world fear it will become.

 

[Yog Sothoth]

Can we, for the love of my sanity, stop saying things are "Orwellian", or compare government action to "1984", when all we really mean is "I don't like this very much"?

...

No... You can't control what other people say, on the internet or anywhere else. Sorry.

 

[Masika]

I feel I got a handle on what the differences are, but what was the original context of it? Like, where did it all start? (Yes, a history question.)