Orwell would be ‘proud’. Actually, I think he’d be horrified. Maybe not. Maybe he clearly saw what was coming.
1984 seems to be current events and not a fictional novel anymore.
The term newspeak was coined by George Orwell in his 1949 anti-utopian novel 1984. In Orwell's fictional totalitarian state, Newspeak was a language favored by the minions of Big Brother and, in Orwell's words, "designed to diminish the range of thought." Newspeak was characterized by the elimination or alteration of certain words, the substitution of one word for another, the interchangeability of parts of speech, and the creation of words for political purposes. The word has caught on in general use to refer to confusing or deceptive bureaucratic jargon.
If you’ve been paying attention and have been able to remain critically minded, then you will not be surprised by the list of words that follows. Whether it be the media, public health, the government, or the average citizen ‘just following orders’, the weaponization of language has been a defining trait of the pandemic response.
It doesn’t take much tinfoil on the head to understand that the Event 201 - a high-level pandemic exercise meeting on October 18, 2019, in New York, NY hosted by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in partnership with the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation - had considerable influence on the prolific language of the Covid era.
Add this ‘eerily’ predictive gathering of strange bedfellow players - ranging from the CIA, the media, governments, the conspicuous WEF, and more - to the mission of the Trusted News Initiative (read this article for more) and it starts to become clearer that a form of Orwellian marketing was intentionally crafted for a certain agenda.
Below are five words or phrases that have become like arrows against logic, dissent, and open debate.
Anti-vaxxer: This term existed before the pandemic but it had a much narrower definition. Originally, anti-vaxxer was a reference to people who were against all vaccines. They probably comprise a low single digit percentage of the population and would be alternative in most of their practices and beliefs.
With the unprecedented push to put an mRNA needle in every person’s arm in record time - both in terms of from trial to market and actual jab rollout - the hesitant grew substantially. Lack of transparency and cult-like behavior chased many away. Basic logic and common sense pushed back others. Foundational medicine and science created a host of unpfaithful.
Yet, every person who wanted to wait, see more data, rest on being low-risk and/or having natural immunity was labeled an anti-vaxxer. Even those who were merely against mandates were now defined as anti-vaxxers. Many people who had received a jab or two and then changed their minds - even suffering from a vaccine injury - were thrown under the bus.
The ranks of anti-vaxxers swelled. They were the scourge of the earth and ‘plague rats’ in the eyes of the pfaithful, the media disciples, and their own governments. The dictionary even changed their definition of anti-vaxxer to suit the new mania of vaccines as the holy grail.
If that’s not Orwellian, then I don’t know what is. Suffice it to say, this term was used to classify the enemy of the One Narrative to Rule Them All. It didn’t matter if you were “following the science”, if you were the expert that should be trusted, or even if you were vaccinated. If you were not a starry eyed, whole hog, Pfizer cheerleader, then you were likely to get labelled an anti-vaxxer.
This is a form of othering. It is dehumanizing. It is reminiscent of historic totalitarian regimes and their scapegoating of sectors to turn the public’s gaze angrily toward these ‘bad elements’ and away from the authoritarian and power drunk rulers. While anti-vaxxers become the target, the governments of the Western world stomped all over the constitution and trampled ethics, law, science, logic, and decency.
This playbook would be used with other scapegoating labels as well and in much the same way. The next three terms are examples of such.
Far-Right
Conspiracy theory/-ist
Anti-(masker/science/lockdown)
It wouldn’t matter if you were a left-leaning PhD with mainstream credibility, if you went against the narrative, terms #1 through #4 could all be used to describe and dismiss you.
For example, Bret Weinstein, a PhD in evolutionary biology, with a strong history of liberal public views would get pinned with all of these. Russell Brand got called far-right. That’s hilarious, if you know anything about Brand. The list is long of these illogical and tragically humorous misrepresentations.
Essentially, this was a tool to use to demean, dehumanize, dismiss, and character assassinate people instead of addressing the logic of their stance or the science behind their position. It is lazy and unethical. It is antithetical to a supposed free society that is promoted as prizing intellectual rigour and evidence-based truths.
It is Orwellian Newspeak and Doublespeak in reality - no hyperbole.
Misinformation (dis- & mal-)
This next term is a perfect example of how vagueness and imprecision of language can be used in malleable ways to attack whatever information is a threat to control and power.
The rise of misinformation as a common term happened quickly and without much in the way of checks and balances. So much of what was misinformation a few months prior became accepted fact a little later.
This is exactly the problem. In no democratic and reasonable society should dissent and alternative views be dismissed without free and open debate. Misinformation has turned into a label that is slapped on anything that is problematic for the status quo.
It is mind boggling that people will not accept that it is misinformation to state that men can get pregnant but it is misinformation to state that ivermectin is a reasonable treatment option for covid. In my opinion, this is a clear example of how far away we have detoured from reason, clarity, and demonstrable proofs into the land of Newspeak and convenient fleeting definitions that serve an agenda.
This is really just the tip of the iceberg but I feel it is sufficient for my purposes here. I wish to spend more time and focus on how to combat this weaponization of language. However, I feel it would be best to do so in a separate article. That will be part two.
That being said, I will cut this one here. I might return to discussing these terms in greater detail another time. If you’d like that, let me know. Also, if you’d like me to write more about the following honorable mentions: natural immunity, freedom, vaccine, climate change, carbon, asymptomatic, quarantine, testosterone, women, anarchist, inclusive…
What do you think? Do you have other terms or words that come to mind that have been weaponized or added to the Neo-Orwellian Newspeak lexicon?
Nice list. Off the top of my head I would include:
"Flat-Earther". Obviously this refers to people who think the earth is a pancake but like "anti-vaxxer" it is being expanded to denigrate anyone who challenges the orthodoxy.
The same situation applies to Covid/9-11/moon-landing "denier". There are many different opinions about these topics but throwing them into the bucket of "denier" simplifies and misrepresents most of them while simultaneously erecting a straw man position that can be dismantled without much inquiry.
Hi Bear,
I stumbled upon your substack a while ago by way of Gavin's newsletter. I have read a number of your essays find your efforts illuminating. Keep up the good work.
Now, on to this post.
You're right: the five words/phrases you've chosen to dissect here are indeed the tip of the iceberg. I would go further than to say these terms have been weaponized. They have become militarized.
In fact, what we have experienced now for three years...going on four...is a full-spectrum subversion of reality itself through the mutilation of meaning. Language is a doorway to perception, and language has been used as a kind of cognitive meat tenderizer to induce a state of collective, societal, indeed planetary state of existential vertigo upon the masses.
As heinous, crazy, inchoate and nonsensical as it all is, I am astounded that more alarm bells have not been ringing in people's vacuous heads.
Rewinding to the period when the vaccines were "rolled out" at "warp speed", one remembers how we were veritably carpet-bombed with the hypnotic "safe and effective" slogan ad nauseam. Virtually everyone - both morons and high IQ people alike - fell for it. And yet, all it would have taken (and all it took for some) were a few search engine queries that any 7-year old could undertake to realize that there was no possible way this statement could be true given the established precedents and history of vaccine development. How could these novel interventions (gene therapies) be claimed as "safe" when their simply wasn't any evidentiary basis for the claim? Well, apparently it didn't matter. We tossed reason, rationality, science, and common sense to the wind in favour of the consensus trance. We were played like fiddles, and it worked!
What concerns me more than the overt examples of Orwellian language mutilation you reference above are the perhaps more subtle, nuanced and covert forms of language propaganda, which are carefully chosen so as to seem "plausible" to those lacking the basic ability to discern utter bullshit.
You'll recall, for example, that the word "eligible" was used copiously as the vaccine was "rolled out" to various age cohorts. It became creepier and creepier as they finally zeroed-in on 6-month old infants, the supporting evidence for which involved vague references to "immuno-bridging" or "rigorous" 8-mice studies or simply nothing at all. I weep to think how many parents were sufficiently terrorized to think they would "save" their infants by effectively running into the arms of their murderers.
As a case study in the use of language manipulation and mutilation, one couldn't do better than to visit this page:
COVID-19: Social media and promotional resources for Health Canada and Public Health Agency of Canada
https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/diseases/2019-novel-coronavirus-infection/digital-resources.html#s1
This page reads more like a recruitment drive or a conscription program to harness mindless drones as disseminators and promulgators of Orwellian doublespeak.
As yet another case study, fast-forward to statements by Biden at timestamp 1:30:00 in the following documentary:
2020 - A Propaganda Masterpiece : Perspectives on the Pandemic. Mark Crispin Miller Professor of Media Studies at New York University 2021
https://sp.rmbl.ws/s8/2/Q/H/2/D/QH2Dg.caa.mp4?u=3&b=0
Biden uses militarized language in the service of getting a shot in every arm, and it is utterly chilling. You'll notice the words combat, arsenal, execute, fighting etc. I have to ask myself - "What sort of mind or audience does language such as this function effectively upon?"
If you really want to follow the snake to its head, it's "nerve center", try listening to Herr Klaus's recent full speech at the World Government Summit. It is patently insane, reminiscent of Goebbel's himself, (notice the Giant Screen) and rife with the kind of weaponized language of which you speak in your post. Get out the barf bag I suggest! But also, take these maniacs seriously - they mean business and yearn for absolute global control.
Klaus Schwab At The World Government Summit 2023
https://sp.rmbl.ws/s8/2/S/z/v/l/Szvli.caa.mp4?u=3&b=0