Post by IW on Jul 11, 2019 10:07:15 GMT
Semantic manipulation Orwell called 'Newspeak' i.e. the changing of words to mean something else (rather than an older more common meaning).
For example, whereas in English, to say to someone you believe them to be special or fine is very positive and complimentary. In Danish, both take on negative connotations. 'Special' becomes peculiar (strange/weird) and 'Fine' implies "you think you're better than us" (grandiose). In this way, human thought can be directed, and undesirable concepts eliminated, because the means of expressing them have been removed.
Researcher Michael Bailey wrote,
"In this reality, language is the highway of how we communicate our thoughts. The gradual and intentional erosion of the vocabulary by those who wish to control us, removes the possibility of any undesirable ideas, as without the words to formulate those ideas, we cannot begin to even think them".
In the Danish language, freedom' does not yet, as it does in Orwell's 'Ministry of Truth', imply any form of 'slavery', but it does imply an element of 'submission' to the Collective or Hive, and effectively, a powerful word in the vocabulary of any opposition has therefore been effectively neutralized. Similarly, it is exceedingly difficult to speak in any but favorable terms of the State, because all the words in that field have become positively loaded in the same manner as 'special' and 'fine' have been negatively so.
This article written in 2008 was mostly about how Denmark was a pre-worldwide test of mass mind control--
For a totalitarian state.
((Visiting Denmark and living in Denmark are two totally different states of mind. To the visitor, it is indeed a green and pleasant land. Small and tidy with an apparently happy and welcoming populace. One overlooks the small things, the little irritants and peculiarities because one is on 'vacation'.
It is when one lives permanently there that those same 'small things', 'little irritants' and peculiarities start to beg questions. Why is it that the majority of Danes are all so alike?
They dress alike, cut their hair alike, walk alike and talk alike. They use the same phrases time and again, eat the same food, enjoy the same leisure pursuits and live almost copycat lives, with little or no variation on the theme. I accept that this is a sweeping generalization, but believe it to be valid all the same. There are of course exceptions and to those brave individuals, I give my respect and admiration.
How or why they 'slipped through the net' escapes me. But they are in the minority in every sense of the word, and this indeed adds to their splendor.
Every country and people have their national characteristic's but in Denmark it goes beyond this, because again and I stress here that I am referring to the majority of Danes, the population is phobically conformist and has a profound and deep mistrust of all things and influences of a foreign origin. For those who watched the US TV Series, 'Star Trek The Next Generation', the collectivist and robotic alien force known as the 'Borg' bears comparison, albeit one which admittedly is rather extreme. (Quite a coincidence actually 'Borg' being a Danish word). ))
www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_mindcon36.htm
As far as the article, I don't know if anyone can attest to what the writer proposes (about Denmark).
I do believe that the changing of the meaning of words through newspeak has been done, and has been going on daily for decades now. Personally I think it's another way of isolating people into smaller and smaller groups, as one group might be positive meaning and taken negatively based on their word usage, and vice-versa. This is especially useful in the political arena.
Anyone have examples of this?