There's a Riot Going On

First draft of notes on the David Buckingham article "There's a riot going on"

- A peaceful demonstration.

- Newspapers, TV screens and the Internet where flooded with reports and images of crowds rampaging.

Doublethink

My notes on the Wikipedia article "Doublethink"

- Act of simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct, often in distinct social contexts.

Origin and concepts 

- Know and not to know

- Complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies.

- To use logic against logic.

- Consciously to induce unconsciousness.

- To become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed.

- To understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink.

- To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient.

- Objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality.

- Word one admits that one is tampering with reality.

- Protect its iron power without degrading its people with constant propaganda.

- Lead to the implosion of the State.

- Could be controlled and manipulated merely through the alteration of everyday thought and language.

- Doublethink is the method of directly controlling thought.

- This is demonstrated by O'Brien, during the time when Winston Smith is being tortured toward the end of the book.

- Especially true of fundamentally important words such as good and evil, right and wrong, truth and falsehood, and justice and injustice.

- Means being able to falsify public records, and then believe in the new history that they themselves have just rewritten.

- The Ministry's name is itself an example of doublethink: the Ministry of Truth is really concerned with lies.

- Self-deception allows the Party to maintain huge goals and realistic expectations.

- If one is to rule, and to continue ruling, one must be able to dislocate the sense of reality.

- Doublethink would avoid a "killing the messenger" attitude that could disturb the Command structure.

- Key tool of self-discipline for the Party.

- Without the confusion and misinformation associated with primitive totalitarian regimes.

- To let himself become consciously a loyal party member while letting his hatred of the party remain an unconscious presence deep in his mind and let it surface again at the very moment of his execution so that "the bullet would enter a free mind" which the Thought Police would not have a chance to tamper with again.

- With relieving cognitive dissonance by ignoring the contradiction between two world views.

This article has again helped me to define what doublethink really means and how it could be used in reality to manipulate the truth.  For further investigate I would like to find another article that explains doublethink in the practice of the real world and also the phase that was mentioned in the article "the bullet would enter a free mind" and if Winston died he would have a free mind. 

Newspeak

My notes on the Wikipedia article "Newspeak"

- Deliberately impoverished language promoted by the state.

- A greatly reduced and simplified vocabulary and grammar. 

- This suits the totalitarian regime of the Party.

- To make any alternative thinking "thoughtcrime", or "crime think".

- Impossible by removing any words or possible constructs which describe the ideas of freedom, rebellion.

- Citing examples of dying metaphors, pretentious diction or rhetoric, and meaningless words.

To remove synonyms and antonyms

- Remove all shades of meaning from language, leaving simple dichotomies.

- Which reinforce the total dominance of the State.

- Words served as both nouns and verbs.

- A staccato rhythm of short syllables.

- Words with negative meanings were removed as redundant.

- Comparative and superlative meanings were also simplified.

- Adjectives were formed by adding the suffix "-ful".

- An obedient word with which everyone answered affirmatively to what was asked of them.

- All definitions and words that can be used to argue against Big Brother would be eradicated from the language.

- Newspeak on Esperanto.

To control thought

- Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron—they'll exist only in Newspeak versions, not merely changed into something different, but actually contradictory of what they used to be.

- There will be no thought, as we understand it now.

- Generically, Newspeak has come to mean any attempt to restrict disapproved language by agovernment or other powerful entity.

Vocabulary

- "A" group: simple concepts entirely made up words 

- "B" group: convey more complicated ideas political implications "goodthink" roughly means "orthodoxy". 

- "C" group: technical vocabulary. Party does not want its people to be intelligent in multiple fields.

This article has helped me to understand and define Newspeak in a clear and understandable way, giving me better knowledge of Orwell's message and purpose of the novel. I would like to further investigate Esperanto, as from what the article has told me Esperanto is the real world equivalent of Newspeak.

Articles and Notes for Further Reading

From last week to this week I have finished reading the Wikipedia and have also finished reading the London Riot articles by Daivd Buckingham. The Wikipedia articles have reenforced my understand of "Doublethink" and "Newspeak". However the London Riot has introduced me to a new way of looking at the media and how thay constructed information to persuade society. Mr Michie and I have had another discussion on what I have just read and how some on that will help me to understand to ideas for my essay.

For next week I need to write my notes up for each article and say how my thoughts have changed from reading the article and if there is any further articles to read based on the article. I also need to find three new articles that have something to do with Nineteen Eighty-Four or the media today. My starting place for this would be Baudrillard and 9/11, from the discussion with Mr Michie who directed me into the area.

During next week's meeting I will present my findings and notes from all the articles and discuss how they have effected my understanding and direction of investigation. We will also sit down and consider what I need to do next to progress my project and broaden my understanding.