WASHINGTON, DC, Jan 4 — Is America experiencing a new “Orwellian Era?” Think about it. “Orwell feared that a failure of Western democracies to stand firmly against communism would result in a rapid capitulation, leading to the end of freedom as they knew it,” says author Shawnna Morris in a feature entitled, Orwell’s “1984”: How to Misread a Classic. The piece was published a couple of years ago on the Foundation for Economic Education [FEE] website, but it resonates today in the early days of the “woke” movement.
When Orwell wrote the book in 1949, the cold war was in its early years. Russia, under Joseph Stalin, was consolidating its gains from World War II, which included its takeover of the greater part of Eastern Europe to create the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics [USSR]. In Orwell’s book, he wrote about Oceania, which fictitiously consisted of North America, South America, the British Isles, Australasia, and southern Africa.
“Big Brother” was in charge and controlled his continental citizens by redefining words and rewriting history similar to the wokesters of today. Just a few weeks ago Stanford University announced its “Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative [EHLI],” an Orwellian sounding resource, if there ever was one. Among the “initiative’s” recommendations is to stop calling ourselves Americans because it insinuates “that the US is the most important country in the Americas.”
Stop saying “immigrant,” instead say a “person who has immigrated, according to the EHLI protocol under which it’s also not nice to use the term “beating a dead horse.” Why? Because it promotes violence against animals. The list goes on, suggesting you shouldn’t call a heterosexual person “straight” because it “implies that anyone who is not heterosexual is bent or not ‘normal’.” Duh? It goes on and on. And, by the way, do not refer to the EHLI as a “seminal” work because “the term reinforces male-dominated language.”
David Johnson is a communications expert. His take on the political correctness of words is that progressive elements in our society are redefining the words we use as a means of indoctrinating our youngest citizens. He’s quoted in a recent Newsmax feature as saying that the left is seeking to indoctrinate our children. The idea, he says, is to make them “think this way, and use these words, and it will become common knowledge. The ideas they are advocating, beyond the use of words, are perverted. They are more alarming. They are trying to take away America.”
In other words, it’s an Orwellian way to overthrow the America we know, the America that revolted, fought for the independence of its citizens and showed the world that a free country is a productive country, a caring country. The ideas that the progressive left are introducing to our children is a way to sow the seeds of a different kind of rebellion, one that seeks to turn future generations into slaves of the state. “The ideas they are advocating, beyond the use of words, are perverted. They are more alarming. They are trying to take away America…We used to see, in the past, even with the left, that they still believed America was a special place. Today’s liberals don’t,” says Johnson.
Kalev Leetaru penned an article for Forbes magazine some time ago. It focused on the wake-up call America needs about now. It is a lesson that needs to be taught to our youngest citizens if we are to Make America Great Again. As Leetaru put it, “in the end, as we rush towards an ever more Orwellian world of surveillance and censorship, perhaps we might all take the time to reread 1984 in order to better understand the world we are rushing towards.”
No need for bullets in the next American Revolution, words will do the trick, as George Orwell might say.
John Grimaldi served on the first non-partisan communications department in the New York State Assembly and is a founding member of the Board of Directors of Priva Technologies, Inc. He has served for more than thirty years as a Trustee of Daytop Village Foundation, which oversees a worldwide drug rehabilitation network.
