Forest Gregg on Fri, 8 Feb 2008 18:53:28 +0100 (CET)


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Re: <nettime> The Ideology of Free Culture and the Grammar of Sabotage


Here's what George Orwell had to say about it, in 1946:

One ought to recognize that the present political chaos is connected
with the decay of language, and that one can probably bring about some
improvement by starting at the verbal end. If you simplify your
English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy. You cannot
speak any of the necessary dialects, and when you make a stupid remark
its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself. Political language --
and with variations this is true of all political parties, from
Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful
and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure
wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least
change one's own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one
jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase -- some
jackboot, Achilles' heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable
inferno, or other lump of verbal refuse -- into the dustbin, where it
belongs.

George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," 1946
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm

-Forest

On Feb 3, 2008 11:57 AM, Rob Dyke <robdyke@robdyke.com> wrote:

> "By slogan: in other words, by only learning the links, those keywords the
> grasp of which is anyway sufficient to spell out your allegiances to a
> certain ???movement??? (I don???t wish to use the word ???ideology??? here,
 <...>


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