# Did George Orwell Invent Politically Correct Thought? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 23, 2000, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-george-orwell-invent-politically-correct-thought/30389 "2000-08-23T02:16:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Zenster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/cdc98d/32.png) [@Zenster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zenster)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2000, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-george-orwell-invent-politically-correct-thought/30389/1 "2000-08-23T02:16:05Z")
In Orwell’s “1984” Winston’s neighbor, who works at the Ministry of Speech, brags to Winston about how they, “…eliminated another several hundred words from the dictionary that day.” Well, I nominate politically correct thought as the realization of Big Brother’s dream of a subordinated society. In Orwell’s “Newspeak”, there is no word, “bad”, there is merely “ungood”. For “very bad” there is “plus ungood”, and for “very, very bad” there is “double plus ungood”. No negative thoughts allowed here Winnie. All things are referred to in a “positive” light. This like calling a dead person, “metabolically challenged”. In a very real sense, this is the same concept involved in how politically correct speech is “cleansing” our precious language. I fully support the elimination of gender specific nomenclature. Firemen are just fine as firefighters. Mailmen can just as easily be letter carriers. Where I draw the line is with the people who actually suggested we eliminate “waiter” and “waitress” in favor of the word “waitron”. Hey, just use “waiter” for everyone, it has no gender specificity. Whenever I surf past a talk show where Nazi bastard skin heads are spewing their bigoted drivel, I am always amused by the thought that these genetically impure submorons would have been some of the first to be turned into soap at the death camps. Similarly, what a surprise all these liberal PC duck squeezers are in for when they finally realize that the curtailments they helped put in place could easily rear up one day one in the form of prohibition of their precious “New Age” practices and psuedo science mentality. In an exchange between Beckett and Cromwell or some other set of Limeys, Cromwell is asked, “Would you trample upon justice to get at the Devil?” He replies, “I would trample all law into the ground to get at Him.” He is then asked, “And when the law was down, and the Devil turned round on you, what would you call upon?”. The quote finishes with, “I would much rather give the Devil the benefit of justice so that we might all have it.” (This is a crude paraphrase. It appeared in a Skeptics Magazine book review of, “Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It?” By Michael Shermer & Alex Grobman. If someone out there has the exact quote, please post it here.) What we are confronted with here, is the gradual curtailment of free speech and ipso facto, free thought. Any impediment of this critical freedom is so corrosive to everything that our Constitution stands for that I shudder just to think of it. (Yes, this even includes the free speech of skin heads.) Please try to imagine a website like this one in Communist China. Alright, you may stop laughing hysterically now, no, really, please stop. Let’s start posting some real examples of this seditious new speechform and turn over the rock all of these PC bastards hide under. “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.” John Jay (I think) ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2000, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-george-orwell-invent-politically-correct-thought/30389/2 "2000-08-23T02:32:09Z")
Believe it or not, it was STALIN who invented PC…seriously. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2000, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-george-orwell-invent-politically-correct-thought/30389/3 "2000-08-23T02:46:47Z")
George Orwell’s _Nineteen Eighty-Four_ couldn’t have been first. The movie _Gentlemen’s Agreement_ came out the year before Orwell wrote _1984_, and for all the good _Gentlemen’s Agreement_ did in bringing anti-semitism out into the light of day, it was still loaded with politically-correct thought policing. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2000, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-george-orwell-invent-politically-correct-thought/30389/4 "2000-08-23T06:49:58Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Zenster \* > > In an exchange between Beckett and Cromwell or some other set of Limeys, Cromwell is asked, “Would you trample upon justice to get at the Devil?” He replies, “I would trample all law into the ground to get at Him.” He is then asked, “And when the law was down, and the Devil turned round on you, what would you call upon?”. The quote finishes with, “I would much rather give the Devil the benefit of justice so that we might all have it.” > > (This is a crude paraphrase… There was an exchange a lot like that in the play/movie _A Man For All Seasons_ between Thomas More (Chancellor of England, like Thomas Becket) and his son-in-law, William Roper the younger. As for the origin of PC, IMO any group in power will try to control the realm of things which can be said - any government, the Church, the Romans, and I’m sure back to the beginnings of speech. ---
**Author:** ![Demo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demo/32/8472_2.png) [@Demo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Demo)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2000, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-george-orwell-invent-politically-correct-thought/30389/5 "2000-08-23T19:00:29Z")
The really scary thing is, Tipper Gore may be in a very powerful position soon. So much for freedom of speech. heheh, while looking around, I found [this](http://members.localnet.com/~pfc8488/tipper.htm) website. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Zenster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/cdc98d/32.png) [@Zenster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zenster)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2000, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-george-orwell-invent-politically-correct-thought/30389/6 "2000-08-23T20:13:19Z")
Good link there Demo, I’m pretty sure Jello Biafra once had the name of Peo and he and his sister Lisa stayed with our family one summer. As for you Zgystardst, sure the Romans, Nazis and Commies and all sorts of other governments have attempted to suppress free thought. That’s nothing new. What concerns me is that a similar effort is occurring in a nation dedicated to and founded upon the right to free speech. Our great experiment in Democracy is utterly imperiled by these mealy mouthed swine and very few are protesting this tyranny of the minority. No other nation has ever established the rights of the individual to be so sacrosanct as our United States. It’s why, like it or not, I will have to vote against George W. Bush by (and I gag to say it) voting for Al Gore. To quote Sylvester, “What a revoltin’ development!” ---
**Author:** ![hawthorne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@hawthorne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawthorne)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2000, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-george-orwell-invent-politically-correct-thought/30389/7 "2000-08-24T06:43:34Z")
Curiously the _term_ “politically correct” has itself become an example of doublespeak. Sure, there are those who like to refer to things by cuddly euphamisms and who will brook no discussion of certain policy matters, but the real use of the term nowadays is as a brain-bypassing defence for reactionaries, the insensitive, shit-stirrers and bigots. You can hear it coming every time you hear, “This may not be politically correct but…,” or whenever some defender of the status quo who can’t be bothered addressing the merits of a proposal derides those who dare mention injustice as “PC thugs”. Doublespeak indeed. Quack, quack. picmr ---
**Author:** ![Mustapha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Mustapha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mustapha)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2000, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-george-orwell-invent-politically-correct-thought/30389/8 "2000-08-24T11:23:47Z")
You took the words right out of my mouth, picmr. And as for “Free Speech”, if speech were truly free there would be no such thing as defamation or libel laws, state secrets, doctor/patient or lawyer/client privilege, etc, etc. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2000, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-george-orwell-invent-politically-correct-thought/30389/9 "2000-08-24T16:40:25Z")
Zenster wrote: > [@](#): > > In Orwell’s “Newspeak”, there is no word, “bad”, there is merely “ungood”. For “very bad” there is “plus ungood”, and for “very, very bad” there is “double plus ungood”. No negative thoughts allowed here Winnie. Actually, George Orwell pretty much admitted that he got this vocabulary-reducing idea from the Esperanto language. In Esperanto, the word for ‘good’ is “bona.” ‘Bad’ in Esperanto is “malbona,” which literally means ‘un-good.’ ‘Very bad’ would be “malbonega.” The “mal” prefix and the “eg-” suffix in Esperanto were both intended to reduce the size of the vocabulary that the learner had to memorize. Of course, Esperanto’s intent was to facilitate communication, not hamper it – so unlike in Newspeak, every expressive phrase is possible in Esperanto. “Fuck yourself and die,” for example, easily translates to “Fiku vin kaj mortu.” 😉