Thoughts That Go Bump in the Night come in many forms. Who better than a successful author to understand the use and misuse of language and words? This guest post is by Dan Baldwin from his weekly commentary on the life of a writer.
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Writing Tip of the Week
“God damn you all; I told you so.” H.G. Wells’ suggestion for his epitaph.
In 1984 Wells wrote of Big Brother’s newspeak, a complete revision of the English language.
In the novel the ruling
party of the nation of Oceana established Ingsoc (English Socialism). To
enhance its control over the population the ruling Party created a controlled
language of simplified grammar and restricted vocabulary and called it
Newspeak. The new vocabulary was designed to limit the freedom of
thought—personal identity, self-expression, free will—that threatened the
ideology of the régime of Big Brother and the Party. Freedom of expression was
criminalised and the concept of thoughtcrime was created to
insure adherence to Ingsoc orthodoxy. In other words, you just couldn’t say
certain things.
You know – like “the
n-word” or the “b-word” or the “f-word” or the other “f-word” and… and… and….
Today’s version of Newspeak
is Political Correctness – PC.
People go to ridiculous
lengths to adhere to the PC mindset. For example, the last time I worked with a
traditional publisher – which will most likely be the actual last time I work
with a traditional publisher – the company’s editor objected to a direct quote
from a historical source. The quote from Allie Earp (Wyatt’s sister-in-law) was
about Wyatt’s abandoned common law wife, Mattie Blaylock. Allie said that
Mattie was “… as fine a woman as ever lived. She worked like a nigger.” Neither
I nor my co-authors used the ugly word. Allie did. The publisher wouldn’t hear
of it because that vague someone-out-there-somewhere might be offended. We
again noted that the publisher wouldn’t be using the term. Allie would. No go.
We changed it to “she worked (hard).”
The sneaking evil here is
that people and organizations in power will sacrifice history, truth and their
own integrity on the altar of political correctness. Writers who buy into this
“s-word” have to continually fear crossing a politically correct line. The
problem is that the line keeps moving. Banning Huck Finn because
of its use of … that word … inevitably leads to banning The Biography
of Malcom X for its use of … that word …and then the movie Malcolm
X and The Autobiography of Malcom X for
the use of … that word… followed by banning then Denzell Washington, Richard
Pryor, Jamie Foxx and Quintin Tarantino movies and then…. Where does it stop?
It doesn’t.
Make no mistake about it. Political
Correctness is censorship. It is the suppression of freedom of speech.
Regardless of any well-intentioned motivation, the use of political correctness
is an assault on freedom of expression. Period. End of discussion. That’s all,
folks.
As one of Orwell’s
characters said in 1984, “Don’t you see that the whole aim of
Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make
thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to
express it. Every concept that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly
one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings
rubbed out and forgotten… Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of
consciousness always a little smaller.”
Think about it.
While you can.
Quote of the Week: “The one essential gift
for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof, shit detector.”
Recommended Reading: The Autobiography of
Malcom X by Alex Haley
For More Dan: www.danbaldwin.com Some of Dan's books are here.
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