#goodthink

"Orthodoxy means not thinking -- not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness."

duckspeak | dəkspēk |

noun    Thoughtless or formulaic speech.

Etymology duck +‎ speak, coined by George Orwell in 1949 as part of the Newspeak in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.

https://www.abhafoundation.org/assets/books/html/1984/37.html

As he watched the eyeless face with the jaw moving rapidly up and down, Winston had a curious feeling that this was not a real human being but some kind of dummy. It was not the man's brain that was speaking, it was his larynx. The stuff that was coming out of him consisted of words, but it was not speech in the true sense: it was a noise uttered in unconsciousness, like the quacking of a duck. [..]

'There is a word in Newspeak,' said Syme, 'I don't know whether you know it: duckspeak, to quack like a duck.“

"In our time it is broadly true that political writing is bad writing. Where it is not true, it will generally be found that the writer is some kind of rebel, expressing his private opinions and not a ‘party line’. Orthodoxy, of whatever colour, seems to demand a lifeless, imitative style. The political dialects to be found in pamphlets, leading articles, manifestos, White papers and the speeches of undersecretaries do, of course, vary from party to party, but they are all alike in that one almost never finds in them a fresh, vivid, homemade turn of speech.

When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases [..] one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy: a feeling which suddenly becomes stronger at moments when the light catches the speaker's spectacles and turns them into blank discs which seem to have no eyes behind them. And this is not altogether fanciful.

A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology has gone some distance toward turning himself into a machine. The appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved, as it would be if he were choosing his words for himself. If the speech he is making is one that he is accustomed to make over and over again, he may be almost unconscious of what he is saying, as one is when one utters the responses in church."

-- George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language" (1946)

Beware of robots.

Winston knew the man by sight, though he knew no more about him than that he held some important post in the Fiction Department. He was a man of about thirty, with a muscular throat and a large, mobile mouth. His head was thrown back a little, and because of the angle at which he was sitting, his spectacles caught the light and presented to Winston two blank discs instead of eyes. What was slightly horrible, was that from the stream of sound that poured out of his mouth it was almost impossible to distinguish a single word. Just once Winston caught a phrase-'complete and final elimination of Goldsteinism'- jerked out very rapidly and, as it seemed, all in one piece, like a line of type cast solid. For the rest it was just a noise, a quack-quack-quacking. And yet, though you could not actually hear what the man was saying, you could not be in any doubt about its general nature. He might be denouncing Goldstein and demanding sterner measures against thought-criminals and saboteurs, he might be fulminating against the atrocities of the Eurasian army, he might be praising Big Brother or the heroes on the Malabar front-it made no difference. Whatever it was, you could be certain that every word of it was pure orthodoxy, pure Ingsoc. As he watched the eyeless face with the jaw moving rapidly up and down, Winston had a curious feeling that this was not a real human being but some kind of dummy. It was not the man's brain that was speaking, it was his larynx. The stuff that was coming out of him consisted of words, but it was not speech in the true sense: it was a noise uttered in unconsciousness, like the quacking of a duck.

Syme had fallen silent for a moment, and with the handle of his spoon was tracing patterns in the puddle of stew. The voice from the other table quacked rapidly on, easily audible in spite of the surrounding din.

'There is a word in Newspeak,' said Syme, 'I don't know whether you know it: duckspeak, to quack like a duck. It is one of those interesting words that have two contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it is abuse, applied to someone you agree with, it is praise.'

Interesting article written by Konstantin Kisin. (Not related directly to JK Rowling)

“The purpose of 2020 Newspeak is to reframe positives into negatives and vice versa. We used to believe in the importance of discussion. Now, Nadia Whittome, a Labour MP, warns us against “fetishising” debate as though it is an “innocuous, neutral act”. Debate bad, silence good.

Why would a member of Parliament, our most prestigious debating chamber, seek to change the meaning of the word  “debate”? Simple: as long as someone understands the actual meaning, it is impossible to brainwash them into viewing it as a bad thing. As long as someone understands that “safety” means the absence of physical violence, it is impossible to convince them that shutting people up is a way to achieve it. If your goal is to force people to accept your unsubstantiated views you have to change the meaning of words. The purpose of newspeak is to create rightthink.