2 ms·

It's a cliche! If it was successful thought control, then we couldn't have a discussion about it. Nobody would know what you were referring to. In the end, peo

It's a cliche! If it was successful thought control, then we couldn't have a discussion about it. Nobody would know what you were referring to. In the end, people will get old, and forget history, and die off, and the feedback loop will go around and around and what people believe will evolve. But nobody will have successfully controlled what people think. I totally agree that everybody is trying to influence everyone else's thoughts through language. That's what words are for. Nobody could reasonably disagree with that, and I never intended to.

justin66 6y ago
> If it was successful thought control, then we couldn't have a discussion about it. Nobody would know what you were referring to. I wonder if you believe that this kind of absolute, unsubtle thought control is what Ursula Le Guin was talking about with the brush example, or what the parent post was talking about. Or even what Orwell was talking about.
- mercer 6y ago
  To me it seems that's what the discussion boils down to. I agree that words cannot 'control' thoughts fully, but I also agree that Ursula Le Guin didn't argue this at all but rather that the /way/ we use words has an effect on how we think about these concepts, and as such can be used for manipulation. There are plenty of studies that show that saying the same thing in different wording can drastically change how people feel about these things. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is really popular in the full 'thought-control' kind of way, and I do believe that that is not well supported.
- perl4ever 6y ago
  There's been some doubt created about what Le Guin was talking about. I don't have the context handy. What Orwell was talking about, what he thought or feared possible, I disagree with, and, well, you can compare our society to 1984. There is a tremendous amount of propaganda, and it has an effect, but don't you agree that as warped as the mental space we collectively inhabit may be, that it's not under control of a specific entity? Even in, say, the Soviet Union, it wasn't under control. Maybe some day when totalitarians can program brains...
  - justin66 6y ago
    > but don't you agree that as warped as the mental space we collectively inhabit may be, that it's not under control of a specific entity? Yes, I agree that the case of a single entity being able to use words to place thoughts directly in minds like a TV version of hypnosis or etch them out of minds as if with electroshock therapy is not an accurate description of... anything. It's not what anyone means when they talk about words shaping thought, an idea which you disparaged so vituperatively - which would be understandable if anyone meant by it what you seem to be implying they mean. They can mean a number of things, whether it's a coach or leader influencing the attitudes of their followers, a person seeking to direct their own train of thought, a movement using language to dehumanize a minority group, an advertiser affecting how the public views a product, or a propagandist or politician attempting to move the Overton Window. Or many other things, more or less subtle.
watwut 6y ago
No, successful control does not mean you will never ever get out of power nor it means forever secrecy. It means you achieve what you wanted. Enhanced interrogation is sll going on. And in nazi example, successful controll of how Jews are seen does not imply that foreign non-Jewish armies will never beat you. That would be ridiculous standard. Nazi succesfull framed Jews as evil and Jews got exterminated. They succesfully framed slavs as inferior and succesfully framed themselves as needing more living space which led to expansive war and population displacement. That foreign armies conguered them does not imply that messaging aimed at Germans was not succesfull.
- perl4ever 6y ago
  It's not just that they were conquered, but then they were defined as uniquely evil for all time, but then the struggle to maintain that and include or exclude others as similar never ends. Godwin's law wouldn't be a thing if anyone controlled language even in this specific area. People wouldn't to this day casually compare people and groups to Nazis if there was such a thing as controlling people through language. Given your statement that "enhanced interrogation" is still going on, that means from my framing that calling it torture failed to stop it, hence attempts to control it through language failed. You're saying that language allows it to happen, but I would say the correct framing is that doing it and the desire of people to rationalize it allows it to happen. The euphemism being an effect rather than a cause.
  - watwut 6y ago
    That sounds illogical to me. You define "controlling through something" in a way that makes it impossible. Yes, nazi lost wwii, no it does not prove their control of langue failed. No, there being two opposing sides trying to control langue and one of them not winning does not prove control through langue does not work. Frankly, there are very illogical argument.

justin66 6y ago

> If it was successful thought control, then we couldn't have a discussion about it. Nobody would know what you were referring to. I wonder if you believe that this kind of absolute, unsubtle thought control is what Ursula Le Guin was talking about with the brush example, or what the parent post was talking about. Or even what Orwell was talking about.

mercer 6y ago
To me it seems that's what the discussion boils down to. I agree that words cannot 'control' thoughts fully, but I also agree that Ursula Le Guin didn't argue this at all but rather that the /way/ we use words has an effect on how we think about these concepts, and as such can be used for manipulation. There are plenty of studies that show that saying the same thing in different wording can drastically change how people feel about these things. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is really popular in the full 'thought-control' kind of way, and I do believe that that is not well supported.
perl4ever 6y ago
There's been some doubt created about what Le Guin was talking about. I don't have the context handy. What Orwell was talking about, what he thought or feared possible, I disagree with, and, well, you can compare our society to 1984. There is a tremendous amount of propaganda, and it has an effect, but don't you agree that as warped as the mental space we collectively inhabit may be, that it's not under control of a specific entity? Even in, say, the Soviet Union, it wasn't under control. Maybe some day when totalitarians can program brains...
- justin66 6y ago
  > but don't you agree that as warped as the mental space we collectively inhabit may be, that it's not under control of a specific entity? Yes, I agree that the case of a single entity being able to use words to place thoughts directly in minds like a TV version of hypnosis or etch them out of minds as if with electroshock therapy is not an accurate description of... anything. It's not what anyone means when they talk about words shaping thought, an idea which you disparaged so vituperatively - which would be understandable if anyone meant by it what you seem to be implying they mean. They can mean a number of things, whether it's a coach or leader influencing the attitudes of their followers, a person seeking to direct their own train of thought, a movement using language to dehumanize a minority group, an advertiser affecting how the public views a product, or a propagandist or politician attempting to move the Overton Window. Or many other things, more or less subtle.

watwut 6y ago

No, successful control does not mean you will never ever get out of power nor it means forever secrecy. It means you achieve what you wanted. Enhanced interrogation is sll going on. And in nazi example, successful controll of how Jews are seen does not imply that foreign non-Jewish armies will never beat you. That would be ridiculous standard. Nazi succesfull framed Jews as evil and Jews got exterminated. They succesfully framed slavs as inferior and succesfully framed themselves as needing more living space which led to expansive war and population displacement. That foreign armies conguered them does not imply that messaging aimed at Germans was not succesfull.

perl4ever 6y ago
It's not just that they were conquered, but then they were defined as uniquely evil for all time, but then the struggle to maintain that and include or exclude others as similar never ends. Godwin's law wouldn't be a thing if anyone controlled language even in this specific area. People wouldn't to this day casually compare people and groups to Nazis if there was such a thing as controlling people through language. Given your statement that "enhanced interrogation" is still going on, that means from my framing that calling it torture failed to stop it, hence attempts to control it through language failed. You're saying that language allows it to happen, but I would say the correct framing is that doing it and the desire of people to rationalize it allows it to happen. The euphemism being an effect rather than a cause.
- watwut 6y ago
  That sounds illogical to me. You define "controlling through something" in a way that makes it impossible. Yes, nazi lost wwii, no it does not prove their control of langue failed. No, there being two opposing sides trying to control langue and one of them not winning does not prove control through langue does not work. Frankly, there are very illogical argument.