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This is a neat project! It makes me think about the worlds of 1985 and Fahrenheit 451 - what does it look like to make it impossible to express something? When

This is a neat project! It makes me think about the worlds of 1985 and Fahrenheit 451 - what does it look like to make it impossible to express something? When you see a dystopia, what are the mechanics moving underneath its surface, supporting what you can see?

ajuc 4y ago
> When you see a dystopia, what are the mechanics moving underneath its surface, supporting what you can see? In the dystopias that were realized in practice mostly autocensorship. Let's say you have 1 in 1000 chance of going to Gulag and 1 in 20 chance of losing your job if you say something bad about Stalin. Will you risk it? Will you promote a guy that openly talks bad about Stalin? He will get into trouble eventually and your career will suffer in turn. And so on. 1% is enforcement 99% is fear.
- aeturnum 4y ago
  Sure - but generally new dystopic situations are unlike previous ones. Things change and art gives us the potential to reflect on how they might change. In 1984 there is the idea that newspeak is trying to eliminate the ability to express thoughts contradictory to the party line. It's interested to think about what that might look like at every level of implementation.
  - ajuc 4y ago
    > but generally new dystopic situations are unlike previous ones Not really. Replace Stalin with Putin and the incentives not to talk about the war in Ukraine are very similar. > In 1984 there is the idea that newspeak is trying to eliminate the ability to express thoughts contradictory to the party line. It's interested to think about what that might look like at every level of implementation. That's nothing new. "Troubles" in UK/Ireland. "Special Operation" in Ukraine. Blasphemy in most of religious societies that still cared about these things. N-word. Etc. Language is a weapon, always was. It's not even restricted to totalitarian regimes, totalitarian regimes just use it more and generally for evil means. My problem with 1984 and how it's perceived today is that it made a whole mythology around totalitarianism that makes it seem there's healthy "normal" state and inhuman totalitarian state, and they share nothing in common. In practice they use the same tools, the differences are in scope and intentions.

ajuc 4y ago

> When you see a dystopia, what are the mechanics moving underneath its surface, supporting what you can see? In the dystopias that were realized in practice mostly autocensorship. Let's say you have 1 in 1000 chance of going to Gulag and 1 in 20 chance of losing your job if you say something bad about Stalin. Will you risk it? Will you promote a guy that openly talks bad about Stalin? He will get into trouble eventually and your career will suffer in turn. And so on. 1% is enforcement 99% is fear.

aeturnum 4y ago
Sure - but generally new dystopic situations are unlike previous ones. Things change and art gives us the potential to reflect on how they might change. In 1984 there is the idea that newspeak is trying to eliminate the ability to express thoughts contradictory to the party line. It's interested to think about what that might look like at every level of implementation.
- ajuc 4y ago
  > but generally new dystopic situations are unlike previous ones Not really. Replace Stalin with Putin and the incentives not to talk about the war in Ukraine are very similar. > In 1984 there is the idea that newspeak is trying to eliminate the ability to express thoughts contradictory to the party line. It's interested to think about what that might look like at every level of implementation. That's nothing new. "Troubles" in UK/Ireland. "Special Operation" in Ukraine. Blasphemy in most of religious societies that still cared about these things. N-word. Etc. Language is a weapon, always was. It's not even restricted to totalitarian regimes, totalitarian regimes just use it more and generally for evil means. My problem with 1984 and how it's perceived today is that it made a whole mythology around totalitarianism that makes it seem there's healthy "normal" state and inhuman totalitarian state, and they share nothing in common. In practice they use the same tools, the differences are in scope and intentions.