1984 Seminar Response 1

            The concept of Newspeak is very interesting and fits in perfectly in the context of the book. The 1984 government/ruling body controls just about everything in the lives of its citizens in Oceania. This includes everything from regular police to thought police and telescreens to keep tabs on its citizens. One of the means that the government is suppressing the people is by inventing the language of Newspeak. So by getting rid of the words that cause thoughtcirme, it would eliminate a lot of their society's problems with people thinking "bad thoughts." A good example of this is in the main character Winston Smith and how he uses Newspeak in his work, but still thinks of it in the regular English. Winston doesn't like Newspeak while his colleague Syme enjoys destroying words. "Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller" (52.)

            One institutions in particular that have been distorting reality is ISIS. Even though ISIS is in the news a lot, they are excellent at distorting reality and convincing people to join their cause. They are able to convince U.S. citizens to raise arms and fight against the U.S. You can't just convince someone to commit treason and would be really hard to not do it without distorting reality. They create lots of propaganda, their careful use of words, and the distortion of the truth are great enough to convince people to join their cause of terrorism against the U.S. and other European countries.

            Another example of how a group of people have distorted the truth is the police brutality movement. Often people jump to conclusions before they think things through and make opinions based on their initial reaction. These groups of people have distorted what really happened and even make up stories as seen in the Ferguson case. So instead of making their opinions based on their gut reaction, they should put themselves in the police's shoes for a day before they distort the truth to what they think is right even though they didn't even know what happened.