tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post4105446668344197712..comments2024-03-24T11:01:27.668-04:00Comments on Resource Insights: Orwellian Newspeak and the oil industry's fake abundance storyKurt Cobbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05330759091950742285noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-32387533822662079012014-07-16T09:54:08.614-04:002014-07-16T09:54:08.614-04:00Kurt:
Thanks for your response. The word “genius”...Kurt:<br /><br />Thanks for your response. The word “genius” is often used too freely but I think that Orwell really was a genius. For example, he died before television became available in homes yet the Newspeak word “prolefeed” so neatly sums up what is offered today on television.<br /><br />It seems as if there are three levels of language manipulation here. The first is simply changing the meaning of words. For example, after I wrote my first response I randomly opened a web site and saw an advertisement for a credit card that said, “Earn 40,000 points”. The word “earn” has been corrupted, of course. What they are saying is, “Spend money with us and we will give you a discount”. This type of manipulation is commonplace; it is the water in which we swim. Your example of “energy independence” = “more production of hydrocarbons” falls into this category.<br /><br />The second level would appear to be what you allude to when you say, “It's not that these people are not capable of being skeptical. It's that IT NEVER OCCURS TO THEM that they NEED to be skeptical about the industry's pronouncements.” People who should know better choose to switch off their critical faculties. One reason may be that the publications they work for exert subtle censorship. <br /><br />But Newspeak, the topic of your post, goes beyond the above two categories. In <i>1984</i>’s Appendix (http://orwell.ru/library/novels/1984/english/en_app) the key sentence is, “The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible.” So it becomes literally impossible to say, “Oil supplies are declining”. The words to express such a thought intelligibly simply are not available.<br /><br />One way this is done is through abbreviations. Orwell states, “The words Communist International, for instance, call up a composite picture of universal human brotherhood, red flags, barricades, Karl Marx, and the Paris Commune. The word . . . Comintern . . . can be uttered almost without taking thought, whereas Communist International is a phrase over which one is obliged to linger at least momentarily.<br /> <br />Another example I can think of would be “Nazi”. That word arouses immediate bellyfeel in all of us, but “National Socialism” may make us pause for a moment to figure out what is really being said. The same could be said about the “Affordable Care Act” as distinct from “Obamacare”. And so on and so on.<br /><br />Ironically, the term “Peak Oil” may fall into the same trap of merely generating bellyfeel. But if we say, “The gradual but inexorable decline of economically available crude oil and condensate” then we may stop to think for a moment as to what is actually being said.<br /><br />Anyway, thanks for initiating this doubleplus good discussion even though it is ungoodthinkful.ChemEnghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05168251215012150114noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-76104370804058045412014-07-15T21:07:50.644-04:002014-07-15T21:07:50.644-04:00ChemEng,
Thanks for your thoughtful comment. I mu...ChemEng,<br /><br />Thanks for your thoughtful comment. I must disagree with you, however, in the strongest terms. <br /><br />Having worked in advertising agencies and on political campaigns for many years I can tell you that you are vastly underestimating the subtle and powerful ways in which people's perceptions can be controlled through modern methods of propaganda.<br /><br />There are so many examples of how our language has been altered by conscious programs. Chief among those examples is Newt Gringrich's successful campaign to turn "liberal" into a disparaging term, so much so that few true liberals use the word anymore.<br /><br />And, with regard to energy and particularly oil, many very smart people have been beguiled by the industry's rhetoric. It's not that these people are not capable of being skeptical. It's that IT NEVER OCCURS TO THEM that they NEED to be skeptical about the industry's pronouncements. That's expert manipulation of the mind.<br /><br />Incidently, you missed reading the many "bellyfeel" believers of the industry story who commented on this piece because I deleted them for being abusive or simply deceptive or completely irrelevant to the argument I made.<br /><br />We have a whole new vocabulary in which "energy independence" equals "more production of hydrocarbons." Of course, the best way for us to reach energy independence is to use a lot less energy. But that isn't even allowed as a possible path. And, we are nearly as unmindful of the possibilities for renewables, especially solar.<br /><br />And, of course, the hyperbole about U.S. oil and natural gas production is designed specifically to prevent people from focusing on climate change. You will notice how effectively the industry's abundance narrative has wiped out the climate change narrative. Almost no story that mentions the abundance narrative also mentions climate change.<br /><br />The techniques used by modern propagandists (highly sophisticated polling, focus groups, demographic information, computerized analysis) would make Nazi and Communist propagandists of the 1930s and 1940s stand in awe.<br /><br />I think Noam Chomsky's analysis of manufactured consent is apropos.<br /><br />Perhaps the very best example of what I'm talking about was the selling of the Iraq War. McClatchy newspapers' Washington bureau did an excellent job of debunking all the arguments for the war (including the fake weapons of mass destruction claim) BEFORE the war began. But for all the people who should have been skeptical (particularly in the media), it just didn't occur to them to actually BE skeptical about these claims. They weren't being coerced into staying silent or saying the opposite of what they think, they were thinking the opposite of what is true. The information was available on the Internet and in dozens of newspapers around the country, and yet few people thought to use McClatchy's superb reporting as a starting point for their skeptical search for the truth.<br /><br />It is truly amazing mind control to make people think that they came to the conclusions you want them to all by themselves through some kind of critical thought (however superficial it may seem to us). That's what we've got today, and it is far more subtle and far more dangerous than anything we've have previously seen with regard to the manipulation of public opinion.Kurt Cobbhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05330759091950742285noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-9698760020085874832014-07-15T06:56:40.175-04:002014-07-15T06:56:40.175-04:00Kurt:
Thanks for the facts that you summarize reg...Kurt:<br /><br />Thanks for the facts that you summarize regarding oil supplies. I often refer to your blog when thinking and talking about the dilemmas that we face. However, I think that equating oil industry publicity with Newspeak to be something of a stretch. <br /><br /><i>1984</i> must be one of the most frightening books ever written — the only society that I can think of anything like it is Russia of the late 1930s (the Third Reich did not achieve this type of mind control). And the very fact that this blog exists shows that we are not living in such a society. The oil industry may manipulate language - so do most advertisers. But they do not create Newspeak.<br /><br />The following quotation is from the Appendix to <i>1984</i>.<br /><br />“The word bellyfeel refers to a blind, enthusiastic acceptance of an idea. Consider, for example, such a typical sentence from a Times leading article as ‘Oldthinkers unbellyfeel Ingsoc.’ The shortest rendering one could make of this in Oldspeak would be: ‘Those whose ideas were formed before the Revolution cannot have a full emotional understanding of the principles of English Socialism.’ But this is not an adequate translation...Only a person thoroughly grounded in Ingsoc could appreciate the full force of the word bellyfeel, which implied a blind, enthusiastic and casual acceptance difficult to imagine today.”<br /><br />People today may accept industry information that there is plenty of oil. But there is an underlying feeling of uncertainty; they do not “bellyfeel”. Fortunately, our advertisers have not yet learned how to write true Newspeak.<br /><br />George Orwell was an amazing writer. Consider his essay “Down the Mine” written in the 1930s. In it he writes, <br /><br />"Down there where coal is dug is a sort of world apart which one can quite easily go through life without ever hearing about. Probably majority of people would even prefer not to hear about it. Yet it is the absolutely necessary counterpart of our world above. Practically everything we do, from eating an ice to crossing the Atlantic, and from baking a loaf to writing a novel, involves the use of coal, directly or indirectly."<br /><br />Were he alive today I suspect that he would be a magnificent Peak Oil writer.ChemEnghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05168251215012150114noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-2115561201213018282014-07-14T22:04:19.664-04:002014-07-14T22:04:19.664-04:00It's just so easy to corrupt an inept, distrac...It's just so easy to corrupt an inept, distracted populace. Even those who are "educated" can be duped into something, if the something is outside their narrow field.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-65506575225849933752014-07-14T12:54:33.429-04:002014-07-14T12:54:33.429-04:00Commmenters may want to read my comments policy be...Commmenters may want to read my <a href="http://resourceinsights.blogspot.com/2010/03/regrettably-comments-policy.html" rel="nofollow">comments policy</a> before posting, if they haven't read it already. Many comments on this post have already been deleted for failing to conform with that policy.Kurt Cobbhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05330759091950742285noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-33814884438569552032014-07-14T09:46:46.994-04:002014-07-14T09:46:46.994-04:00Great article. The carbon bubble is about to burs...Great article. The carbon bubble is about to burst....Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-63992128537187885732014-07-14T02:54:41.865-04:002014-07-14T02:54:41.865-04:00The energy supply picture is indeed confusing. I l...The energy supply picture is indeed confusing. I live in Belgium and reading the newspapers everything seems OK. Plenty enough is supplied. No worries needed. Fracking, gas, oil: nothing to worry about.<br />Or maybe the reason everything seems ok is the human habit only to remember, write and read positive stories.<br />Mvg, Didier<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-1957282325940680452014-07-13T20:03:15.289-04:002014-07-13T20:03:15.289-04:00What else is being lied about ? Everything?What else is being lied about ? Everything?DaShuihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13731696293751625845noreply@blogger.com