Proles and Newspeak

All toothless prostitutes aside for now. Let’s talk about proles.

The casual but vague mentions of proles earlier hadn’t peaked much interest. But now we just got a much more vivid explanation than anything else you’ve given us thus far. At first I was convinced that they were robots; proles kind of sounds like a robotic name and their lack of cognitive function might make one infer that. I got really confused when you mentioned that they made up 85% of Oceania. (Yes, I am assuming that this nation is called Oceania. Still kind of strange I think.) This definitely makes me infer that they are humans, but deemed as robots by the people (since they are considered “unconscious”). But why mention that the “Party could not be overthrown within?” It seems that they are a part of the population but not a part of the Party? This makes me confused. 

You also said “proles and animals are free.” It’s an interesting slogan since it seems to be one of the few slogans that are true. Yet it seems to be an unwanted quality. If proles can roam around in their poor infrastructure and do pretty much whatever they wanted, it makes me wonder if I was living in this world would I want to be in Winston’s position (part of the Party I think) – slightly better off but brainwashed – or as a prole – very bottom of the food chain but free to do what I feel like and think mindlessly? I think I would be a prole.

And now we know – along with Winston – that Winston is writing his journal addressed to O’Brien. O’Brien is apart of something big. I can feel it!

I recently discovered that this book has an appendix containing “The Principles of Newspeak,” and decided to add this into my reading. Newspeak is the developing language, in which will be the only language used by 2050. Its main purpose is to wipe out unnecessary words, which will prevent people from committing “thoughtcrime” since the word will not exist. It is also something that someone would not understand if they don’t have a complete understanding of Ingsoc, English Socialism. (Thank you for clarifying this one for me!) I find it interesting, the extreme limits that Big Brother goes through to make every single person incapable of independent thinking.

The Newspeak vocabulary has been split up into three sections: the A vocabulary, the B vocabulary, and the C vocabulary. The A vocabulary is everyday vocabulary. The B vocabulary is political vocabulary. The C vocabulary is considered to be a “supplemental” vocabulary, entailing “scientific and technical terms.” What I don’t understand is that you said that the word “science” is completely removed from Newspeak. If this is the case, how can you contain scientific terms if no such thing as science exists? These seem to contradict one another.

Finally, I enjoyed you example at the end of the appendix explaining that even by some chance a person came into contact with a piece of writing from the past – we are assuming that everybody speaks only Newspeak – they wouldn’t be able to understand it. I think this is the ultimate security on making sure that nobody can hold proof that Ingsoc is a liar, since they won’t be able to understand what any of it anyways. You are really dumbing down the nation to be worse than prones. What intellectual level will the drones be at by that point?

Thanks for the extra bit of insight for a hard-to-imagine world!