Can We Use the Principles of Newspeak for Good?

 

Last month I went to see a stage adaptation of George Orwell’s masterpiece Nineteen Eighty-Four at the Melbourne Festival. The experience sparked this question in my mind: Can we learn from the black arts of propaganda showcased in Orwell’s dystopian novel and turn them into assets to enhance our communication and stakeholder engagement activities?

The way words shape people’s thinking is very powerful. This power can be used for both good and bad. Oratory and rhetoric are generally seen as positive motivational and persuasive skills; propaganda is the flip side that misleads and creates false truths.

Can project professionals learn to use these skills to enhance their stakeholder engagement activities—and is this ethical? My feeling is that the ability to persuade stakeholders to help you be successful is a positive and ethical skill provided it’s used for the greater good.

Orwell is famous for two novels, Animal Farm published in 1945 and Nineteen Eighty-Four (often written as 1984) published in 1949. Both were focused on the evil of totalitarian regimes, but Nineteen Eighty-Four goes beyond politics to look at the process of manipulating the way people think, or more precisely, how to use language to prevent people from thinking. “The Principles of Newspeak” are defined in an appendix to 1984 (and therefore few people notice them). But reading them reframes the whole book.

The importance of Nineteen Eighty-Four as a classic 20^th century novel can be measured by the number of its terms and concepts that are still part of our language today. These include Big Brother, doublethink, thoughtcrime and thoughtpolice, as well as the adjective Orwellian, which describes official deception and manipulation by the state.

What I find fascinating are the parallels between Newspeak and modern adaptations of language, particularly that often found in SMS (text) messages, and the intention of Newspeak to control thinking.

From the appendix:

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. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought—that is, a thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc—should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words.

* Ingsoc: The philosophy of The Party, run by Big Brother.

Newspeak was constructed using two fundamental processes:

1. Remove as many words as possible from the language. This reduction of vocabulary was regarded as an end in itself. Newspeak was designed to diminish the range of thought, and this purpose was indirectly assisted by cutting the choice of words down to a minimum.
2. Abbreviate and amalgamate words to create a simple construct with a precise (usually perverse) meaning. MINILUV (Ministry of Love) was the department focused on maintaining state control over everyone through surveillance by the Thoughtpolice, torture and state killings. MINITRUE was responsible for propaganda and the manipulation of historical records to meet current needs.

Fast-forward to the 21^st century and consider typical text-message acronyms like TMI—KHUF! (Translation: too much information—know how you feel.) 

Of course, one of the big differences is that Newspeak was designed to eliminate creative thought, while the language of SMS and social media users is organic and created and owned by individuals. But is this difference enough to prevent the stifling of creative thought and innovation?

Conversely, one of the ideas in Newspeak that could be adapted to a positive use is the way entities are named. What if we changed the name of PMOs to SPEs: successful project enablers? 

If the SPE staff lived up to that name and helped projects under their control to be successful, wouldn’t that be a good thing? Similarly, why not change the name of the “Monthly report for July” to a “Report on achievements in July”? Could this make the document more interesting and meaningful to those who receive it?  

We know that what things are called affects people’s expectations, a fact not lost on Big Brother. But can the concept be equally useful if used positively to encourage success…or is this too much spin?

What do you think?