The Trump administration is prohibiting officials at the nation’s top public health agency CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) from using a list of seven words and phrases. These words are:
Vulnerable – Entitlement – Diversity – Transgender
Fetus – Evidence-based – Science-based
These words cannot be used in official documents that are prepared for next year’s budget.
The question of how to address such issues as sexual orientation, gender identity and abortion rights — all of which received significant visibility under the Obama administration — has surfaced repeatedly in federal agencies since President Trump took office. Several key departments — including HHS, as well as Justice, Education, and Housing and Urban Development — have changed some federal policies and how they collect government information about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans. (Source: Washington Post)
It seemed so unthinkable when I read George Orwell’s 1984. Who would take words away? In the novel, Orwell speaks of an authoritarian world where thinking was controlled by the government.
Was George Orwell right, but wrong with years? Is 1984 now?
The political purpose of Newspeak is to eliminate ambiguity and nuance (shades of meaning) from the language, and so reduce the language to simple concepts—pleasure and pain, happiness and sadness, goodthink and crimethink—that reinforce the totalitarian dominance of the State.
“The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view but to make all other modes of thought impossible. Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express, while excluding all other meaning and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods. This was done partly by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words and stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary meaning whatever.” (Source: Wikipedia -Thank you)
If you haven’t read George Orwell’s 1984 -now would be a good time. It’s frightening to see so much come true!
Who knows, with internet neutrality gone, perhaps soon I won’t be able to write a post like this?
It is difficult to believe that he can do this. Is the Public Health Agency not an independent body? The only upside I can think of is that the English language is so over-supplied with synonyms that anyone with education (and integrity) should be able to say the same thing using other words.
There are some frightening parallels with 1984, which was actually written in 1948 and I have always seen as a satire on the world envisaged by the Nazis and the rise of the Communist state in the USSR. Remove the freedom of individuals to speak freely and you’re on the path towards thought control. The real missing words in this are truth, honesty, integrity, liberty.
You should read the book read the book Ive recommended too Clive. It really is excellent and set in London which makes it more pertinent to you somehow xx
Thanks, I’ll check it out xx
🙂xx
Orwell was a visionary- the tragedy is that he knew it but didn’t want to be. I recommend you read a book called ‘Eric is Awake’ by Dom Shaw. http://www.ericisawake.com I’m not talking comfortable here. Yours is a great article and needed.
[…] Source: Forbidden Words 1984 or 2017? […]
I thought the same when I read about this and then thought its an example of when the lunatics start running the asylum. Good luck to you all.
All words and phrases that Trump does not understand, and has no desire to understand!
I’m wondering if Trump even read Orwell’s 1984. (I think it’s online if that doesn’t get banned eventually.) I waiting to see how this all plays out. Even Snopes hasn’t made any conclusions yet. I’ve read that Snopes is now ‘vulnerable’ to being discontinued. Jeez!
http://www.meinthemiddlewrites.com
Goodness I hope not.
That’s terrible, very 1984, very Orweĺlian.
Unbelievable. So hard to imagine something like this🙁
Orwell’s novel 1984 can be seen as prophetic until you realize that White men have always possessed the power of naming while using the mainstream media as gatekeepers of information.
Men in power, regardless of color of the skin, can do a lot of damage. The angry white men here in the U.S. are throwing us back a hundred years.
“Diversity” is not just a word, it is who we are as a nation.
I am actually surprised that the word “Women’s rights” and “Equality” were not two of the forbidden words.
Well, “Women’s Rights” and “Equality” are harmless to “big brother”.
My hope is with the Millennials (what a word.) Many of them will be first time voters in 2018 and more to come. It’s time to retire the GOP once and for all.
I think the patriarchy is more of a problem than the GOP.
Perhaps this explains our love with the royal family of a different country? 🙂
Ha, ha! Whose love? Not mine. I cringe when I hear anything on the news about Prince whats-his-name and the biracial bride to be. I’m sorry but Aristocracies are not appealing to me and I’m pretty sure they aren’t appealing to other people who aren’t born into instant wealth and endless opportunities to pursue whatever dreams they have that most certainly wouldn’t be available to people of color.