George Orwell's 1984 - are we there already?

[Jon]

“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.”

― George Orwell, 1984

Social pressure from activists on the left now attempt to coerce us to say a man can be a woman and a woman can be a man. My understanding is that in America, you can legally change your gender.

Is this a case of 1984 having crept up upon us? Almost like a cloak of ideology drifting in like a mist from the sea. It is gradual, but all encompassing. [I've seen a similar thing happen on Brighton beach in the summer, when I used to live there. Nice and sunny then slowly you are enveloped in thick mist and it goes really cold and damp. Very odd!]

Incidentally, I am not just talking about gender. You could make a similar argument regarding global warming, where social pressure says that if you find and vocalise facts that appear to say 2 + 2 = 4, you are at risk of being viewed as a moral outcast, a denier. The same about toxic masculinity - that is just a nice little bit of bait to chomp on!

 

[The_Doc_Man]

I see your point about social pressures, and I don't disagree. I believe it is in part due to people being bombarded with too many concepts that would force them to NOT "judge a book by its cover." For entirely too many people, that is too much effort and they yearn for simpler times. They don't want to have to wait to figure out if someone is a good person or a bad person. They want to be able to make a snap judgment and be done with it all. Not an example of "double-think" but of "non-think" - I think.

At the same time, a person's sexual identity CAN be other than what is apparent. I know entirely too many people of apparently contradictory gender identity from my college days and my time as a musician on Bourbon Street in downtown New Orleans. I have posted in another thread that there is adequate evidence that people can have a brain configuration that doesn't match their X/Y chromosome pairing. In such cases, it might literally be true that they feel like a woman born in a man's body or vice versa. This forum isn't the place to repeat all of the findings, but if you want to do the research, look up "homosexual + brain scan" and then focus on UK medical research from the 1990s.

I can see where people would want to be recognized as the gender they feel they are. Whether they go through adjustment surgery is a different question and I will not step into THAT can of worms.

 

[Bee]

I don't understand what point you are making. The whole premise of 1984 is that the government controls your thoughts (through the Thought Police, propaganda etc) meaning there is no freedom. Freedom in this context is free speech. I am a passionate believer in free speech - but only up to the point where it becomes hate speech. If you say all homosexuals deserve to be castrated, that is hate speech. It might be your opinion - and you might argue you have a right to free speech, but all it does is incite bigotry (as well as showing your ignorance).

And really, why would you WANT to be so mean?

 

[Jon]

I think bringing up hate speech is a very good example of the point I am making. Let's look at the "thought police" and "hate speech." Before, you could say whatever you wanted, or at least a lot more than could be said today. As time goes on, more things are added to, for example, what is considered "hate speech". This is a case of the thought police coming in and saying, "No no, that is just not acceptable!" So, you could say that 2 + 2 = 4 but the thought police say, "Nope, I am not having that!" The slippery slope.

At what point do you stop adding things to the hate speech list? Or does it just go on forever, growing in size like the EU administration!

What about if your religion says you can beat your wife under certain circumstances? The Koran says you can, and these are supposed to be the direct words of God, according to the Islamic faith. Is that hate speech? Did God break the rules too? If you do not believe in God, and you say that Muhammad made it up, that is blasphemy and hate speech for a Muslim. So what happens now? To you, God does not exist and the Koran is fiction. Therefore that passage in the Koran is not valid and so it is hate speech to suggest you can beat your wife. 2 + 2 = 4. But for the Muslim, the passage is truth and you are the one with hate speech.

 

[Bee]

I think the goal posts will always shift and there is no definitive answer. What was acceptable historically may not be acceptable now - and what is acceptable now may not be in the future. Society alters. Thinking alters. Language evolves. The nuance with hate speech is not that it is wrong to have or express a contradictory opinion - but that it is wrong to whip up hatred/fear/resentment etc.

Before, you could say whatever you wanted, or at least a lot more than could be said today

So, what do you want to say that you don't think would be acceptable now?

And forgive me if I'm wrong, but facts are facts, aren't they? 2 + 2 does = 4. If a fact is indeed a fact, then it is also a truth and there should be no reason not to state facts.

It's confusing to conflate facts with opinions.

 

[Jon]

but that it is wrong to whip up hatred/fear/resentment etc.

You cannot eliminate hatred/fear/resentment from society. Many people resent having their free speech curtailed. So if your argument is that a) it is wrong to whip up resentment, and b) you need (ever increasing) hate speech laws to do this, you are essentially saying you favour one group over the other. i.e. the other side who is resentful of your hate speech laws don't count and that only the resenting groups opinion on the other (your) side matters.

So, what do you want to say that you don't think would be acceptable now?

I gave an example on gender in my first post. So, someone who is male can say they are female, even if they are not. (If you believe that a man can have a female brain, and that the brain is the determinant of gender rather than the reproductive system, this still does not prevent a man with a man's brain from calling themselves a woman. This is not 2 + 2 =4.)

Facts are facts. But there is a philosophical distinction between objective reality and relative reality. Suicide bomber or freedom fighter?

 

[Bee]

I'm not advocating curtailing anything other than not saying things which are intended to cause offence or hurt - or worse. You'll note I said <intended>. This is the point at which political correctness goes a bit loopy and people become frustrated. I personally don't mind clumsy expression of speech. I'm an adult. I can see past it. So, while I would notice that someone used an out of date expression [example: in the UK, we don't say 'coloured' meaning someone who isn't white. We say black, or Asian] I wouldn't think badly of them unless the context gave me cause to.

Example
Person 1: I see there's a coloured family moved in down the road.
Person 2: Jeez. Drug dealers will be next - if they can stand the stink of curry. They should all be sent back home.

What person 1 has said is fine. It's factual (though the language is outdated). What person 2 has said is not fine. It may be a deeply-held opinion, but it's not factual and is intended to slur or cause offence.

However, I am aware that there are people who just wait to pounce on clumsy expression and fight the good fight. It's virtue signalling, it's divisive, it drives different opinions underground, and it means we can't have healthy debates from differing philosophical standpoints for fear of using the wrong words (ie political correctness gone mad).

 

[Bee]

And in a synchronicity I could only dream of, this appeared on my FB timeline about 5 mins ago. It's bloody marvellous: