When I look at the state of mass media today, sometimes I think about the fictional language of Newspeak in George Orwell’s novel 1984. In the book, the goal of the language was to increase the state’s power over the population by eliminating shades of meaning in spoken English. Each edition of the Newspeak dictionary would have fewer and fewer words. The idea was that by diminishing the number of words in a language, the state could diminishing its citizens’ capacity for thought and therefore strengthen its ability to control the masses. I don't necessarily believe that the media is involved in some sinister plot to control our minds, but it is not giving us the range of information that it could give us if it was truly acting as a responsible steward of its power, or at least a disinerested neutral party interested only in truth and accuracy.
Month: May 2006
music format: what is the sound of a round object spinning?
In my still relatively short lifetime, I am astounded at the many rapid changes that have occurred in the way that people play and store music. If people ask me what format I have my music in, my reply will be simple—I’ll say I prefer the round kind.
cat got your lung? life with cat allergies
But the difference is that while you can ask a smoker to extinguish a cigarette, you can’t ask a cat owner to extinguish their cat. Even if my body regards a cat as the equivalent of a constantly lit cigarette that eats and poops.