Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2008, Page 65
refers to the symbol of conservative in a president who appears clumsy and pedestrian
when addressing other worldviews thus, the inept initial handling of the war in Iraq. Lakoff
points to Al Gore‘s successful campaign and film about global warming as a good example of
the proper use of ―real mechanisms of mind … to tell important truths.‖ Gore‘s film
producers used a host of influence techniques, including personal narratives, emotions,
images, and worldviews to get the point across. If they had merely stuck to the facts, the
project would have flopped.
Drew Weston is a psychologist and a professor at Emory with a particular focus on politics
as a consultant with Western Strategies. He believes Orwell got the title of his novel wrong
by two decades: 2004 marked a several-year period that was ―the most Orwellian of
American democracy.‖ Weston lists typical criticisms of the Bush administration‘s positions
on education, the environment, and waging ―perpetual‖ war. He believes that Orwell would
have recognized ―No Child Left Behind‖ and ―Clear Skies Initiative‖ as Newspeak. He might
have been surprised at how well television images and Internet propaganda have increased
manipulation of the public even in a democracy. He argues that Reagan was able to defeat
Carter largely through ―masterfully crafted‖ patriotic media adverts. Weston notes offensive
manipulation of Barack Obama‘s image by the ―right‖ that has associated Obama with
Muslims and Blackness. Weston suggests we combat 21st century Newspeak by exposing it
as it happens.
Alice O‘Connor writes in ―Bad Knowledge‖ that the ―‗faith-based‘ administration‖ and the
―right-wing‖ establishment battered ―evidence-based knowledge‖ with their propaganda for
war and misreading of evidence for global warming and stem-cell research. Her critique is
not entirely partisan. The left also contributes to bad knowledge with its ―technocratic think
tanks‖ that pretend to an aura of neutrality as well as gravity. O‘Connor refers to the
conservative reaction to the ―culture wars … in the 1970s and 1980s‖ against an
increasingly permissive and ―liberal‖ activism as one factor that contributes to our present
state of political obfuscation. O‘Connor teaches at the University of California, Santa
Barbara, and her latest book is Social Science for What? (2007).
Frances FitzGerald, author of several books and frequent contributor to The New Yorker (I
recall her excellent 1986 New Yorker articles on the Rajneesh cult), follows the progression
of U.S. defense policy from the Cold War years. In 1983 President Reagan announced plans
for a Strategic Defense Initiative, or ―star wars‖ thus, FitzGerald‘s essay ―Stellar Spin.‖
Although there was never a viable technology to prevent enemy ballistic missiles from
entering the United States, administrators continued to make policy as if they had
something. ―The U.S. National Missile Defense program is a case study in just what George
Orwell warned us about: rhetoric over reality.‖
Konstanty Gebert, a former Solidarity activist in Poland, is a columnist and reporter for
Gazeta Wyborcza and visiting professor at universities in America. He writes in ―Black and
White, or Gray: A Polish Conundrum‖ that Orwell may have been naïve to think that
democracy with its ―freedoms‖ of speech would be an antidote to the Newspeak of
totalitarian regimes. In Gebert‘s native Poland, the current regime of Chairman Jaroslaw
Kaczynski, with his twin brother Lech as president, created a coalition under their Law and
Justice Party with the smaller Self-Defense (leftist and led by a former Communist) and the
extreme right-wing League of Polish Families parties. Gebert argues that this post-
totalitarian democracy has maneuvered into becoming a version of a ―post-Communist
monster‖ that it opposes. The coalition has done this by manipulating the ―silent majority‖
of Poland to believe that it was both rooting out old Communist influences and relieving the
guilt of those who supported Communism. In effect, Kaczynski has been suppressing media
criticism of his alliance by using neo-Orwellian Newspeak.
refers to the symbol of conservative in a president who appears clumsy and pedestrian
when addressing other worldviews thus, the inept initial handling of the war in Iraq. Lakoff
points to Al Gore‘s successful campaign and film about global warming as a good example of
the proper use of ―real mechanisms of mind … to tell important truths.‖ Gore‘s film
producers used a host of influence techniques, including personal narratives, emotions,
images, and worldviews to get the point across. If they had merely stuck to the facts, the
project would have flopped.
Drew Weston is a psychologist and a professor at Emory with a particular focus on politics
as a consultant with Western Strategies. He believes Orwell got the title of his novel wrong
by two decades: 2004 marked a several-year period that was ―the most Orwellian of
American democracy.‖ Weston lists typical criticisms of the Bush administration‘s positions
on education, the environment, and waging ―perpetual‖ war. He believes that Orwell would
have recognized ―No Child Left Behind‖ and ―Clear Skies Initiative‖ as Newspeak. He might
have been surprised at how well television images and Internet propaganda have increased
manipulation of the public even in a democracy. He argues that Reagan was able to defeat
Carter largely through ―masterfully crafted‖ patriotic media adverts. Weston notes offensive
manipulation of Barack Obama‘s image by the ―right‖ that has associated Obama with
Muslims and Blackness. Weston suggests we combat 21st century Newspeak by exposing it
as it happens.
Alice O‘Connor writes in ―Bad Knowledge‖ that the ―‗faith-based‘ administration‖ and the
―right-wing‖ establishment battered ―evidence-based knowledge‖ with their propaganda for
war and misreading of evidence for global warming and stem-cell research. Her critique is
not entirely partisan. The left also contributes to bad knowledge with its ―technocratic think
tanks‖ that pretend to an aura of neutrality as well as gravity. O‘Connor refers to the
conservative reaction to the ―culture wars … in the 1970s and 1980s‖ against an
increasingly permissive and ―liberal‖ activism as one factor that contributes to our present
state of political obfuscation. O‘Connor teaches at the University of California, Santa
Barbara, and her latest book is Social Science for What? (2007).
Frances FitzGerald, author of several books and frequent contributor to The New Yorker (I
recall her excellent 1986 New Yorker articles on the Rajneesh cult), follows the progression
of U.S. defense policy from the Cold War years. In 1983 President Reagan announced plans
for a Strategic Defense Initiative, or ―star wars‖ thus, FitzGerald‘s essay ―Stellar Spin.‖
Although there was never a viable technology to prevent enemy ballistic missiles from
entering the United States, administrators continued to make policy as if they had
something. ―The U.S. National Missile Defense program is a case study in just what George
Orwell warned us about: rhetoric over reality.‖
Konstanty Gebert, a former Solidarity activist in Poland, is a columnist and reporter for
Gazeta Wyborcza and visiting professor at universities in America. He writes in ―Black and
White, or Gray: A Polish Conundrum‖ that Orwell may have been naïve to think that
democracy with its ―freedoms‖ of speech would be an antidote to the Newspeak of
totalitarian regimes. In Gebert‘s native Poland, the current regime of Chairman Jaroslaw
Kaczynski, with his twin brother Lech as president, created a coalition under their Law and
Justice Party with the smaller Self-Defense (leftist and led by a former Communist) and the
extreme right-wing League of Polish Families parties. Gebert argues that this post-
totalitarian democracy has maneuvered into becoming a version of a ―post-Communist
monster‖ that it opposes. The coalition has done this by manipulating the ―silent majority‖
of Poland to believe that it was both rooting out old Communist influences and relieving the
guilt of those who supported Communism. In effect, Kaczynski has been suppressing media
criticism of his alliance by using neo-Orwellian Newspeak.
