Bellevue Week 9 assignment use of newspeak (aka doublespeak)

Newspeak.pdf

Your paper this week is about the use of newspeak (aka doublespeak) in today’s political and corporate worlds. Consider the following*:

  • Would it actually be possible to fight a Cyber-war at the level of semantics? (Orwell wrote: “In Newspeak it was seldom possible to follow a heretical thought further than the perception that it was heretical: beyond that point the necessary words were nonexistent.”)
  • If words such as “firewall” and “intrusion detection system” did not exist, would attackers have targets?
  • To what degree do you think the United States is already adopting ‘Newspeak’ as its official political language? (Is the US PATRIOT ACT, the Patriot Act – or is it Newspeak?)
  • Is “politically correct” language Newspeak?

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