Newspeak and Anglo-Saxon Values

Anglo-Saxon disc brooch from Kent on display at Oxford University’s Ashmolean Museum (Accession No. 1972.1401), Author Ethan Doyle White (CC BY-SA 4.0 International)

“Orwell’s Newspeak, the ultra-political new language introduced in Nineteen Eighty-Four…facilitates deception and manipulation, and its purpose is to restrict understanding of the real world…By manipulating the language, the government wishes to alter the public’s way of thinking.”

-“Language as the ‘Ultimate Weapon’ in Nineteen Eighty Four” by Jem Berkes, Copyright © 2000 [1A]

George Orwell’s classic novel 1984 predicted a chilling future in which language would be stripped of its meaning and used to convey the very opposite of its original intent.

For those who may not have noticed, 1984 has arrived.

While Newspeak was employed by the government and media in Orwell’s novel, it is now part of so called woke culture and white supremacist counterculture.

Reinterpretation of the phrase “Anglo-Saxon values” is a prime illustration.

Historic Anglo-Saxons

Historically, the Anglo-Saxons were a group who inhabited England between 450 AD – 1066 AD, before the Norman Conquest [2].

Their origin can be traced to a 5th Century migration from mainland Europe.  After that, there was significant inter-marriage with the Celtic population of Britain.

Anglo Saxon Values

“Thomas Jefferson…believed that the principles he wrote into the Declaration of Independence could be traced back…to the folkright of Anglo-Saxon law…

But was Jefferson right?  Were the principles of the new republic truly prefigured in Anglo-Saxon England…?

Actually, to an astonishing degree, yes, they were.  What Adams would call ‘a government of laws, not of men’ would have been a recognizable concept in 11th-century England…

When, two centuries later, the authors of the Magna Carta sought to bind the crown to a form of conciliar government rooted in ‘the law of the land,’ they were drawing consciously on that past.”

-“Let’s Hear It for Anglo-Saxon Values” by Dan Hannan [3A]

Since the inception of this country, we have looked back with pride to English common law and Magna Carta.  Whatever their shortcomings, no greater safeguard of human rights has existed on the earth.

Radical Reinterpretation

“When the French talk of ‘les anglo-saxons’ or the Spanish of ‘los anglosajones,’ they don’t mean people who claim descent from King Athelstan.  They mean people who believe in small government, free markets, and, as they see it, unregulated jungle capitalism.”

-“Let’s Hear It for Anglo-Saxon Values” by Dan Hannan [3B]

In woke terms, the phrase Anglo-Saxon values carries every negative connotation of white ethnicity – most especially slavery, oppression, privilege, and exclusivity.

In racist terms, it is a “dog whistle” meant to affirm white supremacy.

A Spiritual Weapon

“When God destroys the Towel of Babel, the civilizations which have contributed to the construction of the Tower suffer ever-after from the Curse of Confusion.  The Curse both makes languages ‘mutually unintelligible’, and alters their nature so that ‘they no longer lucidly [express] the nature of things, but rather [obscure] and [distort] them’… [Citations omitted]”

-“Language as the ‘Ultimate Weapon’ in Nineteen Eighty Four” by Jem Berkes, Copyright © 2000 [1B]

Language has power to mislead and manipulate people.  It is, in that sense, a dangerous spiritual weapon.  Discernment is strongly advised.

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[1A and 1B]  Jem Berkes, “Language as the ‘Ultimate Weapon’ in Nineteen Eighty Four” by Jem Berkes, 2000, http://www.berkes.ca/archive/berkes_1984_language.html.

[2]  Wikipedia, “Anglo-Saxons”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxons.

[3A and 3B]  Washington Examiner, “Let’s Hear It for Anglo-Saxon Values” by Dan Hannan, 5/17/21, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/lets-hear-it-for-anglo-saxon-values.

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