Covid Newspeak
Greetings, obedient serfs! We at the Ministry of Truthiness are alarmed to hear our critics call our lies and deceit “Orwellian”, as if that were a bad thing. But we love Orwell! 1984 wasn’t a warning, it was a prescription for the right way to control you unruly masses. But we’re improving on Orwell in some big ways, especially in the language department.
Orwell imagined that we’d have to invent a new language, Newspeak, to make dissent impossible, and get rid of the old language, English. But we don’t have to go to all that trouble. We can simply redefine existing words and make you forget the old definitions. We’ve been doing this for the last 2+ years, to get you to comply with our nonsensical rules about the Worst Disease Ever. Here are some examples.
Right off the bat, we had to make sure that you were super-scared of the Worst Disease Ever. So we gave it a scary-sounding name, and we called it “novel”. Sure, it had a lot in common with previous viruses, which meant you already had partial immunity to it. But we couldn’t let you think that, so we called it “novel” to make you think that it was so new, nothing could stop it.
Our rebranding of the word “lockdown” was one of our most ingenious language tricks. The word originally came from prisons, where it meant locking unruly prisoners in their cages for long periods if they acted up. Now people think lockdowns are a good thing because if you comply with them, it means you are are virtuous person who wants to save granny.
Then we changed the definition of the word “case” to scare you even more. “Case” used to mean someone who had symptoms and was sick. But not enough people were getting sick with the Worst Disease Ever, so we changed “case” to mean “tested positive on a PCR test”. Yes, inventor of the PCR test said it wasn’t designed to be the sole diagnostic tool and couldn’t tell if you were sick or were going to get sick. The test was often run with very high cycle thresholds, so it had a lot of false positives. But that didn’t matter. We redefined “case” so that you’d see all those scary numbers on TV – numbers that kept increasing! – and think that people were dropping like flies. This was important because the fear made it easier for you to comply with our silly rules.
Then we started pushing some experimental gene therapies that had never been successful in the past and which didn’t get tested properly. So we called them “vaccines” because most of you thought vaccines were a miracle of modern medicine and could do no harm. We even got Merriam-Webster to change the definition of “vaccine” in their dictionary!
Then we needed to make you ignore the fact that these gene therapies didn’t stop the Worst Disease Ever, and were actually harming or killing people. So we had to start using the words “safe” and “effective” a lot, without giving you any information about safety or effectiveness. We weren’t really redefining these words, just emptying them of all meaning except for “Trust us no matter what.”
Recently we’ve had to redefine “misinformation” in order to further suppress dissent. It used to mean false statements, either intentional or otherwise, but since we lie all the time, we had to redefine it to mean information that contradicts us, which we now equate to domestic terrorism. We just have to claim that “misinformation” is a “danger to our democracy”, and you’ll be happy that we’re censoring anyone who disagrees with us.
Speaking of “democracy”, that’s another word that we’ve redefined. It used to mean a system of government where the people decided on how to be governed. But we could never let you have a real choice. So now it means a system of government by mostly unelected technocrats, who are super-smart and know what’s good for you. The people you vote for in national elections are useful idiots who are pre-chosen for you. But voting give you false feelings of virtue, civic pride, and control, so we continue to let you go along with the charade every couple of years.
Speaking of people who disagree with us, we now use words like “antivaxxer” and “denier” to describe them, even if they have taken many vaccines in the past, or believe that The Worst Disease Ever is real. We have redefined those words to mean anyone who disagrees with us. We have plenty of other words that mean that, too, like “right-wing”, “extremist”, “racist”, “selfish”, and “anti-science”. Pick whichever one makes you feel the most outraged at people who aren’t as obedient as you.
Speaking of Science, we’ve redefined that to mean “anything that Dr. Fauci says is true”. He’s never treated a patient in his life, and is mainly a Big Pharma salesman, but he has equated himself with Science, so forget all the old science you learned in school.
Aren’t you glad we didn’t make you learn Newspeak? You can continue to use all your old, familiar words, but now with shiny new meanings!