American Betrayal: A Postmodern (Premodern) Guide to Shutting Down Speech and Truth

dianawest.net ^ | January 29, 2015 | Diana West

[No One Special]

Arthur Koestler (1905-1983)

The following excerpt from American Betrayal appears today in slightly edited form at Breitbart News:

In his contribution to the famous 1949 collection of essays by ex-Communists titled The God That Failed, Arthur Koestler carefully illustrates how set language binds thought to ideology at the expense of evidence. Koestler, author of the unparalleled novel of Stalin's show trials, Darkness at Noon, describes a conversation he had early in his Communist career with "Edgar," his Party contact, in which they discuss the front page of a Communist newspaper.

"But every word on the front page is contradicted by the facts," I objected. Edgar gave me a tolerant smile. "You still have the mechanistic outlook, he said, and then proceeded to give me the dialectical interpretation of the facts . . .

Gradually, I learned to distrust my mechanistic preoccupation with facts and to regard the world around me in the light of dialectical interpretation. It was a satisfactory and indeed blissful state; once you had assimilated the technique, you were no longer disturbed by the facts [emphasis added]. 

Here, recounting his experience as a German Communist in the 1930s, Koestler is nonetheless describing the post-Communist, postmodern, post-9/11 American condition. It is the sinister overhaul of language and thought—so familiar!—that he personally engaged in, and that was and is the primary tool of Marxist and Islamic subversion. "Not only our thinking, but also our vocabulary was reconditioned," he explains. "Certain words were taboo." Certain other words became telltales by which to identify dissenters or enemies. Literary, artistic, and musical tastes, he writes, were "similarly reconditioned" to support the renunciation of independent thought and logic necessary to submit to ideology.

We cast off our intellectual baggage like passengers on a ship seized by panic, until it became reduced to the strictly necessary minimum of stock phrases, dialectical clichés and Marxist quotations… To be able to see several aspects of a problem and not only one, became a permanent cause of self-reproach. We craved to be single- and simple-minded.

We crave this, too, or just go along with it, which is worse. And the U.S. government itself is happy to oblige:

"Don't Invoke Islam."

"Don't Harp on Muslim Identity."

"Avoid the Term 'Caliphate.' "

"Use the terms `violent extremist' or `terrorist.' "

"Never Use the Term 'Jihadist' or 'Mujahideen.' "

These instructions are direct quotations from "Words that Work and Words that Don't: A Guide for Counterterrorism Communication," a guide put out by the National Counterterrorism Center on March 14, 2008 – and yes, that was under President George W. Bush. This crackdown on speech and, by extension, habits of thought, and, finally, thought itself extends across the political spectrum. Naturally, it has only gotten worse.

Such is the spawn of liberty's rendezvous with totalitarianism.

[PapaNew]

You’re either going to have freedom or tyranny. If you’re going to have tyranny, you’ve GOT to shut down speech and truth or else unjust government cannot survive.

[Montaignes Cat]

Very good piece I would not have otherwise seen. Thanks for posting.

[Steve_Seattle]

These Orwellian linguistic rules are imposed to make people who are telling the truth seem extreme and unbalanced. Hence it becomes easy - even mandatory - to ignore or marginalize the truth-tellers.

[chud]

Everyone should read Darkness at Noon.

[mjp]

Gradually, I learned to distrust my mechanistic preoccupation with facts and to regard the world around me in the light of dialectical interpretation. It was a satisfactory and indeed blissful state; once you had assimilated the technique, you were no longer disturbed by the facts [emphasis added].

For postmodernists, truth is subjective. There is no universal objective truth.Postmodernists must be skeptical of broad explanations. For them,there are only small truths that are particular to a society or group of people and limited to individual perception. Written or verbal statements can reflect only a particular localized culture or individual point of view. They are the ones that say,"that may be true for you, but not for me.

[VR-21]

"Everyone should read Darkness at Noon."

I wholeheartedly agree, and The GOD that failed, along with Diana West's book are very much worthwhile too.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks No One Special. I can’t find it right now, but *someone* noted that the real purpose of propaganda is to degrade the masses by forcing them to shout approval of things they know are false.

Obamacore: The substitution of propaganda for great literature in our schools
Powerline | 12/6/2012 | Paul Mirengoff
Posted on 12/06/2012 9:57:12 AM PST by mojito
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2966257/posts

[Grimmy]

I don’t think this is exactly what you were referring to, but it fits, I think:

“Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.”
- Theodore Dalrymple

It helps to remember that the ideology of Political Correct and PC Speech, was brought to our shores in the 1930s by authors of the School of Marxism at Frankfurt. It took deep root in the ivy league schools and various socialist organizations then spread from there.

[SunkenCiv]

That’s it!!