One of George Orwell’s most important messages in 1984 is that language is of central importance to human thought because it structures (struttura) and limits the ideas that individuals are capable of formulating and expressing. This idea manifests itself in the language of Newspeak, which the Party has introduced to replace (rimpiazzare) English. During colonial times, foreign powers (potenze straniere) took political and military control of distant regions and instituted (istituirono) their own language as the language of government and business (affari).The basic idea of this language is supported (sostenuta)by the “doublethink” (doppio pensiero) which emerges as an important consequence of the Party’s massive campaign (campagna di massificazione) of psychological manipulation. Doublethink is the ability to hold (tenere) two contradictory ideas in one’s mind (in una sola mente) at the same time.In this way, people are able to accept the Party ministries’ names, though they contradict their functions: the Ministry of Plenty supervise (supervisiona) economic shortages (scarsità), the Ministry of Peace wages (foraggia) war, the Ministry of Truth conducts propaganda and historical revisionism (revisionismo storico), and the Ministry of Love is the center of the Party’s operations of torture (tortura) and punishment. The Party controls every source (fonte) of information, rewriting (riscrivendo) the content of all newspapers and histories for its own ends (per i propri fini). The Party does not allow (non permette agli) individuals to keep records (tenere diari) of their past, such as photographs or documents. As a result, memories become unreliable (inaffidabili), and citizens (cittadini) believe whatever (credono a qualsiasi cosa) the Party tells them. By controlling the present, the Party is able to manipulate the past. And in controlling the past, the Party can justify all of its actions in the present. Moreover (in più) by means of tele-screens and hidden microphones (microfoni nascosti) across the city, the Party is able to monitor its members almost all of the time. The Party employs complicated mechanisms and machinery to inflict torture upon those it considers enemies. 1984 reveals that technology, which is generally perceived as working toward moral good, can also facilitate the most diabolical evil.
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