The destruction of words – Summary and

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"The Destruction of the Word" is a short text based on the dystopian novel "1984" by George Orwell.
Among the many themes, all focused on totalitarianism and the manipulation of the masses that follow it,
this text highlights the theme of manipulating the world and how it can affect society's feelings and daily
life.

Winston Smith works in the ministry of truth, which is nothing more than the ministry of lies, in which he
and his colleagues, under the directives of big brother, manipulate, change or eliminate the meaning of
words, changing or eliminating even the concepts and feelings connected to them. This process is called
"Newspeak", the language of Oceania, which has the aim of eliminating or making synonyms and
antonyms, an example is the propaganda phrase "war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength".
This ties in with the concept of "Doublethink": there is the possibility of believing in two opposing and
contradictory ideas so that people can no longer recognize contradictions as such and simply accept
everything presented to them. The aim is to limit the language and thought of citizens by depriving them of
the ability to think and express themselves in a personal way, to make their conscience little by little, word
for word, smaller and smaller, and devoted to big brother.

It is absurd how these themes and these social dynamics, which seem so fanciful, have, in the past,
presented themselves in real societies and political systems: think of the great totalitarianism, of which the
greatest expression was Nazism, they supported absurd theories based on bigotry and ignorance (for
example the theory of the purity of the Aryan race) thanks to manipulative techniques of thought and
language, added to invasive political propaganda, they managed to convince people of the high level of
education, not easily manipulated in situations of normality.

It must make us think how important a word is to express concepts and feelings, and how easy it is, by
eliminating that word, to eliminate even the concept that derives from it. This makes me think of the film
"Alphaville" by the great French director Godard, the girl, born and lived in Alphaville, a continent isolated
from the rest of the world where totalitarianism and fear reigned, did not know the word "love", because
she did not exist in Alphaville’s vocabulary, so she did not know what the related feeling was, but she began
to fall in love with a man and for this reason, frustration was born in her but also a glimmer of freedom of
thought.

This is an example of how dangerous psychological terrorism of the manipulation of minds is and how easy
it is to take the bait of propaganda manipulation (even in our day).

That is why, in my opinion, psychological violence is even more dangerous than physical violence. Physical
violence is obvious, it cannot hide or go unnoticed, it is a scream in the desert, it is war, rifle shots, blood,
and bombs in countries.

Psychological warfare, on the contrary, is subtle, invisible, it hides in the subconscious of the masses, it is
possible to perceive something strange, or unusual, but it is not possible to grasp it, feel it, to understand it,
but, simply and cruelly, it hides in everyday life in people, pretending to become normality, it uses
subliminal messages and knows our greatest fears. Precisely because of these characteristics, it is more
difficult to identify, eradicate and defeat.

According to me, this makes it more violent and dangerous.

Lucrezia Caputo VH.