In the appendix to his novel “1984,” George Orwell explained the principles of “Newspeak,” the mandated lexicon of Big Brother’s dystopian society. The idea behind Newspeak was to prevent free thought and speech by limiting the public’s vocabulary to the point that “wrongthink” was impossible. Maybe nobody reads “1984” any more, and maybe the public is just as ignorant, apathetic and gullible as our political elite count on its members being. It still amazes me that the proliferation of “Newspeak” in the media and political discourse doesn’t create appropriate awareness that the U.S. is being pushed into a totalitarian regime. There is active censorship of certain words and ideas because our Dark Lords think they will upset us (or risk undermining partisan cant). Abortion? What’s that? There is only “reproductive health.” Sex-change operations and hormone treatment for minors? What are you talking about? We have “gender-affirming care.” There’s no illegal immigration, just “newcomers,” and you always want to welcome newcomers!
And so on.
Some words are so upsetting that the news media literally won’t publish them even if a story can’t be understood as a result. Yesterday Boston Red Sox star Jarren Duran, having a rough game, was taunted by a fan and caught on a live mic retorting, “Shut up, you fucking fag!” The Boston papers, however, couldn’t let their readers know what the outfielder said, because it might upset them. So the statement was published as “Shut up you (expletive) (expletive.)”
This is the Orwellian culture progressives are slowly but surely constructing for us, if we let them.
There is no apparent stopping place on the slippery slope. The Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle, one of our most left-addled communities, has an exhibit on the rock band Nirvana that informs visitors that the band’s leader, Kurt Cobain, “un-alived himself at 27.”
Cobain committed suicide. He killed himself. This is apparently a negative concept that the Wonderfully Woke feel must be suppressed by linguistic hocus-pocus. A placard next to the one about Cobain explains why this ugly non-word was used:
“In this exhibition, the Guest Curator has chosen to utilise the term ‘unalive’ as a gesture of respect towards those who have tragically lost their lives due to mental health struggles. By bringing awareness to this language, we aim to foster meaningful dialogue and raise awareness about the complexities of mental health and language in our society.”
Oh. It respects us to address us as illiterate hysterics. AAAHHHH! They said “suicide”! I can’t take it!
Translation: “By making the language increasingly ambiguous and misleading, we want to stop you proles from having non-good thoughts and being able to understand what’s happening around you.”
To me, someone who has been “unalived” has turned into a zombie.
I am in favor of creative uses of language to express something that does not have a word adequately doing the job, as I noted while approving the use of “John Wayned” as a verb in this post. “Unalived” is not an example of that process. It is Newspeak in form and intent. If museums are using Newspeak, we can be sure that our schools will follow as well.
We do need a better word for what the museum’s “guses curator did.” “Euphemism” isn’t sufficient. “Cover-word,” which I have employed in the past, doesn’t quite impart the full sinister nature of the practice. “Orwelled,” perhaps? I’m open to suggestions.
___________________
Pointer: Curmie
Ethics Alarms 
The schools were already there when I was in college, pushing the gender-inclusive language so every damn pronoun had to be “his or her” and there could only be a “chair” not a chairman, and so on. I resented it and thought it was bad grammar that just increased word count, but I did it, lest I be docked a grade here or there. As soon as I was handed my degree, I threw it out the window.
Opinion | Harris could run circles around Trump on policy – The Washington Post (archive.is)
The headline on this propaganda is “Harris is winning the election — of vibes.” Who came up with this newspeak term? What is it supposed to mean? Vapid “excitement” arising from the fact Harris can fog a mirror? When did vibes become an area of political engagement? But it’s all over the place all of a sudden. The AUC is simply flooding all means of communication to cover for the terribleness of Harris and her contrived campaign.
One of the principal reasons I find this locution double-plus ungood is that it doesn’t do what it purports to do. Without heading too far into debates about structuralist theory, I’d note that it isn’t the word that’s problematic for a small portion of the general population; it’s the act represented by that word.
There are only two responses to “un-alived himself”: either you know what the euphemism means or you don’t. If the former, then you’re not spared the thoughts of what Cobain did, or of its implications to those dealing with mental illness directly or indirectly. If the latter, then you look it up or ask someone and are still faced with the less cutesy synonym.
This isn’t recognizing that not all “chairmen” are indeed men; it’s simply supplying a synonym which can be claimed, without evidence or argument, to be a “gesture of respect.” What makes it more respectful? The fact that the user says so, nothing more. If you really want to keep from disturbing those who might be triggered, you might stand a whisper of a chance if you say something about Cobain’s “untimely demise,” but I find it a little difficult to believe that someone who’d be interested in that particular museum exhibit would already know the circumstances of his death. Never having been a huge grunge fan, I might be impertinent enough to suggest that Cobain’s suicide was the primary reason he’s still talked about at all. But “Curmie” is indeed a shorthand for “Curmudgeon.”
Suicide has always had an attraction for, I don’t know, the cool kids? Liberal arts undergrads? I remember women being all aflutter about Sylvia Plath and her “The Bell Jar.” And of course, Virginia Woolf seemed to be on a higher pedestal than say, Jane Austen, because she’d unlived herself. Somehow, mental illness is too often somehow considered noble and taking a stand against normalcy and societal oppression and conformity. Idiotic.
Agreed, OB. In the early 1980s, an acquaintance killed himself by jumping off one of the higher bridges in the Cleveland, OH, area, which was the I-480 bridge over the Cuyahoga River (by Houston/Austin standards, it is fairly tame but it suffers from a sort of wind tunnel effect that leaves motorists with the feeling that their cars are gonna fall off the thing).
He climbed over the fence and, just before he let go of the railing, falling to his death, he turned to my friend, Marty, and said, “Of all people, I never thought would let me down. But, you let me down.” He left Marty thoroughly devastated – a level of cruelty I can not even fathom, especially considering that Marty is one the kindest, most compassionate, caring, truly decent individuals I have ever met.
I have learned to temper my thoughts on suicide over the years, but the lyrics to Rush’s “The Pass” has resonated with me for a very long time:
“It’s not as if this barricade
Blocks the only road
It’s not as if you’re all alone
In wanting to explode
“Someone set a bad example
Made surrender seem all right
The act of a noble warrior
Who lost the will to fight.”
* * *
“No hero in your tragedy
No daring in your escape
No salutes for your surrender
Nothing noble in your fate –
Christ, what have you done?!”
Rush, “The Pass” from Presto, 1989; music Lee, Lifeson, words by Peart.
Three of my first cousins and a college room mate committed suicide. The cruelest was my bi-polar cousin who went off his meds, took his girl friend out to the end of a jetty at Cape Cod, then jumped into the ocean in front of her and drowned himself.
The worst. The ultimate irrational, diseased act. Ugh. Awful for the survivors, particularly children with some or all of the same genes.
*wouldn’t already know
Dammit.
I saw this in the linked post: “One example is the term ‘unalive’, which has emerged online to describe death by suicide or homicide. Users on social media platforms created this term to navigate around algorithms that censor content related to mental health and explicit topics. ‘Unalive’ has sparked constructive conversations, especially among young people, addressing issues such as depression, anxiety, and suicide.” (emphasis added).
That kind of makes sense where the term came from and why it is used but I have heard it in spoken interviews and/or person-on-the-street comments about some unfortunate passing. I guess it is easier/kinder/gentler to hear than say, “Ol’ Kurt sucked on the end of a shotgun” or “Kurt blew his brains out to punish his fans for ‘understanding’ his pain.”
I find the concerted effort of the MSM to echo DNC talking points but Harris/Walz, that their campaign is awash in joy and togetherness and the like. There are numerous montages of CNN, MSNBC, ABC, shows using the same language. It is as if they are in lockstep with the Left to maintain control over society.
jvb
TPM, John. Talking point memos. They take the stuff they are sent, massage it to fit into whatever they’re saying, and out it goes on the air or into print or onto the internet. They treat the talking points as if they’ve been provided them by a PR firm. It is also easy. The articles/pieces come ready to read/publish. Work? But again, they seem coordinated because they are coordinated. And they have no shame and feel no guilt for all doing the exact same thing and making themselves beyond ridicule.
A lot of this stems from the speech policing done on social media platforms. Content creators quickly learned that certain words would get their videos taken down, or get themselves banned outright. We now have:
committed suicide = unalived themselves
gun = pew pew
covid vaccine = the jab
pedofile = pdf file
sex = seggs
porn = corn
… and the list goes on.
pedophile. I do know how to spell.
Good point!
So, according to the article, “unaliving” oneself has its origins in Good Ol’ American “Bite Me!”, as a seemingly innocuous phrase meant to bypass Facebook/Twitter/Snapchat robots that censor/delete posts about “sensitive” topics.
That makes it all the more asinine that the exhibit doesn’t just definantly use plain, uncensored language.
“Unaliving” was meant to allow so-called difficult conversations in defiance of big tech censorship. Using it unnecessarily misses the point altogether.
Wow this is the fourth time in a week that i have learned of this new state of being- UNALIVED. I first read it, also, in connection with a suicide. So I can only assume that those of us who still exhibit the classic signs of Respiration, Reproduction and LOCOMOTION are now the NON UNALIVED. I would have said UNDEAD but that last four letter combination is apparantly forbidden.
First time I saw the term “unalive” it was a cartoon Deadpool mocking censorship.
Regarding the Red Sox potty mouth thing, I don’t recall my hometown’s local newspaper ever printing any kind of cuss word or slur, even as a quote. For online I can see it being less of an issue, since small children shouldn’t be online without supervision anyway, but Kid Me went through the ol’ print newspaper quite a lot for comics and school assignments, and if they ever printed foul language I’m pretty sure my parents and other subscribers with kids would not have been happy.
This is also partially in response to sites, such as youtube, that won’t allow the use of certain words, so using euphemisms, often ironically and sardonically, is the way to say what the censors don’t what people to hear. Check out some of the gun channels for evidence, such as the ARFCOM News channel, who have mastered the art of newspeak.
Clearly not an “art.” The “fart of Newspeak” is more accurate.
gosh this is confusing.
un-aliving is, essentially, “killing.”
un-aliving oneself is “suicide.”
but you run into a problem of comprehension when these concepts overlap. Consider the following sentences:
“When Hilary learned Epstein might spill the beans, she un-alived him.”
”When Hilary learned Epstein might spill the beans, she suicided him.”
very different nuance.
-Jut
I love words, and I’m all for finding new ways to say things. But this is just an unhealthy avoidance of the realities of life. There wouldn’t be a problem at all if we were better at helping children and other vulnerable populations just learn about and deal with the realities of life, which would absolve trigger words/images/etc. from culpability. Mental/emotional/psychological wellness has to be nurtured and maintained throughout life, with the understanding that it is not a straight line but a wave form. Early and regular exposure to these realities takes the fear/loathing/dis-ease out of the triggers. I don’t know if this is still a technique but they used to use this as a desensitization therapy for people with phobias.
(Obviously actual victims of actual trauma would need enhanced mental/emotional/psychological assistance.)