As I see it, those who follow U.N. activity have an obligation to point out Orwellian newspeak. When U.N. officials ignore this critique –as they do– it should still be made public. Shame will not enter this U.N. equation, but the sources that provide funding should want to know why this multilateral organization has turned meaning on its head.
Those who cover the U.N. understand full well that a body housing democracies and dictatorships cannot long prevail as long as the good and bad are treated in the same manner. When Zimbabwe and the Sudan are considered the equals of the United States and the United Kingdom, relativistic standards must be imposed. Even a debating society must realize at some point that some views are more valid than others.
Hence word inversion is a useful, alas, a necessary tactic in an organization that refuses to consider a universal standard of justice, freedom, fair play, representative government and human rights. Orwellianism is the guide for nations that cannot justify their actions in the context of morality, but nonetheless want political recognition in this world body.
Moreover, the more one uses the languages of dissimulation, the more it is believed and accepted. It is a Gresham’s Law of communication in which the bad, or in this case the lie, drives the good or the truth out of circulation. That is the U.N. methodology derived directly from newspeak. Whoever said this isn’t 1984 hasn’t been to the temple of lies at First Avenue and 42nd Street in Manhattan.
Herb London
Herbert London is president of Hudson Institute and professor emeritus of New York University. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001).
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