Search the Community

You guys who have read 1984 remember how the entire point of Newspeak was to eliminate the possibility of even thinking in terms of real freedom? I also remember that when Stef was talking about the leftist coalition in Greece he mentioned that Greek doesn't even have its equivalent of the word "libertarian". Why am I mentioning this - I was just listening to the show 2932, and when I heard the quote "Because you don't listen!" I realized something I think is really startling. My mother tongue (Czech) has the exact same expression for "listen" as well as for "obey". And I suddenly remembered how frustrating it was in the past when I was naive enough to try to change other people's minds about certain topics. Whenever I would say to someone "Why aren't you listening to what I'm saying?" I would often get a response like "Because I'm not your dog to obey your commands!" .. and it made me wonder - what would it possibly take for the majority of Czechs to even start thinking in terms of free cooperation, when the language we are being taught since we're toddlers is unclear on whether you want people to merely pay attention to the information you're giving them, or you're commanding them to obey you? It almost feels like the "wizards" who rule through language inflicted this curse on us that prevents us from telling the difference between what's voluntary and what is not... What do you guys think about this? I believe there are a lot of non-native English speakers here, so I'm interested if you can think of any other examples like this in your native tongues that keep people in the fog?