Published on 30 May 2019 for Free Subscribers and made available to the public on 11 November 2020.

Orwell’s vision is coming to life. Photo: RET

Conflating criticisms of beliefs with criticism of believers, a new society of language policing is slowly emerging, as ideological labels are used to dress up the latest manifestation of the collective impulse to gag other human beings from expressing opinions.

Beneath the surface, politically correct culture is thought control, and parallels between PC proponents and the concept of Newspeak are identical.

AUSTRALIAN CULTURE

Australian culture is one of the most unique in the world — a blend of strong traditional family bonds, community spirit and blunt personalities.

At the heart of this culture lies Australian English, a variety of language which is immediately distinguishable from British and American, by virtue of its unique accents, pronunciations, idioms and vocabulary.

Comedy is an important part of the Australian identity, and the ‘Aussie sense of humour’ is often characterised as dry, irreverent and ironic. The underlying tone is one of crudeness and unreserved self-expression.

Australia is also notable for daily doses of ‘intense dislike’, and those who express them are, according to Ronald Dworkin, expressing a “constitutive characteristic of a free and open and equal society”.

This all changed with the rise of counter-culture and political correctness after the 1970s, which included a rejection of received standards, ‘innovations’ in fashion styles, alternative sexualities, a rejection of traditional materialism and explicit portrayals of the human condition.

In modern Australia, conversations and interactions are closely scrutinised to ensure nobody offends in areas like gender and sexuality, ethnicity, physical appearance or social background, a result of a systematic social engineering agenda for the better part of half a century.

As a society, we’ve become fearfully polite, careful to avoid offense, and largely unwilling to be labelled intolerant, hateful, closed-minded or any of the other label that carries a badge of shame.

To encourage gender equality, ‘actress’ has now become ‘actor’; to inspire religious tolerance, ‘Merry Christmas’ has now become ‘Happy Holidays’.

The result is a nation where no one says what they really think anymore, at least if it runs counter to the prevailing views, and intolerance has become a badge to be worn in shame and humiliation, deserving of society’s fear, loathing and utter banishment.

The common theme? A rejection of traditional thought and the policing of conformity, a notion that has seen Australia position itself towards a cultural marxist, international agenda, to transform and integrate the world to a system of obedience to the state.

Indeed, the modern day ‘Thought Police’ have arrived in Australia.

PC CULTURE IS NEWSPEAK

In Oceania, the totalitarian setting of George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, to meet the ideological requirements of English Socialism — or Ingsoc — the ruling Party created Newspeak,a controlled language of restricted grammar and limited vocabulary.

The ultimate aim of Newspeak is meant to limit the freedom of thought — personal identity, self-expression, free will — that threatens the ideology of the régime of Big Brother and the Party, who have criminalized such concepts into ‘thoughtcrime’.

Reductionist language is designed to diminish vocabulary and amputate nuance until party members are unable to express independent, heretical thinking that would threaten Big Brother’s power.

Words are changed so that mental attitudes — and soon, intellectual, ethical, and philosophical aptitudes — change accordingly.

Similarly, at its core, political correctness is an attempt to impose ‘desirable’ mental attitudes by removing ‘undesirable’ words from our vocabulary. The words we use, after all, frame our understanding of what we think, write, and say.

Changing our vocabulary is thus a matter of changing our intellectual, ethical, and philosophical perspectives, just as we find when examining George Orwell’s dystopian vision

Political correctness is language control, and language control is thought control, period. Political correctness is soft censorship. It is intolerance disguised as tolerance.

PC culture has resulted in a rapid transformation of the fundamental structure of Australia, both in legislation and policies, and the lives and social interactions of individuals and businesses.

The progressing aftermath of this transformation has seen an increasing persecution of any individuals or platforms who try to criticise new age movements of the country, and the rise of a new form of ‘non-violent extremism’ to be persecuted.

THOUGHTCRIME IN AUSTRALIA

EDUCATION SYSTEM

The Institute of Public Affairs Free Speech on Campus Audit 2016 found eight in 10 universities stifle free expression, including incidents of guest speakers and students being hounded off campus.

Australia’s universities currently maintain policies that prevent “insulting” and “unwelcome” comments, “offensive” language, and, in some cases, hurt “feelings”.

This has resulted in a variety of radical changes at universities to acknowledge this new ‘era of acceptance’, particularly in relation to multiculturalism and gender.

Failure to adhere to new cultural marxist policies, it has been shown time again, leads to confrontations, shaming and even legal action, undertaken by the establishment and radical left.

In 2013, three Queensland University of Technology students were asked to leave a so-called ‘Indigenous only’ computer lab by staff member Cindy Prior, and posted about it online.

Prior would then complain to QUT, and subsequently to the Australian Human Rights Commission — suing a total of five students for breaching 18C and violated the Racial Discrimination Act.

State Schools are also attempting to reverse years of historical, cultural and social understandings relating to traditional family and biological structures, and are bypassing conventional freedoms to usher in a brave new era of ‘acceptance, tolerance, and respect’.

MEDICAL ESTABLISHMENT

Doctors now face disciplinary action for voicing opinions that differ from “generally accepted views” under changes to the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Authority [AHPRA] Code of Conduct.

This week, AHPRA, along with 16 national health boards, have released a statement warning practitioners that they had a responsibility to the public to promote evidence that vaccines are safe and effective:

“We take seriously any case of practitioners spreading dangerous and misleading anti-vaccination information including on social media … They will face regulatory action or prosecution.”

In a plan that is already being called out as ‘dangerous’ and ‘unprecedented in impact’, doctors face penalties that include the ‘authority’ labeling them as ‘unprofessional’.

This is following on from directives released by the Australian government requiring all staff in “high-risk workplaces” to provide information on their flu vaccination status, including restricting access to work in certain areas for those who refuse to comply.

‘DANGEROUS BELIEFS’

David Icke was banned from entering Australia ahead of a planned speaking tour in March this year, after Zionist groups and government elements lobbied to have his visa cancelled on ‘character grounds’ for a number of topics he discusses.

David Icke appeared on the General Knowledge Podcast shortly after to express his views at the decision, slamming what he describes as an emerging “totalitarian Australia”.

More recently, Australian football star Israel Folau has had his $4 million contract torn up after being found guilty of a “high level” breach, after the devout Christian took to Instagram to proclaim “hell awaits” for “drunks, homosexuals, adulterers, liars, fornicators and thieves”.

Many Christian groups have condemned the termination, calling it a fundamental attack on freedom of expression in regards to religious beliefs, and Alan Jones said the “orwellian treatment” of the rugby icon, combined with other recent attacks, painted a grim picture of the state of Australia.

‘HATE SPEECH’

Former Senator Fraser Anning delivered his maiden speech to the Senate in 2018, where he called for a plebiscite to reintroduce the White Australia Policy and went on to criticise the Safe Schools Coalition Australia as “gender fluidity garbage” and “cultural Marxism”.

In the eyes of the establishment, Fraser Anning’s comments constitute an abuse of free speech, and, there is now a question as to whether new laws that specifically prohibit “hate speech” or “racial and religious vilification” are needed to ban Anning and his newly formed party.

Similarly, Blair Cottrell made history in 2017 for being the first ever Australian to be convicted for ‘hate speech’ offences, receiving a criminal conviction for “inciting the contempt and ridicule of Muslims” over a skit where he beheaded a dummy whilst impersonating Muslim radicals.

These are only a few, recent examples, of the continued erosions of personal freedoms of communication in Australia, and represent a significant shift in a country that once prided itself of championing free speech and inclusion of all viewpoints, to a country of restrictions on belief, and ultimately thought.

FUTURE DIRECTION

Political correctness in the modern world is responsible for restricting free speech and suppresses open and dispassionate debate on a number of topics in society.

Where does this world lead? Slowly, individual thought will be abolished, language will be policed directly and openly, and the traditional world we once knew will be transformed to accompany a coming era of ‘sustainability, progression and tolerance’.

In “hate crimes”, we now have people serving jail sentences for political thoughts, and the establishment will only move to expand that category ever further in the future.

The terror against anyone who dissents from ‘political correctness’ in society is part of it. It’s exactly what we have seen happen in Russia, in Germany, in Italy, in China, and now it’s coming here.

Sadly, most don’t recognize it because we call it ‘political correctness’ and laugh it off. It’s here, it’s growing and it will eventually alter everything we have ever defined as hallmarks of our freedom.

In the future, advanced smart home technology and connected biometric infrastructure systems, such as the incoming ‘Social Credit System’ to Australia, will act as a ‘Thought Police’ force to monitor public and private behaviours – restricting and punishing accordingly

To stop this, citizens need to be able to convey their opinions and engage in criticisms freely, and others need to accept these criticisms, even vehement criticism, as part and parcel of social governance in a democratic society.

Without this fundamental element of freedom – no others can survive for much longer.

WANT TO LEARN MORE?

This information has been taken from our latest membership piece, Thought Police: The End of Free Speech in Australia, and has been made available for Free Subscribers of our website.

In our latest membership piece, we take a look at all aspects free expression in Australia, including political communication in democracy, implied freedom of speech, legislation restricting opinions and thoughts, the rise of PC culture, the concept of Newspeak and an in-depth look at the continued erosion of freedoms at home.

Subscriber Content is a new category we have introduced that contains specific focuses or individual topics from Member Content, which looks to explore deeper questions relating to the public themes we publish about.