Journal 1 & 2

2. This is absolutely true. For example back when I was a kid I would always purposefully say some term I thought my parents wouldn't be familiar with so they would ask and I could tell them. and right after complaining about how whoever came up with these slang terms had too much time on their hands he would then say that a variant of this term existed when he grew up in the 60's and 70's. Another extremely common example is how every other generation alive right now would probably tell you the music my generation (Gen Z) listens to is terrible and that their day saw the best music ever created. however, if one could ask the generation before them what that generation thought about today's older generation, they would say the exact same thing, cursing these "classics" as "the devils music". This happens all the time in life and every generation believes that they are the best eventually whether or not they do now at my stage in life.

4. I agree with Orwell, however I would like to add something. I believe that political language is language that has been corrupted by thought. Politicians want to make certain things that they are a proponent of sound slightly less terrible or maybe just better from what they already are, while simultaneously criticizing the other side of the spectrum/aisle or what have you for using the same types of language to accomplish the same end, and thus characterizing these opposing politicians as sly for doing so. This most hypocritical of practices is commonplace in our country today. Euphemisms such as "advanced interrogation techniques" describing the act of water boarding or other types of borderline illegal CIA psychological torture methods work to make average Americans less associate "advanced interrogation techniques" , which sounds like a terrible party game, with the act of the simulation of drowning in order to extract a confession from an enemy soldier or suspected terrorist. This is . not the only example and there are several others but this is the way in which language can corrupt thought, and in turn thoughts can corrupt and invent corrupting language.

Comments

  1. I almost agree with you on #2, but being a person who was in high school in the early 90s, I remember thinking pop 90s music was terrible, and that we should revisit the 80s. However, now, when I listen to 90s music, I think that it was pretty good and that there were a lot of really great things happening in the 90s. It just seemed like the Backstreet Boys had taken over, so it was hard to identify as a generation that didn't totally fit. Life was always better in a different time, in another place. Maybe that it why people think Gen Z music is terrible today. We only hear the bad stuff playing on the radio.. or maybe we are just "typical" like you say.

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