SELF-policing, at least when it manifests in a purely voluntary and non-coercive form, is something that is ordinarily associated with religion. If Catholics do not recite the rosary every day, for example, or Thelemites fail to accept Crowley’s dictum that one must live in accordance with one’s own will, the individual concerned is convinced that it may have serious consequences and, thus, decides to act in accordance with the demands of his or her own conscience. Or not.
I have no objection to people adhering to a rigid linguistic structure by expressing a need to moderate their language or regulate their own behaviour, but I do object very strongly to those who try to force this process upon others. Needless to say, most of us are familiar with the ripple effect and that which begins with the self will inevitably have an impact upon the rest of society and being afraid to say what you want, regardless of the consequences, means that people are far easier to control. Particularly, it must be said, when it comes to more controversial matters that perhaps threaten the perceived inviolability of the State. As Syme remarks to Winston Smith in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four:
“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten.”
That which some people like to dismiss as the maniacal preserve of the Looney Left, therefore, has a far darker and insidious purpose.
