In his novels “Brave New World and “1984,” George Orwell described how tyrannical governments often begin and then cement their crackdown on freedom by controlling the public use of language. For example, Newspeak—the official language in “1984,” as formulated by the ruling Ingsoc, or English Socialism, regime—made sure that only Ingsoc-approved words could be used to express thoughts. Ingsoc’s leaders believed that the way for them to hold power forever was to destroy free thinking. As Orwell himself pointed out, the aspiration of the dictatorship was “to diminish the range of thought.”
We have our own form of Ingsoc in America: “Wokesoc,” or Woke Socialism. It’s well exemplified locally by two elitist organizations, the San Francisco Chronicle and the online social app, nextdoor.com, both of which have committed themselves to the destruction of the English language as we have known it. Their self-justification for doing this is to promote social justice and eradicate all forms of discrimination but—as we’ll see—what they’re really doing is promoting a mind-crushing groupthink, tilted toward leftist fascism, that aims at nothing less than silencing their opposition, using the very carceral methods they so violently claim to oppose.
I use the word “carceral” deliberately, not only because it’s one of the left’s favorites for describing a system in which criminals are properly locked up, but also because the phrase “nextdoor jail” so aptly describes the exile into which nextdoor sends its political enemies. Indeed, nextdoor’s practice of censoring people who don’t kowtow to its rules is getting worse by the day. A Google search of “nextdoor censorship” reveals how widespread and insidious the practice has become across America. Some of you may know that CBO’s co-founder and Recording Secretary, Jack Saunders, has repeatedly been thrown into nextdoor jail. He’s there now, and so am I, for the fifth time. (Our banishment is usually for 30 days.)
What was Jack’s offense? What was mine? We violated the laws of Wokesoc. Jack had the temerity to state his distaste for criminals. My sin was to suggest that not all homeless people are victims of racist, capitalist oppression. As nextdoor’s “Community Guidelines” state, “We want everyone to feel safe and welcome on Nextdoor and we do not allow discrimination of any kind.” That includes any perceived criticism of criminals and homeless people: both groups are protected by nextdoor.
Now, a reasonable person might conclude that criminals are not really a group we should “welcome,” particularly when they’re committing felonies (often violent ones) of the sort Jack objected to. But nextdoor wants criminals to “feel safe and welcome on Nextdoor” and so any statement that can remotely be interpreted as critical of them is, ipso facto, a violation of Wokesoc, and its author must be punished. By this standard, of course, were Hitler to live today, he, too, would be “welcome” and made to “feel safe” on nextdoor.
My offense was this statement: “Common sense, and what I see with my own eyes, tells me, as it tells a lot of people, that many, if not most, of the homeless are people who have chosen a very bad lifestyle.” I stand by these self-evident words. But nextdoor considers them to be “discriminatory” toward homeless people. God forbid a homeless addict, reading nextdoor on her smart phone in her tent, should feel “unsafe” or “unwelcome”! But is there anyone of sound mind who can dispute what I wrote? Have not many homeless people made disastrous life choices that backfired on them? The answer, clearly, is Yes; but facts are unable, or not permitted, to penetrate the ideological iron curtain behind which nextdoor’s anonymous censors delightfully dole out their tortures.
This is what the Wokesoc language gestapo seeks: to eliminate any form of thinking that expresses criticism of criminals, drug addicts, anti-socials, cop haters and the like. If you can coerce people into stopping the expression of such thoughts, then, over time, they may cease to even have those thoughts. Wokesoc’s eventual goal is an “inclusive” society in which criminals, sociopaths and homeless drug addicts are embraced by the rest of us, together as equals. Never mind that, while we’re all singing Kumbaya, they’re stealing our catalytic converters, dealing fentanyl or pilfering our packages from the front door.
Then there’s the San Francisco Chronicle, which has worked so hard to convince readers that all cops are racist brutes. There are many examples of the Chron’s embrace of Wokesoc, but perhaps the most egregious is how they use words to describe race. The word “Black” is always capitalized in the Chronicle. The word “white” is never capitalized. Why? Are the two races not equal? My repeated inquiries to editors have never brought forth a response, so I can only infer the purpose of this novel mutilation of our language. The use of a capital letter is, among other things, to signify proper names and titles: “Steve,” “California,” “President.” By the Chronicle’s reckoning, “Black” signifies the proper name of Black people. But by that logic, why not capitalize the “w” in “white”? Does this mean that “white” people are no longer a proper racial group? When did ethnologists determine that? There can be no rational explanation, insofar as grammar is concerned. In fact, the explanation lies in the political realm, and specifically in the realm of Wokesoc. Because Black people have been and continue to be oppressed, in the Chronicle’s version of reality, they now are to be accorded the special status of having the letter “B” capitalized, while their oppressors, white people, have no such privilege. (To the Chronicle’s editor, Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, I extend an invitation to respond, and I promise to publish your explanation in its entirety here on my blog.)
I should point out, in all fairness, that the Chronicle is hardly alone in the “B” versus “w” silliness. The Columbia Journalism Review, the New York Times and the Associated Press all have come out with similar edicts in the last two years. All may be considered charter members of the Wokesoc elite. (I’ve read all their explanations, by the way, and I have to say I’ve never come across anything so intellectually fatuous.) Of course, this being San Francisco, Wokesoc has made inroads into many other cultural areas. The Board of Supervisors decided, two years ago, to cancel the terms “felon,” “offender,” “addict” and “juvenile delinquent,” in order to avoid “generalizations and other negative predispositions” against them. (We wouldn’t want felons to feel discriminated against, would we?) From now on, criminal offenders will be known as “justice-involved individuals” while felons will be “formerly incarcerated persons” and those on parole will be “returning residents,” as if they’d been away on a cruise. One of the more charming of the neologisms is the replacement of juvenile delinquent with “a young person with justice system involvement,” which makes young thieves and muggers sound like they volunteered for internships at the San Francisco Hall of Justice.
I could cite many more examples of the Left’s cancel culture, but I think you get the point. Wokesoc’s war on the English language, which is really a war on your right to think what you want and to call things what they are, should concern anyone who cares about freedom. The Bay Area is so worried about a far Right, Christian takeover of America (as well we should be!) that we tend to forget that a menace of equal toxicity exists on the far Left.
Steve Heimoff