God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!
Earlier this month, in his State of the World address to ambassadors, Pope Leo XIV warned that “a new Orwellian-style language is developing.” He added that “freedom of speech and expression is guaranteed precisely by the certainty of language and the fact that every term is anchored in the truth.” The pope’s placing of the “state of the world” in an Orwellian light, or perhaps an Orwellian shadow, prompted the following musings on the state of the world, the state of America, and the relationship between being great, being good, and being beautiful.
The pope’s employment of the adjective “Orwellian” was a reference to George Orwell’s cautionary dystopian novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four. In that novel, language is abused and distorted by the totalitarian government to prevent the discussion of politically “incorrect” ideas. The state controls language through “Newspeak,” which limits vocabulary and simplifies grammar to make dissident views difficult to articulate. Such views are designated “thoughtcrimes.”
Conformity to the state is also enforced through “doublethink,” the process of indoctrination whereby people are induced to accept mutually contradictory beliefs simultaneously in defiance of both reason and common sense. An example
