Lingua Franca #1: Condescension

WE'VE ALWAYS BEEN AT WAR WITH EASTASIA

“On the sixth day of Hate Week, after the processions, the speeches, the shouting, the singing, the banners, the posters, the films, the waxworks, the rolling of drums and squealing of trumpets, the tramp of marching feet, the grinding of the caterpillars of tanks, the roar of massed planes, the booming of guns—after six days of this, when the great orgasm was quivering to its climax and the general hatred of Eurasia had boiled up into such delirium that if the crowd could have got their hands on the 2,000 Eurasian war-criminals who were to be publicly hanged on the last day of the proceedings, they would unquestionably have torn them to pieces—at just this moment it had been announced that Oceania was not after all at war with Eurasia. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Eurasia was an ally.
 
“There was, of course, no admission that any change had taken place. Merely it became known, with extreme suddenness and everywhere at once, that Eastasia and not Eurasia was the enemy. Winston was taking part in a demonstration in one of the central London squares at the moment when it happened. It was night, and the white faces and the scarlet banners were luridly floodlit. The square was packed with several thousand people, including a block of about a thousand schoolchildren in the uniform of the Spies. On a scarlet-draped platform an orator of the Inner Party, a small lean man with disproportionately long arms and a large bald skull over which a few lank locks straggled, was haranguing the crowd. A little Rumpelstiltskin figure, contorted with hatred, he gripped the neck of the microphone with one hand while the other, enormous at the end of a bony arm, clawed the air menacingly above his head. His voice, made metallic by the amplifiers, boomed forth an endless catalogue of atrocities, massacres, deportations, lootings, rapings, torture of prisoners, bombing of civilians, lying propaganda, unjust aggressions, broken treaties. It was almost impossible to listen to him without being first convinced and then maddened. At every few moments the fury of the crowd boiled over and the voice of the speaker was drowned by a wild beast-like roaring that rose uncontrollably from thousands of throats. The most savage yells of all came from the schoolchildren. The speech had been proceeding for perhaps twenty minutes when a messenger hurried on to the platform and a scrap of paper was slipped into the speaker’s hand. He unrolled and read it without pausing in his speech. Nothing altered in his voice or manner, or in the content of what he was saying, but suddenly the names were different. Without words said, a wave of understanding rippled through the crowd. Oceania was at war with Eastasia! The next moment there was a tremendous commotion. The banners and posters with which the square was decorated were all wrong! Quite half of them had the wrong faces on them. It was sabotage! The agents of Goldstein had been at work! There was a riotous interlude while posters were ripped from the walls, banners torn to shreds and trampled underfoot. The Spies performed prodigies of activity in clambering over the rooftops and cutting the streamers that fluttered from the chimneys. But within two or three minutes it was all over. The orator, still gripping  the neck of the microphone, his shoulders hunched forward, his free hand clawing at the air, had gone straight on with his speech. One minute more, and the feral roars of rage were again bursting from the crowd. The Hate continued exactly as before, except that the target had been changed.
 
“The thing that impressed Winston in looking back was that the speaker had switched from one line to the other actually in midsentence, not only without a pause, but without even breaking the syntax. But at the moment he had other things to preoccupy him. It was during the moment of disorder while the posters were being torn down that a man whose face he did not see had tapped him on the shoulder and said, ‘Excuse me, I think you’ve dropped your briefcase.’ He took the brief-case abstractedly, without speaking. He knew that it would be days before he had an opportunity to look inside it. The instant that the demonstration was over he went straight to the Ministry of Truth, though the time was now nearly twenty-three hours. The entire staff of the Ministry had done likewise. The orders already issuing from the telescreen, recalling them to their posts, were hardly necessary.
 
“Oceania was at war with Eastasia: Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.”
 
***
 
ORWELL IN COMBAT
 
George Orwell was certainly one hell of a man.
 
He became one of the fiercest critics of Stalin and the USSR –  Animal Farm  and  1984  (quoted above) laid bare the consequences of the criminalization of thought, the shifting standards, the nature of power.
 
But it’s worth remembering – and oft-neglected – that he actually took part as a guerilla fighter on the socialist side in the Spanish Civil War. There is where his breach with Soviet Russia came about.
 
Here is Orwell in his own words, from the preface to  Animal Farm   –

“Up to 1930 I did not on the whole look upon myself as a Socialist. In fact I had as yet no clearly defined political views. I became pro-Socialist more out of disgust with the way the poorer section of the industrial workers were oppressed and neglected than out of any theoretical admiration for a planned society.
 
“In 1936 I got married. In almost the same week the civil war broke out in Spain. My wife and I both wanted to go to Spain and fight for the Spanish Government. We were ready in six months, as soon as I had finished the book I was writing. In Spain I spent almost six months on the Aragón front until, at Huesca, a Fascist sniper shot me through the throat.
 
“In the early stages of the war foreigners were on the whole unaware of the inner struggles between the various political parties supporting the Government. Through a series of accidents I joined not the International Brigade like the majority of foreigners, but the POUM militia – i.e. the Spanish Trotskyists.
 
“So in the middle of 1937, when the Communists gained control (or partial control) of the Spanish Government and began to hunt down the Trotskyists, we both found ourselves amongst the victims. We were very lucky to get out of Spain alive, and not even to have been arrested once. Many of our friends were shot, and others spent a long time in prison or simply disappeared.
 
“These man-hunts in Spain went on at the same time as the great purges in the USSR and were a sort of supplement to them. In Spain as well as in Russia the nature of the accusations (namely, conspiracy with the Fascists) was the same and as far as Spain was concerned I had every reason to believe that the accusations were false. To experience all this was a valuable object lesson: it taught me how easily totalitarian propaganda can control the opinion of enlightened people in democratic countries.”
 
***
 
OUR SERIES ON THE LINGUA FRANCA
 
Language – words – are one of the chief tools of thought and communications.

There’s other ways to think besides in language – in pictures, in emotions, perhaps in a deep understanding numbers that transcends language – but language is the most common and paramount across society.
 
For all of history, but especially accelerating since the start of the Industrial Era, language has been a battleground – perhaps the  battleground – for the long-term shaping of how people think, communicate, and – eventually – act.
 
It happens so slowly that we don’t realize it’s happening, but one of the hardest lessons in life to learn is to a proper skepticism of  words themselves .
 
Laozi understood this in Ancient China; Wittgenstein did incredibly fine work in this in the modern West; it’s really of the paramount importance – but it seems obscure and vague.
 
I daresay that the vast majority of people never learn this critical lesson, and their life suffers tremendously for it.
 
Language and words are literally tools  to think and communicate.  But most people do not realize their limitations, and do not realize they are missing some very badly needed tools , and that they have broken and rusted tools in their toolbox.
 
To not understand the limitation of words – and the current words you have in your toolbox, and the words you have in common  with the people you speak and communicate with – well, this would be like a carpenter going through life without a single hammer, instead trying to hammer nails into place with a rusty tin can.
 
The work would be slow and tedious – and in fact, some jobs couldn’t be done at all.
 
Such is the problem with today’s language.
 
***
 
LINGUA FRANCA #1: CONDESCENSION
 
A writer shouldn’t, very often, ask their readers for sympathy.
 
For me to say, “Dear reader, please be sympathetic – I’ve crossed into treacherous ground here. It is difficult. Bear with me.”
 
That… that’s not appropriate to do very often. A fine rebuttal would be, “Marshall, you chose  this subject area. Why are you asking for sympathy?”
 
But I’ve always seen my writing at The Strategic Review and in my books as more of a dialogue  than a soapbox for preaching . I try, and hopefully sometimes succeed, to imagine the chains of thought and logic that might arise in your mind when you read what I write, and try to carry forth in a way that’s illuminative and useful.
 
This series… this series is going to be a difficult one.
 
The challenge is this: there’s not much insight to be had in analyzing words that have long-since died in common usage like “schismatic” or “piety” – there might be some insight, as a historical matter, but frankly not much of it. We need to analyze words that are living, that are breathing, that are coming into our thoughts and out of our mouths with some regularity.
 
But, oh! This is a very personal thing. If I take a word that you feel particularly strong about – for or  against – it risks bringing about a whole chain of emotional turmoil and turbulence that’s really besides the point.
 
I have friends and colleagues ranging across the political spectrum, from the left to the right. Friends and colleagues who are good people, who I enjoy being around, who range from basically being sincere Communists to basically being devout Christians.
 
As such, even though the etymology and history of words like “pro-life” and “pro-choice” could throw the hidden nature of language into plain sight, it also risks being read as me having an axe to grind.
 
I have no axe. I have very few public political positions – with the work that I do, across a wide range of countries and sectors, I don’t have the luxury of grinding axes in idle talk. If I say something incredibly stupid, I alienate some good people. Worse yet, if I say something intelligent, true, and fiercely disliked  – well, there are even worse consequences for that.
 
And yet, I think this topic is very important – it’s one of the most important topics that people don’t realize is important , which is why I intend to battle through it, and search diligently for good examples, and hopefully aid you in better thinking and thriving as a result.
 
Our first such word –
 
Condescension.
 
***
 
A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA
 
Let’s take a long look at Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s  Sherlock Holmes .
 
If you’re not familiar with the series, you really ought to read it, sooner or later – it makes you much smarter, forever.
 
In order to really understand what happened to the word condescension  – and the corresponding mental concept – we need to fill in some of the lines. This story is the first one about Holmes after the narrator and his long-time companion, Dr. Watson, has moved out of their Baker Street apartments. In it, a mysterious visitor arrives.
 
I’ve taken the liberty of a long excerpt here, both because Holmes says some very insightful things, but also to paint the picture of how people would understood condescension  in 1892, when the piece was written –
 
“I could not help laughing at the ease with which he explained his process of deduction. “When I hear you give your reasons,” I [Dr. Watson] remarked, “the thing always appears to me to be so ridiculously simple that I could easily do it myself, though at each successive instance of your reasoning I am baffled until you explain your process. And yet I believe that my eyes are as good as yours.”
 
“Quite so,” he [Sherlock Holmes] answered, lighting a cigarette, and throwing himself down into an armchair. “You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear. For example, you have frequently seen the steps which lead up from the hall to this room.”
 
“Frequently.”
 
“How often?”
 
“Well, some hundreds of times.” “Then how many are there?” “How many? I don’t know.”
 
“Quite so! You have not observed. And yet you have seen. That is just my point. Now, I know that there are seventeen steps, because I have both seen and observed. By-the-way, since you are interested in these little problems, and since you are good enough to chronicle one or two of my trifling experiences, you may be interested in this.” He threw over a sheet of thick, pink-tinted note-paper which had been lying open upon the table. “It came by the last post,” said he. “Read it aloud.”
 
The note was undated, and without either signature or address.
 
“There will call upon you tonight, at a quarter to eight o’clock,” it said, “a gentleman who desires to consult you upon a matter of the very deepest moment. Your recent services to one of the royal houses of Europe have shown that you are one who may safely be trusted with matters which are of an importance which can hardly be exaggerated. This account of you we have from all quarters received. Be in your chamber then at that hour, and do not take it amiss if your visitor wear a mask.”
 
“This is indeed a mystery,” I remarked. “What do you imagine that it means?”
“I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. But the note itself. What do you deduce from it?”
 
I carefully examined the writing, and the paper upon which it was written.
 
“The man who wrote it was presumably well to do,” I remarked, endeavouring to imitate my companion’s processes. “Such paper could not be bought under half a crown a packet. It is peculiarly strong and stiff.”
 
“Peculiar—that is the very word,” said Holmes. “It is not an English paper at all. Hold it up to the light.”
 
I did so, and saw a large “E” with a small “g,”a “P,” and a large “G” with a small “t” woven into the texture of the paper.
 
“What do you make of that?” asked Holmes.
 
“The name of the maker, no doubt; or his monogram, rather.”
 
“Not at all. The ‘G’ with the small ‘t’ stands for ‘Gesellschaft,’ which is the German for ‘Company.’ It is a customary contraction like our ‘Co.’ ‘P,’ of course, stands for ‘Papier.’ Now for the ‘Eg.’ Let us glance at our Continental Gazetteer.” He took down a heavy brown volume from his shelves. “Eglow, Eglonitz—here we are, Egria. It is in a German-speaking country—in Bohemia, not far from Carlsbad. ‘Remarkable as being the scene of the death of Wallenstein, and for its numerous glass-factories and paper-mills.’ Ha, ha, my boy, what do you make of that?” His eyes sparkled, and he sent up a great blue triumphant cloud from his cigarette.
 
“The paper was made in Bohemia,” I said.
 
“Precisely. And the man who wrote the note is a German. Do you note the peculiar construction of the sentence—‘This account of you we have from all quarters received.’ A Frenchman or Russian could not have written that. It is the German who is so uncourteous to his verbs. It only remains, therefore, to discover what is wanted by this German who writes upon Bohemian paper and prefers wearing a mask to showing his face. And here he comes, if I am not mistaken, to resolve all our doubts.”
 
As he spoke there was the sharp sound of horses’ hoofs and grating wheels against the curb, followed by a sharp pull at the bell. Holmes whistled.
 
“A pair, by the sound,” said he. “Yes,” he continued, glancing out of the window. “A nice little brougham and a pair of beauties. A hundred and fifty guineas apiece. There’s money in this case, Watson, if there is nothing else.”
 
“I think that I had better go, Holmes.”
 
“Not a bit, Doctor. Stay where you are. I am lost without my Boswell. And this promises to be interesting. It would be a pity to miss it.”
 
“But your client—”
 
“Never mind him. I may want your help, and so may he. Here he comes. Sit down in that armchair, Doctor, and give us your best attention.”
 
A slow and heavy step, which had been heard upon the stairs and in the passage, paused immediately outside the door. Then there was a loud and authoritative tap.
 
“Come in!” said Holmes.
 
A man entered who could hardly have been less than six feet six inches in height, with the chest and limbs of a Hercules. His dress was rich with a richness which would, in England, be looked upon as akin to bad taste.  Heavy bands of astrakhan were slashed across the sleeves and fronts of his double- breasted coat, while the deep blue cloak which was thrown over his shoulders was lined with flame-coloured silk and secured at the neck with a brooch which consisted of a single flaming beryl. Boots which extended halfway up his calves, and which were trimmed at the tops with rich brown fur, completed the impression of barbaric opulence which was suggested by his whole appearance. He carried a broad-brimmed hat in his hand, while he wore across the upper part of his face, extending down past the cheekbones, a black vizard mask, which he had apparently adjusted that very moment, for his hand was still raised to it as he entered.  From the lower part of the face he appeared to be a man of strong character, with a thick, hanging lip, and a long, straight chin suggestive of resolution pushed to the length of obstinacy.
 
“You had my note?” he asked with a deep harsh voice and a strongly marked German accent. “I told you that I would call.” He looked from one to the other of us, as if uncertain which to address.
 
“Pray take a seat,” said Holmes. “This is my friend and colleague, Dr. Watson, who is occasionally good enough to help me in my cases. Whom have I the honour to address?”
 
“You may address me as the Count Von Kramm, a Bohemian nobleman. I understand that this gentleman, your friend, is a man of honour and discretion, whom I may trust with a matter of the most extreme importance. If not, I should much prefer to communicate with you alone.”
 
I rose to go, but Holmes caught me by the wrist and pushed me back into my chair. “It is both, or none,” said he. “You may say before this gentleman anything which you may say to me.”
 
The Count shrugged his broad shoulders. “Then I must begin,” said he, “by binding you both to absolute secrecy for two years; at the end of that time the matter will be of no importance. At present it is not too much to say that it is of such weight it may have an influence upon European history.”
 
“I promise,” said Holmes.
 
“And I.”
 
“You will excuse this mask,” continued our strange visitor. “The august person who employs me wishes his agent to be unknown to you, and I may confess at once that the title by which I have just called myself is not exactly my own.”
 
“I was aware of it,” said Holmes dryly.
 
“The circumstances are of great delicacy, and every precaution has to be taken to quench what might grow to be an immense scandal and seriously compromise one of the reigning families of Europe. To speak plainly, the matter implicates the great House of Ormstein, hereditary kings of Bohemia.”
 
“I was also aware of that,” murmured Holmes, settling himself down in his armchair and closing his eyes.
 
Our visitor glanced with some apparent surprise at the languid, lounging figure of the man who had been no doubt depicted to him as the most incisive reasoner and most energetic agent in Europe. Holmes slowly reopened his eyes and looked impatiently at his gigantic client.
 
“If your Majesty would condescend to state your case,” he remarked, “I should be better able to advise you.”
 
The man sprang from his chair and paced up and down the room in uncontrollable agitation. Then, with a gesture of desperation, he tore the mask from his face and hurled it upon the ground.
 
“You are right,” he cried; “I am the King. Why should I attempt to conceal it?”
 
“Why, indeed?” murmured Holmes. “Your Majesty had not spoken before I was aware that I was addressing Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von Ormstein, Grand Duke of Cassel-Felstein, and hereditary King of Bohemia.””
 
***
 
CONDESCENSION IN 1892
 
We might mark 1892 as nearly the exact midpoint  in the evolution of the word condescension .
 
Sherlock Holmes is a revelation – he’s a fictional character, of course, but he often feels very much alive. Conan Doyle, the author, he was a medical doctor himself. The science and medicine in all the books about Holmes are up to the current day’s standard, including Watson regularly nagging Holmes not to do too much cocaine. (Really.)
 
So what do we make of this? –
 
“If your Majesty would condescend to state your case,” he remarked, “I should be better able to advise you.”
 
The old meaning of the word condescension is mostly  there, but we can see the sprinklings of the change coming about. Holmes is asking the King to condescend to his level , and again, it’s mostly  sincere – it’s mostly not irony.
 
Look at how the King is described –
 
A man entered who could hardly have been less than six feet six inches in height, with the chest and limbs of a Hercules. His dress was rich with a richness which would, in England, be looked upon as akin to bad taste.  … From the lower part of the face he appeared to be a man of strong character, with a thick, hanging lip, and a long, straight chin suggestive of resolution pushed to the length of obstinacy.
 
It’s a strange mix of respectful and disrespectful. The king is of gargantuan height with limbs like Hercules, a man of strong character… and yet he’s dressed in a richness that would be looked upon as akin to bad taste in England, his expression suggesting resolution pushed to the length of obstinacy.
 
“If your Majesty would condescend to state your case,” he remarked, “I should be better able to advise you.”
 
What to make this?
 
***
 
CONDESCENSION IN 2017
 
The Apple dictionary will do just fine for this –
 
condescend
verb
show feelings of superiority; be patronizing: take care not to condescend to your reader.
do something in a haughty way, as though it is below one's dignity or level of importance: we'll be waiting for twenty minutes before she condescends to appear.
 
condescending
adjective
having or showing a feeling of patronizing superiority: she thought the teachers were arrogant and condescending | a condescending smile.
 
Yes, those definitions are telling – “haughty” and “arrogant and condescending”… this is the modern understanding of the word.
 
But when Sherlock Holmes clearly wasn’t asking masked King to be haughty or arrogant when he said, “If your Majesty would condescend to state your case,” he remarked, “I should be better able to advise you.”
 
Just the opposite, no?
 
Isn’t this is a puzzle?
 
***
 
“A KINDHEARTED DESCENT FROM RANK”
 
The original meaning of the phrase “condescend” could probably be called something like “a kindhearted descent from rank.”
 
If a King went and worked in the fields to see how the peasants truly lived, he was condescending  to do so. In a nice, kindhearted way.
 
A military colonel or general who walked amongst the trenches and took fire from the enemy was condescending  when he did so – in the old meaning of the word.
 
He was “going down a level in the hierarchy of duties” – or some such – when he didn’t have to , which was seen as a kindhearted and empathetic thing.
 
In olden stories, you might hear about a monarch or vizier “condescending” to stay at a little local inn, or to eat at the table of a local farmer. This was condescension – in the old meaning of the word.
 
It was entirely a good thing, in those days.
 
***
 
THE TURNING OF CONDESCENSION
 
You can see the midpoint of condescension in Conan Doyle’s writing. Perhaps more telling than all the explicit language is what’s unstated . The King of Bohemia, a very powerful man, is wearing a mask to consult with an amateur detective and scientist (Holmes), and is friend who is a discharged army medic (Watson).
 
In 1892, rank was still an accepted concept – it was only the World Wars that largely destroyed the concept of rank.
 
But even in 1892, these amateur scientists, industrialists, and businessmen were starting to see that the monarchies needed them  more than they needed the monarchies.
 
***
 
DAMNATIO MEMORIAE

In ancient Roman times, defeated public enemies would sometimes have “ damnatio memoriae ” applied to them – damning their memory .
 
This meant being entirely erased from official Roman history . Any statues of someone so damned would be torn down; if they were an emperor, all their coins would be re-minted; no one was allowed to talk about them any more.
 
The Soviets, obviously, did the same thing with Trotsky and a whole lot of others.
 
Orwell wrote in the preface to Animal Farm –
 
“At the death of John Reed, the author of Ten Days that Shook the World – first-hand account of the early days of the Russian Revolution – the copyright of the book passed into the hands of the British Communist Party, to whom I believe Reed had bequeathed it. Some years later the British Communists, having destroyed the original edition of the book as completely as they could, issued a garbled version from which they had eliminated mentions of Trotsky and also omitted the introduction written by Lenin. If a radical intelligentsia had still existed in Britain, this act of forgery would have been exposed and denounced in every literary paper in the country. As it was there was little or no protest. To many English intellectuals it seemed quite a natural thing to do. And this tolerance or plain dishonesty means much more than that admiration for Russia happens to be fashionable at this moment. Quite possibly that particular fashion will not last. For all I know, by the time this book is published my view of the Soviet régime may be the generally-accepted one. But what use would that be in itself? To exchange one orthodoxy for another is not necessarily an advance. The enemy is the gramophone mind, whether or not one agrees with the record that is being played at the moment.”
 
This same type of action – erasing words from the shared vocabulary and toolbox of mankind – is constantly and ever employed.
 
I believe that this is precisely what happened to the old meaning of the word condescend.
 
***
 
WHITHER RANK? HOW DOES ONE GOODHEARTEDLY DEPART FROM IT?
 
We explored Rank  as a concept back during the Dubious Battle series, now part of the  Machina  compilation.
 
As previously said, rank originates with commissioned duties . If an individual dispatches their duties well, their office might become formalized into official rank , and the better that subsequent officeholders of that rank do, the more prestigious it becomes.
 
Clearly, rank  still exists. A tenured professor in a university is higher in formal rank than an adjunct professor, who is higher in formal rank than a graduate student.
 
It’s normally the job of a graduate student to grade simple papers in a 101-type class. If a professor – who is under no obligation to do so – grades some papers to “remember what it’s like” and just to be friendly to one of the graduate students, then what is the word to describe it?
 
There is an old word for it –
 
Condescend.
 
“The physics professor condescended to grade some 101-level papers.”
 
What is the current word for it?
 
If someone is of higher formal rank, and does duties that are not expected out of their rank merely from goodwill, what is the word for that?
 
There is no word for it.
 
There is no way to describe, in modern English, “departing from one’s duties [and rank], to do lower duties, out of a sense of goodwill.”
 
This word has been destroyed; the original meaning is now the opposite. Condescension used to be a nice thing; now it’s a bad thing.
 
“How dare you presume to be higher-ranked than someone.”
 
And yet, rank exists. We’re not responsible for all sets of duties. There are duties that do not belong to us if we’ve advanced to higher levels of more difficult commissions. And yet, we can “go down” and do some of those duties. But there is no way to say that.
 
Attempting to “go down” and “be kindhearted” is seen as a bad thing , an arrogant thing , a haughty thing .
 
Condescension has flipped its meaning. The old form of condescension can not be said alone, and indeed – without words for it, it is hard to even think the concept.
 
***
 
TACIT AGREEMENT THAT “IT WOULDN’T DO”
 
Orwell –
 
“Any fairminded person with journalistic experience will admit that during this war [World War II] official censorship has not been particularly irksome. We have not been subjected to the kind of totalitarian “co-ordination” that it might have been reasonable to expect. The press has some justified grievances, but on the whole the Government has behaved well and has been surprisingly tolerant of minority opinions.  The sinister fact about literary censorship in England is that it is largely voluntary. Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban.  Anyone who has lived long in a foreign country will know of instances of sensational items of news – things which on their own merits would get the big headlines – being kept right out of the British press, not because the Government intervened but because of a general tacit agreement that “it wouldn’t do” to mention that particular fact.”
 
Orwell’s masterpieces, 1984 and Animal Farm, showed how governments and cultures would erase the past. They would make you think you’re crazy, because all the official sources would list something different from what you remembered happening. And in public conversation, no one would contradict the official narrative – the penalties for doing so ranged from social censure at least, to imprisonment and execution at most.
 
But I dare say Orwell, for all his mastery, didn’t go far enough.
 
Distorting historical facts is one thing; coming across a single unburied uncensored copy of Ten Days that Shook the World  might well start one’s mind spinning, when compared against the censored and distorted version. This hamfisted type of censorship was certainly a danger before the internet, but becomes less dangerous every passing day.
 
No, I think the real danger now is making concepts impossible to think about by deleting or changing the meaning of words themselves.
 
In the current mainstream view of the world, traditional goodly condescension  is impossible – and yet, it was , and still exists  – at least, the old meaning of the word still maps to reality in many instances. Monarchies have been in constant decline, of course, but rank in the form of commissioned duties ever is and ever will be, as long as there's stuff that needs to be done and someone who needs to be responsible for seeing it gets done.
 
***
 
THE FIRST LESSON FROM LINGUA FRANCA
 
We’re exploring the nature of language and thinking – and the word condescension  really isn’t the point. It’s just a single word, and in the grand scheme of things, not particularly important.
 
The particular word, again, is not the point.
 
Rather, our first lesson is that words can flip valence from good to bad, and the old meaning of the word can be destroyed.
 
There is no substitute word for condescension  – for the vast majority of people in 2017, the concept does not exist .
 
And yet, there are people who, for no reason other than a general sense of goodwill, depart from whatever their lofty station might be, and those people are often well-loved and well-appreciated.
 
But condescension? Don’t you dare condescend to me.
 
We’ve always been at war with Eastasia.