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From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy,net.politics
Subject: Re: Who needs it?
Message-ID: <1538@pyuxd.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 18-Aug-85 04:37:19 EDT
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Posted: Sun Aug 18 04:37:19 1985
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> _   I hereby confess a repulsion to the idea, frequently expressed in
>     this newsgroup, that the word `free' is meaningless.  [ELLIS]
    
And then you proceed to quote Eric Blair himself on the topic of Newspeak.

If anybody is engaging in Newspeak around here, it's those who say "now let
me redefine this term to mean what I want it to mean so that it can be
perceived that the thing meant by the original used definition of the
term can magically be perceived to exist".  Where we are talking about
something that we have reasonable understanding of, something we are
realtively sure of, like human capability for rational evaluative
analysis, or (maybe better) the human capability to decide to condition
the mind to behave and react in new (chosen) ways, when we are talking
about such a thing, why must we recall a definition that is used to
describe something else entirely that represents an implied fallacy and
thus does not exist in reality?  Why not a new word to describe this?
I think we are all agreed that this thing I've described (by whatever
name) exists (potentially, if learned) in the human mind.  The questions
are 1) what name should we give it?  2) does it qualify as "free"?
-- 
Meanwhile, the Germans were engaging in their heavy cream experiments in
Finland, where the results kept coming out like Swiss cheese...
				Rich Rosen 	ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr