1984 and Epistemic Justice: Orwell on Language

Language has a world-constructing function that shapes reality rather than merely describing it. This is evident in legal language, which creates social realities through norms, and in political language, which influences how people perceive the world. The language used in political discourse can 'leak' into everyday family conversations, affecting how ordinary citizens think. Very few words are completely neutral; most carry emotional coloring that can be used to model audience attitudes. Propaganda differs from information in that information presents facts without interpretation, while propaganda presents facts that are already interpreted, telling the audience what to think. The political rhetoric of recent years has been dominated by antithesis (antyteza), a rhetorical figure that divides the world into two opposing categories, such as 'us versus them' or 'better sort versus worse sort.' This binary thinking does not allow for any middle ground or gray areas.

Language in political discourse serves as a powerful tool for ideological manipulation, where specific terms like 'development' (replacing 'progress') and 'creativity' become propaganda tools that shape public perception and policy decisions; understanding the true meaning of words and critically examining their usage is essential for maintaining intellectual independence and resisting manipulative political narratives.

Communication functions as a mechanism of inference rather than simple encoding and decoding, where speakers express only half their meaning and leave the rest for interlocutors to infer from shared premises. This model includes not only intended messages but also hidden beliefs and unconscious assumptions. Political discourse analysts work to reveal this disguised information, transforming implicit meanings into explicit analysis. The speaker describes how opponents create neologisms with cultured terminations to characterize government actions as irrational 'ocurrencias' and supporters as 'feligreses' (congregation members). These actors are 'grandes monolingües' who reject the validity of different speech forms, consulting dictionaries not to explore language but to end conversations and assert authority. Their linguistic practices reflect a broader political strategy of delegitimizing the governing project through specialized vocabulary.

Political elites use slogans, stereotypes, and labels as tools for condensed description and evaluation. They employ dichotomous generalizations that distort reality but serve mass persuasion, including categories like 'imperialist,' 'Stalinist,' 'populist.' Emotional argumentation with aggression presents speakers as fighting against evil. Political texts contain ambiguity allowing interpretation to change with power changes. Neologisms and pseudoterms like 'koryciarstwo' and 'klientyzm' simplify complex situations with deliberate bias. Familiarization uses simple language to create closeness with audiences, becoming more common after 1989.

In the current stage of capitalist world system and modern civilization's decline, political discourse has become characterized by lightness, superficiality, and perverse sinuosity. Contemporary political discourse states the opposite of what is actually done, meaning the sense cannot be found in what is said but in what is done. This represents a conscious strategy of power to gain time, create illusions, and manipulate the public. Language no longer serves to communicate or inform but to incomunicate and desinform. Words lose semantic gravitation and become empty vessels filled with contradictory significations. This linguistic degradation affects both speakers and audiences, creating a trap where political actors end up believing what they say and losing the ability to interpret their own actions.

Drawing from Wittgenstein's language games, resistance can occur internally within oppressive language rather than only externally, through 'queering the center'—subverting mainstream practices while remaining within them. Resistance is conceptualized as contending with, not exclusively contending against. As epistemic agents, we have duties: fighting ignorance, knowing ourselves and others, facilitating learning, resisting epistemic vices, cultivating virtues, and pursuing epistemic justice. These duties are contextual—powerful individuals should cultivate listening skills, while marginalized people should build hermeneutic tools to explain experiences. Even those experiencing oppression have duties to others, not merely to themselves.

To move toward epistemic justice, Medina proposes two concepts: epistemic friction and hermeneutical resistance. Epistemic friction involves considering different perspectives without polarizing or atomizing them, and without presenting them as exhaustive. This allows for confrontation that makes differences clear without pretending agreement has been reached. Hermeneutical resistance describes how dissenting voices rebel against prevailing voices by raising their voices and taking space in the public sphere. This transforms social relations and allows demands to be taken into consideration by other sectors, as seen in women's movements and protests.

This lecture presents a comprehensive framework for understanding how oppressed groups face systematic epistemic injustice when protesting, including four types of silencing (pre-locutionary, locutionary, perlocutionary, and attention-based), and argues that we have enhanced communicative obligations to support marginalized protesting voices through 'epistemic activism' and 'echoing'—strategies that promote proper recognition of protest intentions, content, and consequences to resist systemic communicative marginalization.

Intersectionality examines how systems of oppression like racism, sexism, and class exploitation interact to create unique experiences of discrimination, essential for understanding how Black women and other marginalized groups face compounded forms of oppression. Epistemic resistance challenges the destruction of indigenous knowledge systems during colonial periods, asserting that colonized peoples developed sophisticated epistemologies deserving recognition alongside Western traditions. Language plays a central role in decolonial struggles, including the valorization of Afro-Brazilian languages like pretuguês and resistance to dominant linguistic norms. Publishing serves as a crucial mechanism for democratizing knowledge and bringing marginalized voices into public discourse, requiring publishers to avoid excessive jargon and make academic work accessible to broader audiences.

This section introduces José Medina's epistemology of resistance, which complements Fricker's work by emphasizing that inequality is the enemy of knowledge and social injustices breed epistemic injustices. Medina identifies epistemic vices (arrogance, laziness, close-mindedness) prevalent among privileged individuals who don't need to challenge social imagination, and virtues (humility, curiosity, open-mindedness) more common among underprivileged people who must constantly question their knowledge to survive. The section explains how underprivileged groups develop an adaptive strategy of dual thinking—thinking as both master and fellow slave—to actively challenge deeply rooted social imagination. Those who develop this 'mental lucidity' can challenge collective social knowledge that perpetuates their marginalization, providing a framework for understanding how marginalized groups resist epistemic injustice.

The battle for cognitive liberty and individuality is the defining challenge of our time. This battle involves resisting the encroachment on human freedom from multiple directions: external threats from authoritarian regimes that seek to control thought, and internal threats from the human tendency to accept control as convenient. The concern is that many people are comfortable with control and believe it will lead to a better world, which is a dangerous utopianism that has led to terrible realities in the past. Some people are excited about creating generative AI that will become the new god, telling people what to do and how to operate. This represents a significant threat to human individuality, as it would remove human agency and decision-making from the equation.

Cognitive liberty refers to the right to control one's own mind, thoughts, ideologies, political leanings, and religious beliefs. These elements make up personal identity. The concern is that modern technology, including neural programming through computers and smartphones, makes it easier for people to be controlled or programmed to do things they would normally avoid, violating cognitive liberty.

Cognitive liberty is the fundamental right to mental self-determination over one's brain and mental experiences in the digital age. Digital technologies have been designed to undermine this liberty through addiction, offloading capabilities, and interrupting in-person connections that foster neural synchrony. Agency—the subjective feeling of being in charge of one's thoughts and behavior—is the most important cognitive right. Drawing on Frankfurt's framework of first-order and second-order desires, autonomy involves the capacity to reflect on one's own wants. Technology affects cognitive competence in both positive and negative ways: neurotechnologies can improve focus and mindfulness, but passive consumption of short-form content decreases self-control, and offloading core skills to AI systems erodes capabilities over time.

AI algorithms have become so pervasive that they are beginning to control human thought processes. People increasingly report having the same thoughts as others, suggesting they are regurgitating content from social media algorithms rather than generating original ideas. This represents a subtle form of censorship where AI influences what people think and say, potentially eliminating truly original thought from society.

Cognitive liberty refers to the right to control one's own perception, function, and communication without corporate interference. In the digital age, corporations are increasingly intervening in how people think, feel, and interact. This raises important ethical questions about who controls the digital environment and whether current practices serve human flourishing or corporate profit. Rushkoff argues that people need to be brave enough to address these questions in their media studies and social justice work.