George Orwell’s classic novel Nineteen Eight-Four (published in 1949) describes a dark, oppressive, totalitarian society in which the government systematically destroys the English language in order to prevent criminal thoughts. The idea is that one cannot think a seditious thought if there is no word for it.
Thursday, a representative of the Trump administration gave senior officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta a list of words that are “forbidden” in any official CDC budget documents. The words are:
- evidence-based
- science-based
- vulnerable
- entitlement
- diversity
- transgender
- fetus
The people at the CDC are doctors and scientists. They protect us from epidemics. In addition to monitoring the annual flu season, they have taken quick, direct action to minimize the impact of extremely dangerous viruses such as Ebola and Zika. We WANT their work to be “evidence and science-based.” In our interconnected world, we are ALL “vulnerable” to fast-spreading contagious diseases. And one simply cannot discuss the Zika virus without using the word “fetus” because that is what the disease attacks.
This latest directive from the Trump administration is complete nonsense, of course. They seem to have no idea about what science IS. But what is frightening is the fact that they are attempting to use ideology, and their current hold on the reins of power, to suppress knowledge. At some point, as Orwell demonstrated, the loss of clear thinking can become widespread and irreversible. We must not allow this to happen.
Source: Lena H. Sun and Juliet Eilperin, “CDC gets list of forbidden words: fetus, transgender, diversity,” Washington Post, December 15, 2017