needshumility | 1.1.01.01.020: Vulgar mispronunciations of everyday words will not be tolerated.

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1.1.01.01.020: Vulgar mispronunciations of everyday words will not be tolerated.

[Filtered away from Victor]

To make you all aware, for the next few days, my inmate will not be able to see who he is talking to. So please don't get angry if he doesn't recognise you - it's deliberate.

I, on the other hand, will be able to see who everyone is. If you abuse him, or treat him badly, just because you think he can't tell who you are - I will know, and I will step in. It won't be tolerated.

[sigh]

I'd also appreciate it if you didn't all automatically identify yourselves, as it kind of removes the point.

[Warden filter]

Alright, I know there's a flood on and if anyone's not themselves and knows it... wait to respond?

I need your cooperation, on quite a massive scale, to be perfectly honest, and I need to explain what's going on:

I'm going to be restricting my inmate's journal access, probably tomorrow, but in an unusual (apparently) way.

I want to restrict him to text and make all replies to him anonymous ~~(am I using that right?)~~. It has a purpose, I swear.

The problem is that I imagine some people will take advantage of this to insult him. I will be watching these conversations constantly, and I will be able to see who is who.

But I'd appreciate it if you could discourage your inmates from, um, [there is no word for 'trolling' in his vocabulary] antagonising him just because they're anonymous. It's not really an opportunity for everyone to come in and say what they really think of him - but for him to talk to people without his prejudices ~~am I using that right~~ getting in the way.

I hope this works.

[Private to Sarah]

I'm especially worried about your inmate.

[Private to Victor]

Victor, as of tomorrow, I'm placing a new restriction on your communications. Only for a few days, maybe even one day.

This might seem harsh, but it serves a purpose, and is not a punishment. It has never been a punishment.

I'm going to make it so you can't see who's responding to you, and you will receive everything as text. I will not allow for people to abuse you, don't worry about that, I'll be able to see who's who and keep track of it.

[Private to the Admiral]

As of tomorrow, can you please make it so my inmate can only receive text - all other posts should be transcripted for him. Can you also make it so he can't see who is replying to him, but I can? Also, he should always be able to see me and talk to me, in any medium.

Make this last for tomorrow and Thursday. I... might ask for less, or maybe more time, it depends.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Doesn't mean I haven't made mistakes, too. It's all a bit... muddling sometimes.

Uh, the Colourman is your inmate, isn't he? Not that I have any real questions otherwise, just for reference.

Everyone's messed up at some point. Multiple times, usually. So we simply try to do our best with what resources we have.

The what?

I... I've probably got to make mistakes to learn from them, unfortunately.

Colourman. He reminds us of him. The overalls need a little paint, but otherwise, they're... closer than I'd like.

Ah. So the Colourman; they're the enforcers of the rules of your collective, and so on?

He is an archetype of sorts, isn't he?

Well... not quite. The Yellows enforce the Rules within a town or village, and the Prefects hand down punishment. National Colour is a bit more... overarching, and much harder to avoid.

It's just...

I guess he's just the one person I don't think Jane can deal with on her own. Punches to the face don't tend to get you far.

I see. So they're the highest authorities, then?

I've told him to leave off bothering Jane after that last episode of him being dreadful to her. I should have cut him off before he started getting really awful, but I didn't see the conversation until it was too bloody late.

Essentially, yes. If you work for National Colour, you're exempt from Useful Work, have the authority to mix and manufacture Univisual colour - and get to decide whether a particular place gets put on the grid. You also get to perform Ishiharas and... well, I imagine there's a good number of things they don't put out in public. In fact, I imagine most of what a Colourman does, nobody knows what it is until they are one.

It's... I think it wouldn't have been a problem if it didn't seem so plausible. And this is less asking you to do something and more pointing out that... that kind of person is a very real threat to us. It doesn't bother me. I can deal with a Colourman. Jane's much more... well, the dis-words and I...

I just wanted to say something, and make you aware.

Jane's a born revolutionary. I know the type intimately. [Largely on account of being one.]

Thank you for telling me this—it's important for me to know, in fact, and I'll keep in mind and act accordingly.

...I didn't know you could be born like that, to be honest.

Thanks. I... well, I just didn't think Jane would tell you, as she kind of thinks nobody can get in her way.

It's not the most common trait. Most people prefer tomorrow to be the same as today. But there are always a few who don't.

I like Jane, I must say. But she'd not mentioned any of that, it's true.

Tomorrow has been the same as today, but possibly a little stupider, since the Epiphany, if you ask me. That's all the Collective is about. Jane has a term for it - I've... gone and forgotten it, but there is one.

She wouldn't. It's... not like her.

Sometimes things do tend to grow thicker. It can be a matter of stagnation or degeneration. What's the Epiphany?

I... what do you mean by either of those words.

The Epiphany is when Munsell ordered society and wrote the Rules.

Stagnation is a lack of progress, an absence of change. The repeating of the same societal rituals even if no one really remembers where they came from or what they mean. Degeneration can seem similar at first, but usually there's some kind of actual decay going on—matters get worse, people care less and less about even the rituals, much less what they were supposed to represent.

...We might have a good measure of both.

Or the Leapbacks are degeneration in the name of stagnation. If that's possible.

You've mentioned the term "Leapback" before, and so has Jane, I think. Is that what I think it is—some kind of systematic elimination of things from the past?

Exactly that, yes. It's... designed to 'simplify' things.

Except I'm not entirely sure what the point in Leapingback tractors was.

Tractors? Why—no, there probably isn't a sensible reason. There rarely is in this sort of situation.

If you ever feel like depressing yourself with Previous history and some examples of how little human nature has changed, find some reading in the library on Mao Zedong and the Great Leap Forward, and then on the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.

...on second thought, maybe you shouldn't. I mean, it's very interesting history, but it will make you feel grim about humanity for days.

Because there's more value in doing the labour yourself, I imagine.

I'd rather know than not know. I... don't like being told I shouldn't know something.

I also currently am feeling quite grim about humanity, so it shouldn't be much of a leap.

And, of course, manual labour takes more time than mechanised labour, thus reducing time that might otherwise be available for questioning why the tractors were Leapbacked to begin with.

I admire that attitude, really. Well, you might find them to be of interest because in both cases, you're dealing with governments that attempted to phase out modernity and what they saw as decadence. The case of Cambodia is particularly horrifying—among many, many other terrible things, "intellectuals" were rounded up and worked to death and executed wholesale, and simply being able to speak another language or wearing glasses was sufficient to count one as an "intellectual".

...

We have an underpopulation problem. There were so many Previous where we live, and now...

Hm.

I see where you're going with that, and no, you can't rule that possibility out, I'm afraid.

I already suspected it, to be honest.

I have to confess, at times like this, it's hard not to believe O'Brien's continued belabouring of the notion that a system like his Party is the inevitable end of history.

Except I do know better. It's a stage in a cycle, no more. A depressingly large number of societies do stumble down that route eventually, but eventually the wheel turns again.

It... does seem very... oh, Jane has a word.

It just keeps going. Nothing changes.

1.1.01.01.020: Vulgar mispronunciations of everyday words will not be tolerated.

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