in George Orwell's 1984, the Party was trying to slim down language to the bare essentials.?

Question

does this have any consequences other than just keeping the ppl from being able to voice descent? why would the Party try to elimnate orgasm?

Answer 1

The "party" had pretty much eliminated much of the emotions in everyday speech as a means to eliminate talk of emotions, and eventually it was thought it would help eliminate emotions, feelings, desires, etc., in humanity in order to better control mankind and keep them subservient to the ruling class.

Words, after all, are nothing more than mental symbols for actions, things, feelings, etc. Limiting or eliminating those words that expressed emotions, feelings and desires (etc), it was thought to pave the way to further controlling mankind by eliminating those "mental symbols" (words).

The Party, if you recall, had pretty much outlawed love and emotional ties. Orgasms are pretty much desired and often do involve emotions. But, orgasms without emotions, by the way, would turn humanity into base animals, and they much preferred humanity to perform like machines without desires, feelings or pleasures. What's more pleasurable than an orgasm, some would ask? Are feelings, emotions, desires and pleasures not the greatest motivators of mankind? Eliminate these and you'll have eliminated what motivates man to want... and you have total controlled humans no more, no less than automatons.

The ruling class, if you recall, imposed laws and morals on the lower classes, and contrived wars and bombarding the lower classes with slogans and propaganda, brain-washing, etc., and presented with common enemies for the populace to keep them herded in unity and vigilant, as some would argue is happening today in modern America, sadly enough. "Slimming" down the language was yet another subterfuge in controlling the masses' thinking.

Answer 2

Their idea is that if certain ideas can't be put into words, they also can't be thought (the assumption being that think in actual words, which I don't personally agree with). So they thought that once the language was slimmed down enough, and children were only taught this Newspeak, the so-called "thoughtcrime" (i.e. anyone thinking anything outside the official party line) wouldn't be possible anymore.

Personally, I think this would have failed - the human minds uses language creatively, so people would have found ways to express whatever they wanted to express - but of course, this would have made anti-party communication even harder than it already was, given the constant surveillance, etc.

The reason they'd want to eliminate words like"orgasm" is that to them, sex should be something that married couples to for one reason and one reason only: to produce more citizens. (This is why Winston's wife used to call sex "our duty to the party".) They wanted to abolish all the emotions and intensity associated with sex, and make it just one more thing a good citizen does to please Big Brother.

Among other reasons, they thought that this way, they could eliminate adulaery, which can lead to all kinds of emotional upheaval, one-parent families, etc. - all the things the party didn't want in their neat, orderly, moral world.