Collectivism means the end of truth. To make a totalitarian system function efficiently it is not enough that everybody should be forced to work for the ends selected by those in control; it is essential that the people should come to regard these ends as their own. This is brought about by the propaganda and by complete control of ALL resources of information.
The most effective way of making people accept the validity of the values they are to serve is to persuade them that they are really the same as those they have always held, but which are not properly understood or recognized before.
The most efficient technique to this end is to use OLD words, BUT change their meaning!!!
Few traits of totalitarian regimes are at the same time so confusing to the superficial observer and yet so characteristic of the whole intellectual climate as this complete perversion of language.
Friedrich A. Hayek
Circa 1944
(Image Source – http://www.bibliovault.org/thumbs/978-0-226-32055-7-frontcover.jpg)
(Thank you, Linda Biamonte, for bringing this to our attention.)