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1984
Orwell:
On
Self Deceit
But in any
case an elaborate mental training, undergone in
childhood and grouping itself
round the
Newspeak words crimestop, blackwhite, and
doublethink, makes him unwilling and unable to
think too deeply on any subject
whatever.
The first
and simplest stage in the discipline, which can be
taught even to young children, is called, in
Newspeak, crimestop. Crimestop means the faculty of
stopping short, as though by instinct, at the
threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the
power of not grasping analogies, of failing to
perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the
simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc,
and of being bored or repelled by any train of
thought which is capable of leading in a heretical
direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective
stupidity.
But
stupidity is not enough. On the contrary, orthodoxy
in the full sense demands a control over one's own
mental processes as complete as that of a
contortionist over his body. Oceanic society rests
ultimately on the belief that Big Brother is
omnipotent and that the Party is infallible. But
since in reality Big Brother is not omnipotent and
the party is not infallible, there is need for an
unwearying, moment-to-moment flexibility in the
treatment of facts. The keyword here is blackwhite.
Like so many Newspeak words, this word has two
mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an
opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming
that black is white, in contradiction of the plain
facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal
willingness to say that black is white when Party
discipline demands this. But it means also the
ability to believe that black is white, and more,
to know that black is white, and to forget that one
has ever believed the contrary. This demands a
continuous alteration of the past, made possible by
the system of thought which really embraces all the
rest, and which is known in Newspeak as
doublethink.
Doublethink
means the power of holding two contradictory
beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting
both of them. The Party intellectual knows in which
direction his memories must be altered; he
therefore knows that he is playing tricks with
reality; but by the exercise of doublethink he also
satisfies himself that reality is not violated. The
process has to be conscious, or it would not be
carried out with sufficient precision, but it also
has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a
feeling of falsity and hence of guilt. Doublethink
lies at the very heart of Ingsoc, since the
essential act of the Party is to use conscious
deception while retaining the firmness of purpose
that goes with complete honesty. To tell deliberate
lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget
any fact that has become inconvenient, and then,
when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back
from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to
deny the existence of objective reality and all the
while to take account of the reality which one
denies -- all this is indispensably necessary. Even
in using the word doublethink it is necessary to
exercise doublethink. For by using the word one
admits that one is tampering with reality; by a
fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge;
and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one
leap ahead of the truth. Ultimately it is by means
of doublethink that the Party has been able -- and
may, for all we know, continue to be able for
thousands of years -- to arrest the course of
history. was an ancient vice.
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