--- title: 'Notes on Doublethink and Newspeak' url: 'https://samisdat.in/blog/doublethink-newspeak' markdown: 'https://samisdat.in/blog/doublethink-newspeak.md' lang: en date: '2022-03-22' description: "A few highlights on NewSpeak and DoubleThink from George Orwell's 1984 ‘Who controls the past,’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’ And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered. To know and not to know, to be consc…" taxonomy: category: - blog tag: - politics - totalitarianism - newspeak - science-fiction - dystopia - doublethink --- # [Notes on Doublethink and Newspeak](https://samisdat.in/blog/doublethink-newspeak) 22nd Mar 2022 [politics](https://samisdat.in/blog/tag:politics#body-wrapper) [totalitarianism](https://samisdat.in/blog/tag:totalitarianism#body-wrapper) [newspeak](https://samisdat.in/blog/tag:newspeak#body-wrapper) [science-fiction](https://samisdat.in/blog/tag:science-fiction#body-wrapper) [dystopia](https://samisdat.in/blog/tag:dystopia#body-wrapper) [doublethink](https://samisdat.in/blog/tag:doublethink#body-wrapper) > A few highlights on NewSpeak and DoubleThink from [George Orwell's 1984](https://samisdat.in/books/nineteen-eighty-four-1948) > > ‘Who controls the past,’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’ And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered. ![Image 25 - 25_1276649959060799488.jpg](https://samisdat.in/images/4/e/4/e/2/4e4e29a87b3838d24cfcfce9456864de0254e017-1276649959060799488-ebepzqdxqaij-wc.jpg?g-16018011) > To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality.. ![Image 26 - 26_1276649960440770561.jpg](https://samisdat.in/user/pages/04.blog/doublethink-newspeak/1276649960440770561-EbeP1wgXYAALQjm.jpg?g-16018011) > Whenever he began to talk of the principles of Ingsoc, doublethink, the mutability of the past, and the denial of objective reality, and to use Newspeak words, she became bored and confused and said that she never paid any attention to that kind of thing. ![Image 27 - 27_1276649962193944576.jpg](https://samisdat.in/user/pages/04.blog/doublethink-newspeak/1276649962193944576-EbeQPR3XkAInq6s.jpg?g-16018011) > They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. ![Image 28 - 28_1276649963624292353.jpg](https://samisdat.in/user/pages/04.blog/doublethink-newspeak/1276649963624292353-EbeQZl3X0AEuNb3.jpg?g-16018011) > 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. ![Image 29 - 29_1276649965100634122.jpg](https://samisdat.in/user/pages/04.blog/doublethink-newspeak/1276649965100634122-EbeQyLsXQAAphhv.jpg?g-16018011) > The alteration of the past is necessary for two reasons, one of which is subsidiary and, so to speak, precautionary. The subsidiary reason is that the Party member, like the proletarian, tolerates present-day conditions partly because he has no standards of comparison. ![Image 30 - 30_1276649966509920257.jpg](https://samisdat.in/user/pages/04.blog/doublethink-newspeak/1276649966509920257-EbeRCIdXgAM9i1U.jpg?g-16018011) > It need hardly be said the subtlest practitioners of DOUBLETHINK are those who invented DOUBLETHINK \\& know that it is a vast system of mental cheating. In our society, those with the best knowledge of what is happening are those who are furthest from seeing the world as it is. ![Image 31 - 31_1276649967952842758.jpg](https://samisdat.in/user/pages/04.blog/doublethink-newspeak/1276649967952842758-EbeR7BoXYAA-FZ1.jpg?g-16018011) > If human equality is to be for ever averted—if the High, as we have called them, are to keep their places permanently—then the prevailing mental condition must be controlled insanity. ![Image 32 - 32_1276649969433411590.jpg](https://samisdat.in/user/pages/04.blog/doublethink-newspeak/1276649969433411590-EbeSVVpWAAArKkM.jpg?g-16018011) > What was required in a Party member was an outlook similar to that of the ancient Hebrew who knew, without knowing much else, that all nations other than his own worshipped ‘false gods’. He did not need to know that these gods were called Baal, Osiris, Moloch, Ashtaroth... ![Image 33 - 33_1276650976892649473.jpg](https://samisdat.in/user/pages/04.blog/doublethink-newspeak/1276650976892649473-EbeTLaiXQAA4NBr.jpg?g-16018011) ![Image 34 - 34_1276650976892649473.jpg](https://samisdat.in/user/pages/04.blog/doublethink-newspeak/1276650976892649473-EbeTQvHXYAIgajb.jpg?g-16018011) > When Oldspeak had been once and for all superseded, the last link with the past would have been severed. History had already been rewritten, but fragments of the literature of the past survived here and there, imperfectly censored... ![Image 35 - 35_1276651608697380864.jpg](https://samisdat.in/user/pages/04.blog/doublethink-newspeak/1276651608697380864-EbeTnOTXYAEMawA.jpg?g-16018011) ![Image 36 - 36_1276651608697380864.jpg](https://samisdat.in/user/pages/04.blog/doublethink-newspeak/1276651608697380864-EbeTs5tXkAEnZnJ.jpg?g-16018011) ![Image 37 - 37_1276651608697380864.jpg](https://samisdat.in/user/pages/04.blog/doublethink-newspeak/1276651608697380864-EbeTwD7WkAYlNA8.jpg?g-16018011) --- ## Navigation - Parent: [Blog](https://samisdat.in/blog.md) - Previous: [Jewish Dental Fillings](https://samisdat.in/blog/jewish-dental-fillings.md) - Next: [The Eight (8) Essential Elements of a Lawful Contract](https://samisdat.in/blog/eight-essential-elements-of-lawful-contract.md)