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 while
laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the
guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it
was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again
at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget
it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the
process itself. That was the
ultimate subtlety: consciously to
induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become
unconscious of the act of
hypnosis you had just performed. Even
to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of
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.
George Orwell, 1984
I should like to make it clear that there is a
discipline of doubt. You will remember that I suggested that
it is quite normal to doubt, and that doubts will come to
anyone who has a brain ...
...
It is, rather, a sign of a
healthy mental and spiritual state, to doubt when there are so many
strange and terrible things happening around the world and so much
muddled thinking and
wrongheadedness in the churches. But do not hide behind your doubts:
use them.
...
Sometimes I am assailed by
great waves of doubt. I think that
Jesus Christ was just a man, that
it is possible for great masses of people to be deceived, for the whole church down the ages to have been mistaken. At such times I have to
battle hard to a
place of faith, even though I recognise in such thoughts
the prevailing corrosive cynicism of the West. One of the things that helps me is to
keep it simple. It is best to put the church and the
evangelical doctrines, and all the rest to one side, and to simply ask, '
Is there a God?' I have never been able to get round the fact that if I deny the existence of God I create for myself far more intellectual, and emotional, problems than if
I allow that God exists.
The order of the universe points to a creating intelligence. Every human society has given a prominent place to some form of religion... The arguments are many. What explanation will you choose for the
acts of Jesus, for
the rapid growth of the church despite persecution? As you
wrestle with such questions and contemplate
a bleak and godless universe without meaning or purpose, where the tenderest
human love is
race perpetuation or
herd instinct, you find for yourself that
doubt is truly a beneficial discipline, for it drives you back to
the centre of all things. Once God's existence is accepted, I soon find my mind able to believe the other basic doctrines of
biblical faith.
George Verwer, No Turning Back