Examples Of Doublethink In The Book 1984

The book 1984 opens the eyes of many people to how our lives could change due to the corruption of the government. How everyone lived their lives could very much happen to us if we go on the path that Winston and his fellow people did. One thing that was happening in the book and happening all around us currently was the language and how it was being manipulated due to the overpowering Party members. Having the language change like it was happening to Winston and have it happen to us could drastically bring everything we know to a screeching halt. Something as important as language and having it become smaller and less descriptive could stop us from thinking abstractly and it potentially could become a weapon made by the government to keep …show more content…
Doublethink was the one word that caused the most problems. The definition of doublethink is when you are willing to accept contradictory beliefs.This is shown throughout the book with the with the constant war happening around them. Winston says “Winston could not definitely remember a time when his country had not been at war, but it was evident that there had been a fairly long interval of peace during his childhood, because one of his early memories was of an air raid, which appeared to take everyone by surprise”(Orwell 32).When reading through the book, the reader begins to realize that the media could possibly be telling them false information about what’s really happening in the war. They are not to the citizens advantage, but to the Party themselves. There was even a time when Winston was able to know the exact details of the war due to the fact that it was always the same thing(Orwell 25-26). Winston also says” 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[...]Even to understand the word "doublethink" involved the use of doublethink”(Orwell 35). He sees doublethink as something terrible and the word itself is contradictory. The way doublethink was present in the book sets up how it could possibly be in American if things wrapped up in all the problems that happened in 1984. In America, there are many examples of doublethink. One example that shows up a lot is about U.S foreign policy and how the media uses doublethink to describe it. The purpose of foreign policy is to inform the people of what 's happening over in the war and ask the people to continue to send their support. Dana Abizaid states,“The central means