08/10/25 21:30:05
Doublethink also lies behind the names of the superministries which run things
in Oceania―the Ministry of Peace wages war, the Ministry of Truth tells lies,
the Ministry of Love tortures and eventually kills anybody whom it deems a threat.
If this seems unreasonably perverse, recall that in the present-day United States,
few have any problem with a war-making apparatus named “the department of defence,”
any more than we have saying “department of justice” with a straight face,
despite well-documented abuses of human and constitutional rights
by its most formidable arm, the FBI. Our nominally free news media are required
to present “balanced” coverage, in which every “truth” is immediately neutered
by an equal and opposite one. Every day public opinion is the target of rewritten history,
official amnesia and outright lying, all of which is benevolently termed “spin,”
as if it were no more harmful than a ride on a merry-go-round. We know better
than what they tell us, yet hope otherwise. We believe and doubt at the same time
―it seems a condition of political thought in a modern superstate to be permanently
of at least two minds on most issues. Needless to say, this is of inestimable use
to those in power who wish to remain there, preferably forever.