December 25th 07, 09:40 PM
refilled his lungs with
air. His mind slid away into the labyrinthine world of doublethink. 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.
The instructress had called them to attention again. 'And now let's
see which of us can touch our toes!' she said enthusiastically. 'Right over
from the hips, please, comrades. One-two! One-two!...'
Winston loathed this exercise, which sent shooting pains all the way
from his heels to his buttocks and often ended by bringing on another
coughing fit. The half-pleasant quality went out of his meditations. The
past, he reflected, had
air. His mind slid away into the labyrinthine world of doublethink. 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.
The instructress had called them to attention again. 'And now let's
see which of us can touch our toes!' she said enthusiastically. 'Right over
from the hips, please, comrades. One-two! One-two!...'
Winston loathed this exercise, which sent shooting pains all the way
from his heels to his buttocks and often ended by bringing on another
coughing fit. The half-pleasant quality went out of his meditations. The
past, he reflected, had