until they
contained within themselves whole batteries of words which, as they were
sufficiently covered by a single comprehensive term, could now be scrapped
and forgotten. The greatest difficulty facing the compilers of the Newspeak
Dictionary was not to invent new words, but, having invented them, to make
sure what they meant: to make sure, that is to say, what ranges of words
they cancelled by their existence.
As we have already seen in the case of the word free, words which had
once borne a heretical meaning were sometimes retained for the sake of
convenience, but only with the undesirable meanings purged out of them.
Countless other words such as honour, justice, morality, internationalism,
democracy, science, and religion had simply ceased to exist. A few blanket
words covered them, and, in covering them, abolished them. All words
grouping themselves round the concepts of liberty and equality, for
instance, were contained in the single word crimethink, while all words
grouping themselves round the concepts of objectivity and rationalism were
contained in the single word oldthink. Greater precision would have been
dangerous. 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, and the like:
probably the less he knew about them the better for his orthodoxy. He knew
Jehovah and the commandments of Jehovah: he knew, therefore, that all gods
with other names or other attributes were false gods. In somewhat the same
way, the party member knew what constituted right conduct, and in
exceedingly vague, generalized terms he knew what kinds of departure from
it were possible. His sexual life, for example, was entirely regulated by
the two Newspeak word