Doublethink In 1984 Essay -- essays research papers

What is doublethink? Orwell describes doublethink as “the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.'; In 1984, doublethink is the normal way of thought, and as a result everyone understands it and practices it. Doublethink is different from changing ones mind, lying, and self-deception in many ways. Doublethink involves believing in the two contradictory ideas at the same time. This is different from lying because lying is saying something that is wrong and knowing that it is wrong but still saying it anyway. For example lets say you broke a vase. When your mother asks you who broke the vase and you say the dog did it that would be lying. The reason it is not doublethink is that you do not believe in two different beliefs at one time. You don’t believe you broke the vase and the dog broke the vase, you absolutely know you broke the vase and are trying to put the blame on the dog as to avoid trouble. Changing ones mind is also different from doublethink. Changing ones mind is accepting or believing one thing, then deciding to accept or believe something else different then what you thought before. An example of changing ones mind would believe the earth is flat and then after seeing sufficient evidence that it is not flat but actually round. Due to the new evidence you would change your mind and now believe the earth is round as you previously thought it was flat. This is clearly different from doublethink because you are not believing in two ideas at the same time and accepting both. You are believing one thing, then completely change your mind and believing in another. Changing ones mind involves completely dismissing one idea to believe in the other, which means you, cannot believe in both at the same time. Finally doublethink is also different from self-deception. Self-deception is to mislead or be unfaithful to the way someone perceives him or her self or to mislead the way they th ink about something else. Self-deception would be the closet to doublethink then the other two examples given before. However it still is different from doublethink. With self-deception you are fooling yourself to believe something that really is not true. It is like your not accepting a fact or idea and replacing it with one that you believe, either if it is right or wrong. As said befor... ...child is taught that man, in current form, was put on this earth by God himself and then in the science class it is explained to them how man is evolved from primates. This is not virtuous at all for society. There needs to be a defining gap between religion and science. How are little children suppose to know which is right and which is wrong when they are told two different ways of how man has come upon this earth and they are contradictory. Religion however is deemed to be necessary by many people. They feel that people need some form of organized religion. Religion does help many people get through hard times in their life and gives them hope. However, it causes problems when science is introduced into the life of a child who is experiencing life and trying to figure out the world.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Doublethink is the idea of believing in two contradictory ideas but accepting both. There are instances of doublethink in our society that include affirmative action, jury duty, and religion. These all have positives and negatives on the modern day American society. Doublethink for the most part is not that necessary for society. It causes problems more often then not.