Page 173 - Mass Media, Mass Propoganda Examining American News in the War on Terror

A World of Onvellian Doublethink 163

Admitting that 1984 was meant to be taken as a parody, Orwell also warned
readers about "the direction in which the world is going at the present time," as
he considered the trend toward totalitarianism as something that increasingly
"lies deep in the olitical, social, and economic foundations of the contemporary
world system."lgOrwell was referring in large part to the growing hostilities
between the United States and the Soviet Union after World War 11, the expan-
sionist ambitions of both powers having laid the context for the Cold War period
that lasted until the fall of the communist bloc in 1991. In his work, George Or-
well: A Life, Bernard Crick discussed the possibility and danger of an East-West
standoff characterized by increasingly repressive, dictatorial societies, in which
the United States and the Soviet Union would be included. In appropriating the
terminology of 1984, Crick states that, through Orwell's paradigm:
The two principal super states will obviously be the Anglo-American world and
Eurasia. If these two great blocks line up as mortal enemies it is obvious that
the Anglo-Americans will not take the name of their opponents and will not
dramatize themselves on the scene of history as Communists. Thus they will
have to find a new name for themselves. The name suggested in Nineteen
Eighty-Four is of course Ingsoc, but in practice a wide range of choices is open.
In the USA the phrase "American" or "hundred percent American" is suitable
and the qualifying adjective is as totalitarian as any could wish."

It is through the debunking of the myth of Orwell as an anti-socialist, pro-
capitalist, that one must proceed if they are to gain a basic understanding of the
ways in which Orwellian doublethink applies to the American government and
corporate media's reliance on pro-war perspectives and propaganda.

Understanding Orwellian Doublethink
George Orwell first used the concept of "doublethink" in 1984, although it is
still relevant today in explaining contradictions in American government and
media propaganda. Orwell defined doublethink as the reliance on inherently
antagonistic thoughts in the construction of one's ideology. Orwell considered
such antagonisms to include the main slogans of the govemment of Oceania,
also known as "The Party," which were: "War is Peace," "Freedom is Slavery,"
and "Ignorance is strength."18 Orwell considered doublethink as the attempt "to
hold simultaneously two opinions which cancel[led] out, knowing them to be
contradictory and believing in both of them. . . to forget whatever it [is] neces-
sary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment it [is]
needed, and then promptly forget it again."19 Through "reality control," propa-
gandists are "conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully con-
structed lies."20 In Oceania, it was the responsibility of the Ministry of Truth to
propagandize and indoctrinate the public into believing in the contradictory
promises and statements of the government. Winston Smith, the protagonist of
1984, works for the Ministry of Truth, which controls the newspapers, television
programs, and other media sources throughout Oceania.