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‘What is “doublethink”?’ Tom Haws asks on another thread. Well, it’s out of Orwell’s 1984. A novel which if you haven’t read, you should… anyway, he gives two definitions –
Quote: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.
Quote:The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them….To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies — all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth.
More here –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublethink From another source –
http://www.newspeakdictionary.com/ns-dict.html
Quote:
doublethink – Reality Control. The power to hold two completely contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accept both of them.[snip]This word has made its way into the Merriam-Webster dictionary:
dou•ble•think (‘d&-b&l-“thi[ng]k), noun, Date: 1949 : a simultaneous belief in two contradictory ideas.
So what are you trying to point out? Mormons use double think? Cadence wrote:So what are you trying to point out? Mormons use double think?
I think that’s exactly what he’s initimating — and to some extent, it’s what this forum is all about — to respect and abide by the teachings of the Church as an active Mormon without necessarily accepting everything about it as true. For many, it means redefining what “true” means, or redefining what a “full tithe” means. Or looking at the Book of Mormon as a book worthy of drawing a person closer to God, without necessarily accepting its roots. Or accepting the clean living and largely healthy lifestyle of a Mormon, without necessarily buying into the obedience to authority concept.
I think TBM’s don’t have double think — they have single-think — there are few paradoxes for them to accept, but those of us who have let/found certain practices or beliefs that make the Standard Mormon Answers hard to accept need to try to find our own way.
Those of us who have been confronted with SIGNIFICANT negative logical or experiential “evidence” the Church is not what we originally thought, have to engage in double think.
Quite honestly, I find it very uncomfortable, and right now I feel like a hypocrite to my family, students in Sunday school, and to myself. Because if I did what I really felt in my heart, I’d no longer be active…..sad.
Quote:Those of us who have been confronted with SIGNIFICANT negative logical or experiential “evidence” the Church is not what we originally thought, have to engage in double think.
I would say we have to accept complexity of thought, paradox and real ambiguity. That’s not the same as doublethink.
Cog dis of some kind is unavoidable as a starting point for most who hit Stage 4 – but moving into Stage 5 and beyond encompasses leaving doublethink and finding consistency within a new thought process.
Cadence wrote:So what are you trying to point out? Mormons use double think?
It got brought up on another thread someone mentioned “cog dis” (cognitive dissonance), which I said was a buzz word, and I mentioned doublethink.
Everybody uses doublethink to some extent. But it is not really a positive thing if you look at it in the context of 1984.
Double think doesn’t convince me conceptually. I definitely see what cog dis is, and I also understand what Viktor Frankl means when he says that inner conflict is a natural state. But the description above of Double Think goes beyond what I experience. I am capable of fluctuating in my perceptions. I am capable of seeing that two different interpretations are both possible and plausible. But I don’t deliberately lie and believe the lie. That description sounds poetic but rings false to me. Well, the original reference is to Communism, and to Stalinism specifically. If you’ve met real Tankies/Commies of the older generation then you’ll have seen some doublethink. Not so many of them in the states, but come across them elsewhere. There isn’t much difference between DT and CD in my book.
A pseudoquote from within 1984 about Doublethink. Quote:The keyword here is blackwhite. Like so many Newspeak words, this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this. But it means also the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary. This demands a continuous alteration of the past, made possible by the system of thought which really embraces all the rest, and which is known in Newspeak as doublethink. Doublethink is basically the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.
– Part II, Chapter IX — The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism
Ah, then I think Doublethink is really just false compliance with authority under compulsion. It’s really just thinking one thing and saying another out of fear. I don’t buy that the person really believes both things at once. hawkgrrrl wrote:I don’t buy that the person really believes both things at once.
Some people do, and have. I think we’re all capable of it.
If we analyzed our minds properly we would find contradictory ideas in there.
To go along with Hawkgrrrl, I think DoubleThink is an exaggerated form of cog dis. DoubleThink, as written, is a bit too much as Hawkgrrrl explains, but then again, so is 1984 altogether. But that’s not the point. It’s a dystopia, it’s meant to embellish something to paint a picture. If DoubleThink is really an exagerrated view of cog dis, it’s plain to see that we all engage in it at some level, especially anyone who belongs, whole-heartedly, to any group. So you are using cognitive dissonance to refer to an activity, an action, rather than a painful symptom of a state. I hadn’t considered that usage before. To me, cognitive dissonance always was just that painful state you are in when things don’t jive and you haven’t yet discovered what gives. Fwiw, as I read these comments, I see the distinction between being troubled and struggling to figure out something (cog dis) and actually espousing two conflicting interpretations (dt). I think cog dis might cause someone to struggle with dt, at least temporarily, but I don’t think we are talking about the same thing – at least, not in the pure form of the terms. I also see dt as more negative than cog dis – as it has solid threads of hypocrisy that aren’t evident in cog dis. Yeah, Ray. What you said. Euhemerus wrote:To go along with Hawkgrrrl, I think DoubleThink is an exaggerated form of cog dis. DoubleThink, as written, is a bit too much as Hawkgrrrl explains, but then again, so is 1984 altogether. But that’s not the point. It’s a dystopia, it’s meant to embellish something to paint a picture. If DoubleThink is really an exagerrated view of cog dis, it’s plain to see that we all engage in it at some level, especially anyone who belongs, whole-heartedly, to any group.
Or rather CD is a less developed version of doublethink perhaps… after all, it was round as a concept long before CD came along.
Doublethink was particularly common amongst old guard Communists, but it can be seen in Western Society too. The American dream vs reality can be an example of it. A considerable amount of American wealth and property is inherited already, and those who make it, tend to be from middle class, not poor working class backgrounds. That’s extremely unusual, but some people buy into it.
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