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.
The alteration of the past is necessary for two reasons, one of which
is subsidiary and, so to speak, precautionary. The subsidiary reason is
that the Party member, like the proletarian, tolerates present-day
conditions partly because he has no standards of comparison. He must be cut
off from the past, just as he must be cut off from foreign countries,
because it is necessary for him to believe that he is better off than his
ancestors and that the average level of material comfort is constantly
rising. But by far the more important reason for the readjustment of the
past is the need to safeguard the infallibility of the Party. It is not
merely that speeches, statistics, and records of every kind must be
constantly brought up to date in order to show that the predictions of the
Party were in all cases right. It is also that no change in doctrine or in
political alignment can ever be admitted. For to change one's mind, or even
one's policy, is a confession of wea