Orwell, George — Nineteen eighty-four [20]

Hence there has arisen a sort of schizophrenic manner of thinking, in which words like “democracy” can bear two irreconcilable meanings, and such things as concentration camps and mass deportations can be right and wrong simultaneously. … We recognize this ‘sort of schizophrenic manner of thinking’ as a source for one of the great achievements of this novel, one which has entered the everyday language of political discourse – the identification and analysis of doublethink. — Orwell, George, Nineteen eighty-four, 20

Note

The introduction’s contribution traces doublethink back to Orwell’s own diagnosis of the English Left’s split thinking about the USSR, then attaches it to the novel’s central concept — an argumentative through-line, framed through Orwell’s own words about ‘democracy’ bearing two irreconcilable meanings.