doublethink

plural doublethinks

1. uncountableusuallyThe power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously and accepting both of them as true or correct; an instance of doing so.

   The same sort of doublethink is evident in the White House’s treatment of firsthand impeachment witnesses.

   2019 December 2, Eric Lutz, “Trump Lawyer Cites No Due Process as Reason to Sit Out Due Process”, in Vanity Fair, archived from the original on 25 Oct 2021

   3 more examples

   The stars can be near or distant, according as we need them. Do you suppose our mathematicians are unequal to that? Have you forgotten doublethink?

   1949 June 8, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter 3, in Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel, London: Secker & Warburg, →OCLC; republished [Australia]: Project Gutenberg of Australia, August 2001, part 3, page 242

   Any effort by the United States to halt these creeping advances of Communist imperialism became, by the same mad process of double-think, the only kind of "intervention" there ever could be.

   1965 May 11, William S. White, “Doctrine of Nonintervention Comes Cropper In Dominica”, in The Morning Record, Meriden-Wallingford, Connecticut, page 4

   Or does the hypocrisy and doublethink go beyond a loathing of the human body and an acceptance of violence to a very practical fear that such a club in a predominantly middle-class Caucasian neighborhood will drive down property values?

   1992 March 5, Sylvain Fribourg, “The Agony of the Extasy [Letter to the Editor]”, in Los Angeles Times, archived from the original on 02 Mar 2020

present singular third person doublethinks · participle present doublethinking · participle past doublethought · past doublethought

1. intransitiveTo engage in doublethink.

   ... but, as they believed they had other reasons for supporting the invasion – be they moral, monetary or something else entirely – they doublethunk (or doublethought) it and endorsed the 'evidence' despite its lack of merit.

   2014 November 6, M. Dentith, The Philosophy of Conspiracy Theories, Springer, →ISBN

   1 more example

   "So we both doublethought our way around the inevitable as long as we could because we both really want the same thing and we both have policy problems with our superiors.” “I'm not sure I follow you,” Lindblad said, in a tone of voice[…]

   2011 September 29, Norman Spinrad, A World Between, Gateway, →ISBN