The Opposite of Doublethink
Unplug in order to pay attention
The major question I had after reading George Orwell’s 1949 classic, 1984, is not “how did we get here” but “how are we still here?”
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read 1984—I’ve taught it and talked about it for years. So when Christine and I decided to discuss it for the season finale of “The Beautiful and Banned,” I assumed it would be easy for me.
I was dead wrong. Reading this book now—against the backdrop of oppressive bills and ceaseless war and ICE disappearing people like the Thought Police and constant arguments about what is true when the viewers of Fox News and MSNBC cannot communicate any more—was downright eery.
I’ll tell you why below, but first: an announcement.
We always planned to take a break for the summer at the end of June, and you can probably tell by the waning consistency of our posts that it has gotten harder and harder to write about the injustice in a world that feels increasingly out of control. I will only speak for myself: trying to make sense of it, for myself and others, is difficult enough when my kids are in school. When they’re home and we’re traveling (and I’m on multiple deadlines)—it all becomes too much.
I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t have some homework for us over the summer, though. I hope you’ll join me.
My goal is to unplug in order to pay attention.
It almost feels like “Doublethink,” but I think it’s the opposite: It’s refusing to be distracted in order to really focus on the core issues. It’s holding one truth in my mind at a time. It’s what Orwell tells we have to do in 1984: make space in our brains and our hearts for what is true so we can think critically and have compassion.
To unplug in order to pay attention, I’m following these core principles.
#1) I will stand firm in what is true even if no one else does. I will train my brain to focus on what is true and good. I will trust myself.
Some of the most pressing questions for many of us right now concern the nature of truth: What is true? How can we evaluate what is true when our institutions and newspapers and universities and government officials have different versions of truth? Whom do we trust? What do we believe? How can we trust ourselves? What is true about the past, the present, and the future?
These are the core questions of 1984, and researching for the final episode of the season for “The Beautiful and Banned” felt absolutely meta. We are watching as the truth is being changed in real time right now.
1984 is about Winston Smith, a member of “the Party,” the ruling totalitarian regime in Oceania, the new country formed from the Americas and England and other regions of the world in this novel. Winston’s entire job is to revise history—literally. When the leaders of the Party, which is headed by Big Brother, announce that they’re at war with one of the two other mega-countries—Eastasia or Eurasia—they want history to reflect that war as if it has never changed. Winston thinks to himself at times that he cannot be losing his mind: they were at war with Eastasia, even though the Party now says they’ve always been at war with Eurasia.
But his job is to laboriously change every mention in history that would indicate the Party changed its mind, which he does by rewriting history literally—sending old versions of history through a sort of vacuum called the “memory hole.”
While he is doing this work, Winston is also trying to keep himself sane. He cannot be the only one who remembers that things have not always been this way, he thinks. Holding on to the truth in a time when the ruling party is working overtime to change the truth is (literally) crazy-making.
Winston tells himself:
“Sanity is not statistical.”
Which, for Winston, basically means—even if I’m the only one who remembers, it’s still the truth.
The social psychologist, Erich Fromm, wrote an afterword to the version of 1984 I have; he has an incredible quote about Winston’s insight and the nature of truth in our world today:
“It is one of the most characteristic and destructive developments of our own society that [humanity], becoming more and more of an instrument, transforms reality more and more into something relative to his own interests and functions. Truth is proven by the consensus of millions; to the slogan “how can millions be wrong” is added “and how can a minority of one be right.” Orwell shows us quite clearly that in a system in which the concept of truth as an objective judgment concerning reality is abolished, anyone who is a minority of one must be convinced that he is insane.”
That could have been written about 2025 so easily.
We are “transforming reality” into something we want it to be—something that fits our own “interests and functions.”
We are assuming that millions of people must be right—I see this on both sides of the political aisle, a shrug and a “oh well, guess this is our position now” that is really harmful (Christine talks about this in this episode—you should listen to it for that alone).
We are currently “abolishing” the “concept of truth” as an “objective judgment concerning reality”—we can’t even agree what is true anymore. And there are some things that are true. There just are.
That’s one of the things I’m going to be focused on this summer—keeping my mind focused. Orwell says “sane,” and I’m very wary of that word. Cancer isn’t a choice; often, sanity is not a choice either. And yet, with all the caveats, as we work to keep our bodies healthy, we can also work to keep our minds healthy; our brain is an organ that needs discipline and nourishment and rest like any other part of our body. It’s easier to watch what we eat (which is not always easy) that what we watch and listen to and read.
In a world designed to be crazy-making—designed to make you doubt truth or feel afraid, because those feelings keep you glued to capitalistic companies that want you tuning in and freaking out—it is radical to choose your own mental health when you can.
Protect your minds. Do what you need to do to protect yourselves. Stay sharp and focused. Develop a brain that is trustworthy and discerning—then trust it.
#2) I will remember. I will not forget.
At a time when politicians and others make us doubt the nature of truth, AI is actively changing our histories. It’s a powerful, scary combination.
We don’t need Party peons like Winston Smith to rewrite history when AI is so much better at the job. I don’t think that there’s some malicious authoritarian regime changing our history like in 1984, just companies with not-great products they’re trying to improve by stealing the works of others and convincing the public to train them. Without regulation, these companies—many of whom have political stakes in this presidential administration, especially in it removing legal and ethical safeguards like copyright law—have a vested interest in shoving AI down our throats.
In 1984, the Party wants people to be uneducated and unthinking so they are docile and don’t question the Party’s doctrines. In 2025, AI companies want us to be uneducated and unthinking so we rely on their products and they make money. One is about politics, the other about corporate greed—both are about retaining power.
I won’t even get started on the environmental impact of AI. It’s enough for you to know they’re stealing the intellectual property of millions of writers—including me—to train it, and for us to recognize the ways it’s changing the nature of our collective understanding of truth.
Two small examples from our research brought this home to Christine and me.
Here’s what happened to Christine:
Christine googled “1984” and “banned book” and found a relatively innocuous but factual-looking website called “The Archive.” About 1984, it said: “While this groundbreaking novel has a place of honor as a PBS Great American Read Top 100 Pick, it also maintains its status as the most banned book of all time in America.”
That’s not true. It is a book that has been banned in history, notably in 1981 in Jacksonville, Florida for being “pro-Communist” despite being very actively anti-Communist. But it is not even close to “the most banned book of all time in America.”
The website is under the parent company Open Road Integrated Media, which republishes backlist books in digital formats, among other things. Even a cursory reading of “The Archive” showed me several careless statements like that. But I’m a literary scholar who knows publishing history. Would high school or college students be able to discern the differences? Not most of them.
Here’s what happened to me:
When I was writing the show notes, I googled “three principles of Ingsoc 1984,” which are “War Is Peace,” “Freedom Is Slavery,” and “Ignorance Is Strength” (this is the one I forgot).
I forgot to put -ai on my Google search (which I always do when I use Google). The first result was an AI response: “In George Orwell’s 1984, the three principles of Ingsoc (English socialism) are Newspeak, Doublethink, and the Thought Police.”
That’s not true. These are not the principles of 1984; these are the means by which the Party implements the three principles.
The Party uses “Newspeak” (a new language that controls the thinking of the people), and “Doublethink” (the ability to hold two contradictory ideas in your head at the same time) and the “Thought Police” (who arrest people without due process) to control the populace. AI’s confusion changes the story completely.
These examples might seem small, but they freaked out Christine and me: to be researching a novel where society actively changes the knowledge available to the public at a time when our society actively changes the knowledge available to the public—it was wild.
It’s not just that AI is changing the story; it’s also changing how we think. A recent MIT study about the way ChatGPT is eroding our critical thinking processes did not surprise me, but it really scared me.
If we can’t think critically, we lose the ability to have compassion—which we need to fight injustice.
In 1984, that looks like collective solipsism: a community-level inability to recognize the experiences of others.
In 2025, that looks like Elon Musk ending USAID and calling people affected and those he hates “NPCs,” or “non-player characters”—the characters in the backgrounds of video games whose lives do not matter.
I refuse to stop caring about others. And I refuse to forget the truth.
Unplugging to pay attention is how I’ve done this work all these years. I remember the big and true things. I repeat them to myself, I read about them and talk to others. And I commit to not losing sight of what is happening in part because I refuse to be caught up in the late-breaking, crisis-driven, social-media-addicted internet news cycle.
For me, that means a stack of good books and being off of social media (including TikTok, see y’all there in September). It definitely means no AI for me—not just for this summer.
You decide what it means for you.
This newsletter has been less about the injustices in the world in the last couple of posts than in how to pay attention to those injustices. But for me, and I think many of you, that’s a bigger question: How do we keep doing this work? Because the injustices are absolutely not going away. If reading 1984 taught me anything, it’s that overcoming injustice is the work of generations.
Part of the answer: We cultivate our minds because we care so deeply about others—because we want to advocate well for our communities and those who will be most affected. We develop critical thinking in order to have the compassion we need.
We’re going to take the summer off and unplug so we can truly pay attention. We hope you’ll join us.
We’ll see you all in September.