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In the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, thoughtcrime is the offense of thinking in ways not approved by the ruling Ingsoc party. In the official language of Newspeak, the word crimethink describes the intellectual actions of a person who entertains and holds politically unacceptable thoughts; thus the government of The Party controls the speech, the actions, and the thoughts of the citizens of Oceania.^[1]

In contemporary English usage, the word thoughtcrime describes the personal beliefs that are contrary to the accepted norms of society; thus thoughtcrime describes the theological practices of disbelief and idolatry,^[2] and the rejection of an ideology.^[3]

Thought control

In the story of Nineteen Eighty-Four, the Thinkpol (Thought Police) are responsible for the detection and elimination of thoughtcrime, and for the social control of the populations of Oceania, by way of audio-visual surveillance and offender profiling. Such psychological monitoring allows the Thought Police to detect, arrest, and kill thought criminals, citizens whose independence (intellectual, mental, and moral) challenges the political orthodoxy of Ingsoc (English Socialism) and thus the legitimate government authority of the Party.^[4] In the detection of thoughtcrime—and to overcome the physical impossibility of simultaneously policing every citizen of Oceania—the Thinkpol spy upon the populace through ubiquitous two-way telescreens, and so can monitor any person's body language, reflexive speech, and facial expressions:

Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by the telescreen; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was, of course, no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork.
— Part I, Chapter 1, Nineteen Eighty-Four

The universal, physical presence of the telescreen, in public and in private spaces, exerted psychological pressure upon each citizen of Oceania to presume that they were under constant Thinkpol surveillance, and thus in danger of detection and arrest as a thought criminal; thus, whenever near a telescreen, Winston Smith was always mindful of that possibility: "If you made unexpected movements, they yelled at you from the telescreen."^[5] Such surveillance methods allowed the Thinkpol and the Ministry of Love (Miniluv) to become universally feared by the citizens of Oceania, especially by the members of the Outer Party, which includes Winston Smith.

Crimestop

In the Newspeak vocabulary, the word crimestop denotes the citizen's instinctive desire to rid himself of unwanted, incorrect thoughts (personal and political), the discovery of which, by the Thinkpol, would lead to detection and arrest, transport to and interrogation at Miniluv (Ministry of Love). The protagonist, Winston Smith, describes crimestop as a conscious process of self-imposed cognitive dissonance:

The mind should develop a blind spot whenever a dangerous thought presented itself. The process should be automatic, instinctive. Crimestop, they called it in Newspeak. . . . He set to work to exercise himself in crimestop. He presented himself with propositions—'the Party says the Earth is flat', 'the Party says that ice is heavier than water'—and trained himself in not seeing or not understanding the arguments that contradicted them.

Moreover, from the perspective of Oceania's principal enemy of the state, in the history book The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, Emmanuel Goldstein said that:

Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity.^[6]

In real life

Various groups such as human rights organizations, journalists and activists have likened the Iranian regime, along with the IRIB and IRGC, to an Orwellian government. This sentiment is due to reports of the Iranian government distributing death sentences for the crime of "advertising against the holy system". “Zabane eghelab”, an Iranian phrase that translates to “tongue of revolution”, is used to describe the rhetoric used by the government to maintain ideological dominance over the population and is often compared to newspeak.^[7]^[8]^[9]^[10]^[11]^[12]

In 2024 in Germany The Federal Network Agency allows “trusted whistleblowers” to monitor content in social networks." ("Die Bundesnetzagentur lässt „vertrauenswürdige Hinweisgeber“ zur Inhaltskontrolle in sozialen Netzwerken zu.") - the tactics very similar to one of Thought Police in 1984. ^[13]

References

^ Orwell, George; Rovere, Richard Halworth (1984) [1956], The Orwell Reader: Fiction, Essays, and Reportage, San Diego: Harcourt, Brace, p. 409, ISBN 978-0-15-670176-1.
^ Lewis, David. Papers in Ethics and Social Philosophy (2000), Volume 3, p. 107.
^ Glasby, John. Evidence, Policy and Practice: Critical Perspectives in Health and Social Care (2011), p. 22.
^ McCormick, Donald (1980), Approaching 1984, Newton Abbot, Devon, England: David & Charles, p. 21, ISBN 978-0-7153-7654-6.
^ Part III, Chapter 1, Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)
^ Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd, London, pp. 220–21.
^ "When the Thought Police Come for You". HuffPost. 10 July 2015. Retrieved 19 February 2024.
^ "قاضی‌هایی که طناب دار را گره می‌زنند". BBC News فارسی (in Persian). 7 January 2023. Retrieved 19 February 2024.
^ Wright, Robin (14 June 2018). "Iran's Orwellian Arrest of Its Leading Female Human-Rights Lawyer". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 19 February 2024.
^ "جمهوری اسلامی و اورول؛ در جهان ۱۹۸۴ رسانه بوق است". BBC News فارسی (in Persian). 20 January 2020. Retrieved 19 February 2024.
^ Esfandiari, Golnaz. "In Iran, No Space On Cyberspace For Dissenting Voices As Tehran Takes 'Orwellian Approach' To Muffle Critics". RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty. Retrieved 19 February 2024.
^ مستند: «تبلیغ علیه نظام مقدس» (in Persian), 17 February 2024, retrieved 19 February 2024
^ "„Trusted Flagger" der Netzagentur – „Deutet an, wie viel Grüne von mündigen Bürgern halten"". Welt (in German). 4 December 2024. Retrieved 17 December 2024.