Crimestop
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Crimestop is a Newspeak term taken from the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. It means to rid oneself of unwanted thoughts, i.e. thoughts that interfere with the ideology of the Party. This way, a person avoids committing thought crime, or rather crimethink, as it is called in Newspeak.
In the novel, we hear about crimestop through the eyes of protagonist Winston Smith:
| 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. |
- (See also: two plus two make five and blackwhite.)
Crimestop is similar to what sociologists call internalization.
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| Nineteen Eighty-Four | |
|---|---|
| By George Orwell | |
| Characters | Winston Smith | Julia | O'Brien | Big Brother | Emmanuel Goldstein |
| Places | Oceania | Eastasia | Eurasia | Airstrip One | Room 101 |
| Classes | Inner Party | Outer Party | Proles |
| Ministries | Ministry of Love | Ministry of Peace | Ministry of Plenty | Ministry of Truth |
| Concepts | Ingsoc | Newspeak | Doublethink | Goodthink | Crimestop Two plus two | Thoughtcrime | Prolefeed | Prolesec |
| Miscellaneous | Thought Police | Telescreen | Memory hole | The Book Newspeak words | Two Minutes Hate | Hate week |
| Other media | 1956 film | 1984 film | 1953 TV programme | 1954 TV programme Opera | 1985 | Me and the Big Guy |
