Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia. The
enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and it followed that
any past or future agreement with him was impossible.
The frightening thing, he reflected for the ten thousandth time as he
forced his shoulders painfully backward (with hands on hips, they were
gyrating their bodies from the waist, an exercise that was supposed to be
good for the back muscles) -- the frightening thing was that it might all
be true. If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this
or that event, it never happened -- that, surely, was more terrifying than
mere torture and death?
The Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance with Eurasia.
He, Winston Smith, knew that Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia as
short a time as four years ago. But where did that knowledge exist? Only in
his own consciousness, which in any case must soon be annihilated. And if
all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed -- if all records told
the same tale -- then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who
controls the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the futu who
controls the present controls the past.' And yet the past, though of its
nature alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true
from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed
was an unending series of victories over your own memory. 'Reality
control', they called it: in Newspeak, 'doublethink'
'Stand easy!' barked the instructress, a little more genially.
Winston sank his arms to his sides and slowly refilled his lungs with
air. His mind slid away into the labyrinthine world of doublethink. To know
and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling
carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which
cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of
them, to u