For some (technically unfathomable) reason I am getting lots of (mostly favourable) comments on a post I entered in a long defunct blog of my own that I had had a go at before joining RedStateEclectic.
Funny to read a post that is five years old. My writing may have been a wee bit more laddish then; also, I may have a lesser urge to be reproachful toward the unenlightened (really?). At any rate, in large measure I remain in agreement with my former self.
As of writing these lines, Germany's most frequented DE>EN - EN>DE
on-line-dictionary reveals uncertainty as to the meaning of the term
"doublethink".
http://dict.leo.org/forum/viewUnsolvedquery.php?idThread=307224&idForum=2&lp=ende〈=de
Is
this a case of the confused finding it difficult to sort out their
confusion? I suspect so. I harbour the presumption that muddled thinking
is essential to upholding what a vast number of people in Germany
consider their dearest believes. The ever-present intimidation of
"political correctness" both expresses and enforces "intellectual"
commitments concocted from inconsistency, cowardice and opportunism.
Let me give you an example of how doublethink serves to fend off the moral overload people are constantly exposed to these days:
Recently,
a senior civil servant told me that he had applied for a new job. He
regarded himself the best candidate for the position but was almost
certain he would not be considered because the second best applicant
would likely be favoured on the grounds of being a woman. He thought
this unjust. When I challenged him to protest the probable decision, he
switched to a different position, underwriting the need for positive
discrimination (affirmative action) on behalf of women.
The
implications of the underlying theory which he espoused startled me: The
first assumption was that there is a uniform view as to the station
women deserve in our time. The second assumption was that this standard
of where women should have arrived at in our days has been anticipated
by all men in human history, only to be studiously violated by them
until very recently. The third assumption was that the male conspiracy
behind the suppression of women established a guilt among contemporary
men and an obligation for them to make good in terms of positive
discrimination favouring women.
In the course of our discussion,
he remained trapped in doublethink, firmly believing both that it was
not right to pass the best candidate over and that such injustice
assumed the quality of just behaviour when it came to restoring women's
rightful station in contemporary life.
Eventually tired of the
debate, he told me that the issue was of little import as the promotion
would involve only a negligible pay rise and that his present position
required only one or two days effective work per week and thus left much
leeway for other activities to satisfy his needs.
Incidentally, the man's job is to define what our pupils are to be taught.
A
hallmark of our time, assiduously promoted in the educational system
and asserted by a haggling variant of democracy, is the replacement of
consistent principles of justice by a calculus of popularity ("but that
is what everyone thinks") and expediency ("why, I can/can't get away
with it"). The idea that justice rests on consistent principles gives
way to a notion of justice based on the enforcement of organized
interests.
Once special interests are fortified by a majority,
the totalitarian concept of democracy (i.e. the belief in the
unconstrained power of a majority) guarantees that these special
interests define justice - arbitrarily, of course.
Democracy as
we know it, i.e. the philosophy holding that political power defines
justice, overrides consistency and, thus, creates moral overload and the
need for doublethink.
Main Entry: dou·ble·think 
Pronunciation: 'd&-b&l-"thi[ng]k
Function: noun
: a simultaneous belief in two contradictory ideas
(Source: Merriam-Webster)
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