Do you believe there are some very important...

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

Poll question: Do you believe there are some very important...

...painful, and obvious truths regarding the extent/scale and ruthlessness of the criminality of our own government that a fairly large subset of our citizenry irrationally simply refuses to acknowledge?

And if so, do you think the paragraph below is a reasonable explanation for it? In other words, is it crimestop?

This was the commentary of Rawstory poster, Stewart: http://www.rawstory.com/comments/43848.html

Jonathan Schwartz quotes George Orwell, whose main points, especially in 1984 are glaringly relevant today: A Party member…is supposed to live in a continuous frenzy of hatred of foreign enemies and internal traitors, triumph over victories, and self-abasement before the power and wisdom of the Party. The discontents produced by his bare, unsatisfying life are deliberately turned outwards and dissipated by such devices as the Two Minutes Hate, and the speculations which might possibly induce a sceptical or rebellious attitude are killed in advance by his early acquired inner discipline…called, in Newspeak, crimestop. 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.

Here's Wiki's treatment of the term:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimestop

[comradebillyboy]

1. 1984 one of my all time faves

in particular "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." I have republican friends who fit this description to a tee. Sort of like the vulgar pig-boy's ditto heads or the Savage nation types. Or Bill Kristol or George Bush for that matter. Or the whole fucking Bush administration.

[MedleyMisty]

2. I often wonder what it's like inside the brains of people who read 1984

and saw not a warning, but an instruction booklet.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

3. I've wondered the same thing...

...how do they seem themselves in Orwell's society? Where does the satisfaction in living in a society like that come from? Puzzling.

We may get our answers yet -- we're definitely on course for 1984.

[Kucinich4America]

5. I wonder what Orwell would think if he came back today

And saw his works of fiction not only implemented, but exceeded, in the current reality. Osama Bin Dead Since 2002 is a much better Emmanuel Goldstein than Emmanuel Goldstein ever was.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

4. Kick for a larger sample. nt.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

6. Kick for a larger sample. nt.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

7. Kick for a larger sample. nt.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

8. Kick for a larger sample. nt.