'In societies which like to call themselves open and free, liberty is usually defined in contrasting terms. State propaganda and indoctrination, for example, are said to be exclusive characteristics of unfree or totalitarian states at both ends of the ideological spectrum.
One danger of defining our society in opposition to less desirable 'others' is that it relieves us of the burden of internal scrutiny and introspection. It is reassuring to know that other communities are demonstrably less privileged than ours but it can also lead us to complacent assumptions about our own capacity for free thought and expression.
George Orwell offered an explanation of how thought control also operated in liberal democracies. In an unpublished introduction to Animal Farm Orwell warned that "the sinister fact about literary censorship in England is that it is largely voluntary. Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without any need for an "official ban."
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'Even the names of the four Ministries by which we are governed exhibit a sort of impudence in their deliberate reversal of the facts.
The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war.
The Ministry of Truth with lies.
The Ministry of Love with torture.
And the Ministry of Plenty with starvation.
These contradictions are not accidental, nor do they result from ordinary hypocrisy; they are deliberate exercises in doublethink. For it is only by reconciling contradictions that power can be retained indefinitely. In no other way could the ancient cycle be broken. If human equality is to be for ever averted — if the High, as we have called them, are to keep their places permanently — then the prevailing mental condition must be controlled insanity.' George Orwell 1984
