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| CATEGORIES ABOUT THOUGHTCRIME | |
| nineteen eighty-four | |
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In George Orwell 's Dystopian novel '' Nineteen Eighty-Four '' the Government attempts to control not only the speech and actions, but also the Thought s of its subjects, labeling disapproved thoughts with the term thoughtcrime or, in Newspeak , "'''crimethink'''". In the book, Winston Smith , the main character, writes in his diary: He also makes remarks to the effect that "Thoughtcrime is the only crime that matters." THOUGHT POLICE The Thought Police (''thinkpol'' in Newspeak) were the Secret Police of the novel ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' whose job it was to uncover and punish ''thoughtcrime''. The Thought Police used Psychology and omnipresent Surveillance to find and eliminate members of society who were capable of the mere thought of challenging ruling authority. Orwell's Thought Police and their pursuit of ''thoughtcrime'' was based on the methods used by the Totalitarian states and competing Ideologies of the 20th Century . It also had much to do with Orwell's own "power of facing unpleasant facts," as he called it, and his willingness to criticise prevailing ideas which brought him into conflict with others and their "smelly little orthodoxies." Although Orwell described himself as a Democratic Socialist , many other Socialist s (especially those who supported the Communist branch of socialism) thought that his criticism of the Soviet Union under Stalin damaged the socialist cause. The term "Thought Police," by extension, has come to refer to real or perceived enforcement of ideological correctness in any modern or historical contexts. One could argue that long duration involuntary psychiatric treatment in the developed world is akin to the state 'punishing' people for thought-crime. You don't need to do anything wrong, you just have to think the wrong thoughts. SOVIET ABUSES In the Soviet era, the USSR frequently used Psychiatry as a weapon against Dissident s. The diagnosis of Sluggishly Progressing Schizophrenia was used to commit many dissidents to psychiatric hospitals (called Psikhushka in Russia), where they were then treated aggressively with Psychoactive Drug s. The Tom Stoppard play '' Every Good Boy Deserves Favour '' is a fictionalized version of the Soviet experience with psychiatry used for this purpose. Natan Sharansky , among others, have written detailed accounts of their experiences as Refusnik detainees in this system. TECHNOLOGY AND THOUGHTCRIME Just as technology played a significant part in the detection of ''thoughtcrime'' in ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' — with the ubiquitous Telescreen s which could inform the government, misinform and monitor the population — a number of technologies have been developed to try to detect thought and emotional states. Networks of CCTV cameras are being connected to image-recognition software that intends to detect possible wrongdoers by looking for signs of anxiety. Other technologies range from Lie Detector s, the Penile Plethysmograph which was used to try to detect "homosexual or pedophile thoughts", and on to more modern attempts to use Magnetic Resonance Imaging to try to detect brain chemical activity supposedly corresponding to memory or thoughts. All of these technologies have been proposed at one time or another as a way of detecting "bad thoughts". IN THE MEDIA
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