In George Orwell’s 1984, doublespeak is not explicitly named but is embodied in the concept of “doublethink,” a key mechanism of the Party’s control. Doublethink is the act of simultaneously holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind and accepting both as true, while also suppressing awareness of their contradiction. It enables the Party to manipulate truth, rewrite history, and enforce ideological conformity.

For example, the Party’s slogans—”War is Peace,” “Freedom is Slavery,” “Ignorance is Strength”—are paradoxes that require doublethink to accept. Citizens must believe these contradictions without questioning them, erasing any critical thought. This mental discipline ensures loyalty to the Party, as individuals cannot challenge its lies or propaganda.

The term “doublespeak” later emerged in literary analysis and popular culture, inspired by 1984 and combining “doublethink” with “Newspeak” (the Party’s language designed to limit thought). Doublespeak refers to deliberately ambiguous or evasive language used to obscure truth or manipulate perception, often in political or institutional contexts. In 1984, it manifests through Newspeak’s reduction of language to eliminate dissent and through the Party’s constant revision of facts to align with its narrative.

In essence, doublespeak in 1984 is the linguistic and psychological manipulation that sustains the Party’s totalitarian control, making truth subjective and dissent impossible.

Given this, we can look at the following two reactions to today’s Supreme Court Ruling on Trans-Youth surgery:

As we can see, the medical procedures discussed here don’t exist as things in themselves but rather function as placeholders for two different narratives, one where the medical act is care, and one where it is abuse. In an age of a 24 hour news cycle, it’s remarkable to see how the left and right mobilize loaded language to counter one another’s narratives whereby both claim victory because their characterizing of a phenomenon, e.g., what an abortion is, guarantees to support their narrative because their narrative created it (e.g., Abortion is a woman’s health choice/procedure vs murder).

On one level, it is good to form opinions and weigh evidence, but we must also go beyond such aesthetic preferences to look at how language is used to frame the discussions and debates we have because often we neglect that we are not really exchanging ideas but simply talking past one another while reinforcing our own competing narratives.

A good exercise for students is to research both sides of a debate like “school uniforms pro/con” and present a side, because this raises the deeper question of whether such debates have a correct answer?