"Fables should be taught as fables, myths as myths, and miracles as poetic fancies...
To teach superstitions as 'truths' is a most terribe thing.
The child mind accepts and believes them, and only through great pain and perhaps tragedy can he be in after years relieved of them.
In fact- men will fight for a superstition quite as quickly as for a living truth--often more so, since a superstition is so intangible you cannot get at it to refute it, but the truth is a point of view and so is changeable..."
(Hypatia of Alexandria)
Truth is a point of view. So is the concept of 'un-truth'.
How 'wrong' is it to fight against a brutal oppressor ?
Is it 'wrong' to kill a madman who threatens to kill children ?
The very idea of 'laws' would suggest that there is such a thing as 'rights'- which in turn would result in remnants within the language which could lead to the authority of the rulers being challenged.
So- who determines what is 'right' or 'wrong' ? 'Good' or 'Bad' ?
You ? Me ?
In Orwell's world, the answer to that question is simple:
Those who worship the God of power.
Because they are also the ones who determine what a 'Fable' is, what
a 'Myth' is, and wether or not a miracle is a mere poetic fancy.
They control the language itself...And they have deemed words like 'Bad' obsolete. Instead the proper expression is 'Un-good'...
That way no one can associate the word 'bad' with their little lucid-dream-factory.
The proper expression still contains the word 'good'- turned upside down, so to speak.
'Crime' is then simply focussed unto one thing:
Anyone going out of line (the lucid-dream-assembly-line, that is) commits a 'Crime'.
Because they say so.
