Crimestop

[Martin]

‘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 [an authority] and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction...’ - George Orwell, 1949.

 

thanks to Nigel

http://nige.wordpress.com/2006/09/30/keplers-law-from-kinetic-energy/

[Sisyphus]

Is the implied question whether or not this actually happens? If so, then yes, it happens all the time. A big part of the process of becoming a free thinker is learning to be suspicious when you may be around such a stop. It is also a simplified enunciation of much of the project of modern philosophy, and, I think, the only way real progress will be made in theoretical science. All the greatest pioneers of the latter were also philosophers, who found ways of thinking about reality itself in completely new ways.

[Martin]

it is an interesting concept isnt it?

 

my attention was caught by the part where it refers to

" the power of not grasping analogies,"

which struck me as funny.

 

I found a bunch of other stuff by googling "Crimestop Orwell"

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

There's also "doublethink," the ability to believe one thing but simultaneously believe a conflicting idea because the Party (the government) supports it.