In the

dystopia A dystopia (lit. "bad place") is an imagined world or society in which people lead wretched, dehumanized, fearful lives. It is an imagined place (possibly state) in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmen ...

n novel ''

Nineteen Eighty-Four ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (also published as ''1984'') is a dystopian novel and cautionary tale by the English writer George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final completed book. Thematically ...

'' (1949), by

George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to a ...

, the Thought Police (''Thinkpol'' in

Newspeak In the dystopian novel '' Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (also published as ''1984''), by George Orwell, Newspeak is the fictional language of Oceania, a totalitarian superstate. To meet the ideological requirements of Ingsoc (English Socialism) in O ...

) are the

secret police image:Putin-Stasi-Ausweis.png, 300px, Vladimir Putin's secret police identity card, issued by the East German Stasi while he was working as a Soviet KGB liaison officer from 1985 to 1989. Both organizations used similar forms of repression. Secre ...

of the superstate of

Oceania Oceania ( , ) is a region, geographical region including Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Outside of the English-speaking world, Oceania is generally considered a continent, while Mainland Australia is regarded as its co ...

, who discover and punish ''

thoughtcrime In the dystopian novel '' Nineteen Eighty-Four'', thoughtcrime is the offense of thinking in ways not approved by the ruling Ingsoc party. In the official language of Newspeak, the word crimethink describes the intellectual actions of a pers ...

'' (personal and political thoughts unapproved by

Ingsoc In George Orwell's 1949 dystopian novel ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'', the world is divided into three superstates: Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia, which are all fighting each other in a perpetual war in a disputed area mostly located around the eq ...

's régime). Using

criminal psychology Criminal psychology, also referred to as criminological psychology, is the study of the views, thoughts, intentions, actions and reactions of criminals and suspects.Richard Ncsis, Applied criminal psychology: a guide to forensic behavioral science ...

and omnipresent

surveillance Surveillance is the monitoring of behavior, many activities, or information for the purpose of information gathering, influencing, managing, or directing. This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment, such as ...

(via informers, telescreens, cameras, and microphones) the Thinkpol monitor the citizens of Oceania and arrest all those who have committed ''thoughtcrime'' in challenge to the ''

status quo is a Latin phrase meaning the existing state of affairs, particularly with regard to social, economic, legal, environmental, political, religious, scientific or military issues. In the sociological sense, the ''status quo'' refers to the curren ...

'' authority of the Party and of the régime of Big Brother. Orwell's concept of "policing thought" derived from the intellectual self-honesty shown by a person's "power of facing unpleasant facts"; thus, criticising the

dominant ideology In Marxist philosophy, the term dominant ideology denotes the attitudes, beliefs, values, and morals shared by the majority of the people in a given society. As a mechanism of social control, the dominant ideology frames how the majority of the ...

of British society often placed Orwell in conflict with ideologues, people advocating "smelly little orthodoxies".

In ''Nineteen Eighty-Four''

In the year 1984, the government of

, dominated by the Inner Party, uses the

language – a heavily simplified version of English – to control the speech, actions, and

thought In their most common sense, the terms thought and thinking refer to cognitive processes that can happen independently of sensory stimulation. Their most paradigmatic forms are judging, reasoning, concept formation, problem solving, and de ...

of the population, by defining "unapproved thoughts" as ''

''; for such actions, the ''Thinkpol'' arrest Winston Smith, the protagonist of the story, and

Julia Julia may refer to: People *Julia (given name), including a list of people with the name *Julia (surname), including a list of people with the name *Julia gens, a patrician family of Ancient Rome *Julia (clairvoyant) (fl. 1689), lady's maid of Qu ...

, his lover, as enemies of the state. In conversation with Winston, O'Brien, a member of the Inner Party and a covert Thinkpol officer, reveals that the Thinkpol conduct

false flag A false flag operation is an act committed with the intent of disguising the actual source of responsibility and pinning blame on another party. The term "false flag" originated in the 16th century as an expression meaning an intentional misrep ...

operations, such as by pretending to be members of the Brotherhood in order to lure out and arrest "thought criminals". As an ''

agent provocateur An is a person who actively entices another person to commit a crime that would not otherwise have been committed and then reports the person to the authorities. They may target individuals or groups. In jurisdictions in which conspiracy is a ...

'', O'Brien gives Winston a copy of the forbidden book, ''

The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism ''The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism'' is a fictional book in George Orwell's dystopian novel ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (written in 1949). The fictional book was supposedly written by Emmanuel Goldstein, the principal enemy of ...

'', by

Emmanuel Goldstein Emmanuel Goldstein is a fictional character and the principal enemy of the state of Oceania in George Orwell's 1949 dystopian novel ''Nineteen Eighty-Four''. The political propaganda of The Party portrays Goldstein as the leader of The Br ...

the enemy of the state of Oceania; yet the factual

reality Reality is the sum or aggregate of everything in existence; everything that is not imagination, imaginary. Different Culture, cultures and Academic discipline, academic disciplines conceptualize it in various ways. Philosophical questions abo ...

of The Brotherhood in Oceania remains uncertain, because O'Brien refuses to tell Winston whether or not the Brotherhood truly exists. The book explains that “Nothing is efficient in Oceania except the Thought Police,” as the Thinkpol is the only apparatus that must function effectively for the Party to retain control. There is a

telescreen Telescreens are two-way video devices that appear in George Orwell's dystopian novel ''Nineteen Eighty-Four''. Omnipresent and almost never turned off, they are an unavoidable source of propaganda and tools of surveillance. The concept of the t ...

in the quarters of every Inner-party and Outer-party citizen, by which the Thinkpol audio-visually police their behaviour for unorthodox opinions, and to spy visible indications of the mental stresses manifested by a person struggling with ''ownlife'', such as words spoken whilst asleep. The Thinkpol also spy upon and eliminate intelligent people, such as the lexicographer Syme, who is rendered an ''unperson'' despite his fierce loyalty to the Party and to Big Brother. To eliminate possible

martyrs A martyr (, ''mártys'', 'witness' Word stem, stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an external party. In ...

, men and women of whom popular memory might provoke anti–Party resistance, thought-criminals are taken to the '' Miniluv'' (Ministry of Love), where the Thinkpol break them with conversation, degradation (moral and physical), and torture in

Room 101 The Ministry of Truth, the Ministry of Peace, the Ministry of Love, and the Ministry of Plenty are the four ministries of the government of Oceania in the 1949 dystopian novel ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'', by George Orwell. The use of contradictor ...

. In breaking prisoners, the Thinkpol coerce their sincere acceptance of the Ingsoc

worldview A worldview (also world-view) or is said to be the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing the whole of the individual's or society's knowledge, culture, and Perspective (cognitive), point of view. However, whe ...

and to love Big Brother without reservation. Afterward, the Thinkpol release the politically rehabilitated prisoners to the social mainstream of Oceania. If the released thought-criminals are found to have committed more ''thoughtcrimes'', the Thinkpol re-arrest them for further interrogation and torture, and eventual execution that concludes with

cremation Cremation is a method of Disposal of human corpses, final disposition of a corpse through Combustion, burning. Cremation may serve as a funeral or post-funeral rite and as an alternative to burial. In some countries, including India, Nepal, and ...

into an ''unperson''. Moreover, every member of the Inner Party and of the Outer Party who ever knew, was acquainted with, or knew of any ''unperson'' must forget them, lest they commit the ''thoughtcrime'' of remembering an ''unperson''. Such '' crimestop'', ideological self-discipline, of not thinking independently, indicates the cultural success of the Newspeak language as a means of social control. Moreover, the Minitrue (Ministry of Truth) is tasked with destroying all records of unpersons. The Thinkpol usually does not interfere with the lives of the Proles, the working classes of Oceania, but do deploy undercover ''agents provocateur'' to operate amongst them, by planting rumours to entrap and identify and eliminate any Prole who shows

intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. It can be described as t ...

and the capacity for independent thought, which might lead to rebellion against the

cultural hegemony In Marxist philosophy, cultural hegemony is the dominance of a culturally diverse society by the ruling class who shape the culture of that society—the beliefs and explanations, perceptions, values, and mores—so that the worldview of the rul ...

of the Party.

In other usages

In the early twentieth century, before the publication of ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'', the

Empire of Japan The Empire of Japan, also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was the Japanese nation state that existed from the Meiji Restoration on January 3, 1868, until the Constitution of Japan took effect on May 3, 1947. From Japan–Kor ...

(1868–1947), in 1911, established the ''

Tokubetsu Kōtō Keisatsu The , often abbreviated , was, from 1911 to 1945, a Japanese policing organization, established within the Home Ministry for the purpose of carrying out civil law enforcement, control of political groups and ideologies deemed to threaten the publ ...

'' ('Special Higher Police'), a political police force also known as ''Shisō Keisatsu'', the Thought Police, who investigated and controlled native political groups whose

ideologies An ideology is a set of beliefs or values attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely about belief in certain knowledge, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones". Form ...

were considered a threat to the

public order Public order may refer to * Public security: the prevention of and protection from events that could endanger the safety and security of the public from significant danger or property damage * Public order policing: police maintenance of order ...

of the countries colonised by Japan.Beasley, W. G. ''The Rise of Modern Japan'', p. 184 In contemporary usage, the term ''Thought Police'' and variants thereof often refers to the actual or perceived enforcement of ideological

orthodoxy Orthodoxy () is adherence to a purported "correct" or otherwise mainstream- or classically-accepted creed, especially in religion. Orthodoxy within Christianity refers to acceptance of the doctrines defined by various creeds and ecumenical co ...

in the political life of a society. In

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders China and Russia to the north at the Yalu River, Yalu (Amnok) an ...

, the Ministry of State Security (''MSS'') was established by the Kim dynasty in 1973 and was known by its nickname as (North Korea's Thought Police), where thoughts in the DPRK are controlled not just the

Songbun ''Songbun'' (), formally chulsin-songbun (, from Sino-Korean 出身, "origin" and 成分, "constituent"), is the system of ascribed status used in North Korea. According to the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea and the American ...

caste system, but by the WPK.Michelle Ye Hee Lee; Min Joo Kim. (January 18, 2023)
"North Korea's "Thought Police" Hunt Down Foreign Influences"
''

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

References

{{Nineteen Eighty-Four Fictional elements introduced in 1949 Fictional intelligence agencies Fictional law enforcement agencies Nineteen Eighty-Four characters

In ''Nineteen Eighty-Four''

In other usages

See also

References