The Post Office 1984

“The key word here is blackwhite, or as referred to by The Post Office as creditdebit”

*

What opinions the public masses hold, or do not hold, is looked on as a matter of indifference by The Post Office.

In a sub-postmaster, on the other hand, not even the smallest deviation of opinion on the most unimportant subject can be tolerated.

Once becoming a dedicated sub-postmaster, this member lives from the first day of contract, to the day of false prosecution, under the eye of Horizon. Even when he is alone, he can never be sure that he is alone. Wherever he may be, asleep or awake, working or resting, in his bath or in his bed, he can be inspected without warning and without knowing he is being inspected.

Once at investigation stage nothing he does is indifferent. His friendships, his relaxations, his behaviour towards his wife and children, the expressions of his face, even the characteristic movements of his body are all scrutinised by the vicious Audit Police. Not only any actual misdemeanour, but any eccentricity however small, any change of habits, any nervous mannerism that could possibly be the symptom of an inner struggle is certain to be detected.

Once under investigation he has no freedom of choice in any direction whatsoever. His actions are not regulated as expected, by the established Rule of Law. In The Post Office there is no respect or adherence of the Law. Thoughts and actions which, when ‘detected’, mean certain prosecution or even death, and the endless purges, arrests, mental torturing, imprisonments and vaporisation of monies repaid for alleged ‘false accounting’ or ‘theft’ are not inflicted as punishment for crimes which have actually been committed, but are merely the wiping-out of persons who are no longer of use to The Post Office.

The beliefs and attitudes demanded of a sub-postmaster are never plainly stated by the vicious Audit Police, and could not be stated without laying bare the contradictions inherent in The Post Office.

If he is a person naturally orthodox or ‘good’ he will grow to know in his darkest of situations, what is the true belief and the truth, but will eventually exhibit the desired emotion demanded by the Audit Police. In any case the elaborate mental torture undergone whilst under investigation and grouping itself around the jargon and deceit of Horizon , the words crimestop, blackwhite and doublethink eventually make him unwilling and unable to think clearly or too deeply on any subject whatever.

A sub-postmaster under investigation is expected to have no private emotions. He is supposed to live in a continuous state of self-abasement before the power and wisdom of The Post Office and the dark agents of the vicious Audit Police. The discontents produced by the unsatisfying life the false accusations and investigation has imposed upon him, but which may induce a sceptical or rebellious attitude, are killed in advance via the techniques of the Audit Police, the unintentionally acquired, inner discipline of crimestop.

Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short by instinct, at the threshold of any free, innocent and therefore dangerous thought.

It includes the power of not grasping analogies to allow for comparison between one thing and another, typically for the purpose of explanation or clarification, failing to perceive any alleged ‘logical’ errors, of misunderstanding the simplest of accusations if they are inimical to The Post Office. Unintentionally, by means of the actions of the vicious Audit Police, the sub-postmaster is repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means, to The Post Office, protective stupidity. But stupidity is not enough.

The Post Office rest ultimately on the belief that the pious Paula Vennells is omnipotent and along with the Audit Police and Horizon, is infallible. But since in reality Paula Vennells is not omnipotent but is in fact, quite the opposite, and the vicious Audit Police and Horizon are not infallible, there is an unwearying moment – to – moment flexibility in the treatment of facts.

The key word here is blackwhite, or as referred to by The Post Office as creditdebit. Like so many of The Post Office’s words this word has two mutually contradictory meanings.

Applied to an opponent like an accused sub-postmaster, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, or that a credit is a debit, in contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to The Post Office hierarchy, the Audit Police, Horizon, MP’s, the Judiciary and many others, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white, credit is debit when The Post Office discipline demands this.

But it means also the ability to believe that black is white or credit is debit, and more to know that black is white and that credit is debit, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary. This involves a continuous alteration of the past by a system of thought which really embraces all the rest which is known in The Post Office as doublethink.

Double think means that the accused sub-postmaster, after the extreme pressures of the investigation techniques of the vicious Audit Police, still has the power to hold two contradictory beliefs in his mind simultaneously, although starting to accept both of them. The Post Office knows in which direction his memories must be altered.

The alteration of the past is necessary for two reasons, one of which is subsidiary, and so to speak, precautionary. The subsidiary reason is that the sub-postmaster tolerates his present day, investigative conditions partly because he has no standards of comparison. He must be cut off from the past just as he must be cut off from other sub-postmasters because it is necessary for him to believe that he is better off than any of the other accused, and that the average level of totally fictitious financial loss is constantly rising.

But by far the most important reason for the readjustment of the financial records and the past, is the need to safeguard the infallibility of The Post Office.

It is not merely that speeches, statistics, and records of every kind must be constantly brought up to date in order to show that the predictions of The Post Office were in all cases right. It is also that no change in doctrine or in political alignment can ever be admitted. For to change one’s mind, or even ones policy is to The Post Office, a confession of weakness. If for example sub-postmaster A and sub-postmaster B are the falsely accused today, then those sub-postmasters must always have been accused. And if the facts say otherwise then the facts must be altered.

This day-to-day falsification of the past, carried out by The Ministry Of Truth seemingly complicit with The Post Office, is as necessary to the stability of the regime of the morally bankrupt Paula Vennells, as the work of repression and espionage carried out by the vicious Audit Police and the deceitful Horizon.

*

Written by Alex Moojen