The current conflict in Ukraine provides a plethora of examples of the power of doublethink in shaping narratives in order to justify any actions, beliefs, and statements that are either untrue or so grossly distorted as to be entirely unbelievable.

The novelist George Orwell coined the term doublethink in his classic dystopian novel 1984. He defined doublethink as “The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them…