History Main / DoubleThink

** In ''Literature/MonstrousRegiment'', Vimes is puzzled by the fact that so many people are devout Nugganites when so many of his commandments are batshit insane (the color blue is an Abomination unto Nuggan, so they mainly avoid looking at the sky). Other Abominations are obviously driving the country further into the ground (against cats, dwarves, crop rotation, rocks, ears, ''babies''...) so people end up ignoring the more difficult ones. When the squad visits a brothel, the narration notes that devout men always have a little space for sinning.

** Tywin Lannister suspects his son Tyrion is a bastard -not for any logical reason, he just despises Tyrion and desperately wishes he wasn't actually his son- but somehow this doesn't taint his memory of his late wife, who would have had to have cheated on him for this to be true. One theory for why this is comes from the books' indication the Mad King took "liberties" during the bedding ceremony, possibly indicating he was attracted to Tywin's wife and raped her later (this has, however, already been debunked). So if Tywin believed this or suspected it at least, that might explain both his view of Tyrion and not blaming his wife (the latter would be compassionate for that society).

** A ''lot'' of [[CloudCuckooLander Dale Gribble's]] conspiracy theories run on these. For the most part, Dale simultaneously thinks of "the government" as an all-powerful entity that can do whatever it wants without repercussion, while also believing that every government figure of any kind of authority whatsoever is an incompetent moron. The irony of this doublethink on Dale's part is that there's an actual conspiracy going on nearby -- his wife Nancy has been cheating on him with John Redcorn for years, and Dale has never noticed. This has been used to show both that Dale isn't all really there mentally and that his thought process is [[IRejectYourReality so far gone that he just invents his own reality]] where he's always right.
** Hank has [[MyMasterRightOrWrong a lot of respect for his boss]], [[MrViceGuy Buck Strickland]], at times possibly even seeing him as a replacement father figure for [[AbusiveParents Cotton]]. He simultaneously knows about Buck's extramarital affairs and venal business practices, but goes out of his way to ignore them.
* Discussed in ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'' episode "[[Recap/TheOwlHouseS2E6HuntingPalismen Hunting Palismen]]". Protagonist Luz Noceda has two goals: become a witch in the Boiling Isles, and get home to her mother on Earth. Trouble is, the former is just vague enough that it's not worthy of a palisman, since a palisman requires its user to have a specific life goal they want to achieve; "become a witch" and "go home" aren't enough. Besides that, an ArmorPiercingQuestion from Boscha makes Luz realize that these two desires are mutually exclusive. If Luz goes home to Earth, she'll be back with her mother but unable to use magic, because glyphs don't work in the human world. If Luz stays on the Boiling Isles, she'll probably become a witch but will never see her mother again. This causes Luz to realize that [[AndThenWhat she hasn't really thought through her plans very well]].

* ''Fanfic/FriendshipIsOptimalAlwaysSayNo'': Greg suffers from this from time to time. In particularly, he believes that [=Celest-A.I.=] is ''killing'' people by uploading them into the system... yet at the same time, simultaneously believes that he's saving lives by escorting people to upload centers. Much of this boils down to him not wanting to confront the notion that his own friends and family are dead.

** [[NotSoWellIntentionedExtremist Alan Jonah]] believes that humanity is irredeemably despicable and doesn't deserve the Earth, after all our monstrous acts against each-other and after we've negatively altered the environment to the point of risking the first mass extinction since the dinosaurs. His solution is to let an even ''more'' wantonly-malicious monster (King Ghidorah) clear us off, even when it becomes apparent that said monster will reshape the global environment in a way that will cause ''at least as much'' global extinction as humans are causing but at a far more rapid rate. At the end of the day, Jonah doesn't care what happens to the world, [[MisanthropeSupreme so long as there's no humans left in it]].

* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'': Tywin Lannister suspects his son Tyrion is a bastard -not for any logical reason, he just despises Tyrion and desperately wishes he wasn't actually his son- but somehow this doesn't taint his memory of his late wife, who would have had to have cheated on him for this to be true. One theory for why this is comes from the books' indication the Mad King took "liberties" during the bedding ceremony, possibly indicating he was attracted to Tywin's wife and raped her later (this has, however, already been debunked). So if Tywin believed this or suspected it at least, that might explain both his view of Tyrion and not blaming his wife (the latter would be compassionate for that society).

* ''[[Fanfic/WhatGoesAroundComesAroundMiraculousLadybug Truth & Journalism]]'': After the fall of Hawkmoth, [[ConspiracyTheorist Jalil]] falls into a rabbit hole where he convinces himself that Ladybug was secretly EvilAllAlong, while Hawkmoth intended to use the Miraculouses to create a utopia. One of the cornerstones of his argument? That Chat Noir was revealed to be Hawkmoth's ''son'', and must have been working with his father all along -- proof that both he and Ladybug were evil, despite how Jalil ''also'' insists that Hawkmoth was actually good.

* In ''Fanfic/{{Cain}}'', Bakugou Katsuki's "[[InsaneTrollLogic rationalizations]]" for his obsessive desire to derail Izuku's apprenticeship with All Might are ''riddled'' with this. [[spoiler:They're early hints at his SanitySlippage and eventual FaceHeelTurn.]]
** Katsuki believes that Izuku is too much of a crybaby to be a hero and that Izuku is faking his displays of emotion for calculated sympathy.
** Katsuki thinks that Izuku is dumb, useless, and incompetent, and also that Izuku is a villain competent enough to take control of All Might, the UA staff, [[spoiler:and the Aldera staff after Katsuki has his UA application rejected]].
** Katsuki insists that, by trying to derail Izuku's chance at being a hero, he is nobly saving Izuku from inevitably dying from a villain's attack, and therefore all his actions are for Izuku's own good. He also insists that Izuku is a villain who deserves to suffer and whom Katsuki needs to defeat (and later, destroy).
** Katsuki thinks he's the greatest and everybody's hero and that nobody likes Izuku, outright counting on everyone at Aldera to join him in hurting Izuku and helping him get away with it. He also claims that Izuku has spent their lives constantly spinning situations so that people think Katsuki is the bad guy and like Izuku over him.
** Katsuki has spent the last nine years thinking Izuku deserves to suffer and acting on this belief to deprive Izuku of normal life pleasures and also thinks that Izuku has never had to struggle and that Katsuki's own life has been unreasonably hard in comparison.
** In addition to Izuku, this type of thinking also applies to other characters such as All Might. Katsuki believes that All Might is the strongest hero in the world and that he never loses, yet is also a victim that's not above being brainwashed by Izuku's villainous manipulations (again, simultaneously believing him to be an incompetent dumbass) despite the glaring fact that Izuku is a kid while All Might is an adult with ''plenty'' of experience dealing with villains capable of mind games.
*** On that note, Katsuki, ironically, ''[[HisOwnWorstEnemy himself]]'' isn't safe from this. In general, he prides himself as a natural-born hero destined to be the next "All Might" and an obvious superior to Izuku. Yet, [[CircularReasoning circularly]], he claims to be a "victim" of Izuku's manipulations and gaslighting and feels oppressed, but not really, since Izuku is too weak to make him a victim. ''Rinse''. ''And''. ''Repeat''.
* ''Fanfic/ACaseStudyInTheSturdinessOfTheRookie9'': During the Chuunin Exams, Team 7 betrays [[spoiler:Team 10]], claiming that they should have been ''anticipating'' such a move because the Exams are NotAGame and need to be taken seriously. Shino and Sakura then insist that their victims are being 'overdramatic' when they [[WhatTheHellHero call them out]], and that they were just "minorly inconvenienced". Because betraying and ditching their allies in a place called the ''Forest of Death'', surrounded by teams from rival villages, isn't ''that'' big a deal, even while they're simultaneously declaring that they need to take the dangers posed by the Exams seriously.

!!Examples

** Later on, he amends his beliefs slightly after one of Lila's schemes [[TheFarmerAndTheViper leaves him holding the bag]]. Obviously what she did to ''HIM'' was wrong and needs to be immediately addressed, and if that leads to her other crimes being exposed and addressed, so much the better... yet when [[spoiler:his classmates learn about his BetrayalByInaction]], he once again insists that nothing she did was ''that'' bad. Save for how ''he'' was hurt, anyway.

* ''Fanfic/TheKarmaOfLies'': Adrien claims that it's best to let Lila go unchallenged because her {{Con Artist}}ry "isn't really hurting anyone", and they don't want to upset her by revealing the truth. He continues insisting this even when Marinette tells him point-blank that ''she's'' being hurt, declaring that [[BecauseYouCanCope she can handle it]] despite her ''clearly'' asserting otherwise. Naturally, [[spoiler:the rest of the class is unimpressed when they learn about his BetrayalByInaction -- especially since they had been sitting there outlining all the things they'd lost courtesy of Lila's deception, only for Adrien to trot this same excuse out in his defense]].

* In ''Fanfic/{{Cain}}'', Bakugou Katsuki's [[InsaneTrollLogic rationalizations]] for his obsessive desire to derail Izuku's apprenticeship with All Might are ''riddled'' with this. [[spoiler:They're early hints at his SanitySlippage.]]
** Katsuki believes that Izuku is both too much of a crybaby to be a hero, and also that Izuku is faking his displays of emotion for calculated sympathy.

** Katsuki insists that, by trying to derail Izuku's chance at being a hero, he is nobly saving Izuku from inevitably dying by a villain's attack, and therefore all his actions are for Izuku's own good. He also insists that Izuku is a villain who deserves to suffer and whom Katsuki needs to defeat (and later, destroy).
** Katsuki thinks he's the greatest and everybody's hero and that nobody likes Izuku, outright counting on everyone at Aldera joining him in hurting Izuku and helping him get away with it. He also claims that Izuku has spent their lives constantly spinning situations so that people think Katsuki is the bad guy and like Izuku over him.
** Katsuki has spent the last nine years thinking Izuku deserves to suffer and acting on this belief to deprive Izuku from normal life pleasures, and also thinks that Izuku has never had to struggle and that Katsuki's own life has been unreasonably hard in comparison.

* ''TabletopGame/GeniusTheTransgression'' has the Phenomenologists, a MadScientist Splat based on a [[IRejectYourReality rejection]] of [[SarcasmMode silly outdated concepts]] like "[[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve truth]]" and "[[InsaneTrollLogic logic]]". Their special ability allows them to [[ConsummateLiar automatically succeed on Subterfuge checks]], since they always [[BelievingTheirOwnLies Believe Their Own Lies]].
* In ''TabletopGame/MageTheAscension'', the entire universe ran on this trope. The laws of nature are subjective, so you can bend them in any way you make yourself believe is true. ''However'', you have against you not only your own preconceptions of reality, but also everyone else's views of reality. If you abandon consensual reality in favor of your own, you become an insane Marauder. Thus, you need to live in two very different universes simultaneously, believe in your own reality as well as the reality imposed by mainstream civilization. One group of Mages, the "Void Engineers", are notoriously bad at this. Their style of Magic is like being a ''Franchise/StarWars'' Jedi as well as a ''Franchise/StarTrek'' TechnoBabble engineer who can solve any problem by ReversePolarity, and they keep forgetting that technology doesn't work like that in RealLife. To avoid going off the deep end, they have little computers constantly reminding them to treat the mainstream laws of nature with a minimum of politeness. No lightsabers in public places!
* Other games in the ''TabletopGame/OldWorldOfDarkness'' also contained certain vampire disciplines and maybe wraith arcanoi that allowed people to manipulate themselves in this way, securing them against mind-reading et cetera. (''Most'' countermeasures against mindreading was merely mental shields or masks, however.)

** [[NotSoWellIntentionedExtremist Alan Jonah]] believes that humanity is irredeemably despicable and doesn't deserve the Earth, after all our monstrous acts against each-other and after we've negatively altered the environment to the point of risking the first mass extinction since the dinosaurs. His solution is to let an even ''more'' wantonly-malicious monster (King Ghidorah) clear us off, even when it becomes apparent that said monster will reshape the global environment in a way that will cause ''at least as much'' global extinction as humans are causing but at a far more rapid rate. [[MisanthropeSupreme Jonah's hatred for humanity is just THAT powerful]].

* On ''Series/YesMinister'' and ''Series/YesPrimeMinister'', Sir Humphrey ''probably'' doesn't engage in doublethink themself; they just say whatever will further their agenda, whether they believe it or not. However, they sometimes try to encourage doublethink in Hacker, when they need the Minister to accept an argument despite the evidence against it. (When Hacker says they want something done ''now'', Humphrey famously responds, "It takes time to do things now.")

[[folder:Advertising]]
* [[NeurosisCommercialis As is well known]], advertisements are where logic goes to die and finding a well reasoned argument in a commercial is slightly harder than finding a unicorn, but the makers of the ads must surely see their competitors’ ads on television or radio, and as such notice that their own ads use logic just as flawed as the competition, but never change their tactics. In other words, they must genuinely believe both that their customers are smart enough to see through and be unconvinced by their competitors’ claims, but at the same time genuinely believe their customers are not smart ''enough'' to see through their own claims, despite both being equally obviously fallacious.
[[/folder]]

* The Innuendo Studios video [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMabpBvtXr4 "The Card Says Moops"]] is essentially a long-form breakdown of the trope as it applies to right-wing politics. Basically, right wingers on the internet are capable of believing blatantly contradictory ideas, as long as it is ''advantageous'' to do so. The mistake that leftist makes is assuming their opponents are as equally committed to determining truth - when it really comes down to ''power''.

[[quoteright:220:[[WebComic/DorkTower https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/doublethink.png]]]]

* Discussed in ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'' episode "[[Recap/TheOwlHouseS2E6HuntingPalismen Hunting Palismen]]". Protagonist Luz Noceda has two goals: become a witch in the Boiling Isles, and get home to her mother on Earth. Trouble is, the former is just vague enough that it's not worthy of a palisman, since a palisman requires its user to have a specific life goal they want to achieve; "become a witch" and "go home" aren't enough. Besides that, an ArmorPiercingQuestion from Boscha makes Luz realize that these two desires are mutually exclusive. If Luz goes home to Earth, she'll be back with her mother but unable to use magic, because magic doesn't work in the human world. If Luz stays on the Boiling Isles, she'll probably become a witch but will never see her mother again. This causes Luz to realize that [[AndThenWhat she hasn't really thought through her plans very well]].

* Demons, in Creator/{{C S Lewis}}’s fiction, particularly ''Literature/TheScrewtapeLetters'' and Literature/TheSpaceTrilogy, hate all of creation and every living thing, [[SuicidalCosmicTemperTantrum including themselves]], so very much that they work to [[OmnicidalManiac destroy the entire universe and kill everyone]], and simultaneously love themselves (and ''[[ItsAllAboutMe only]]'' themselves) so much that they [[AGodAmI believe themselves divine]] and endeavor to coerce every other creature to worship them as well. They also deny the existence of the true God while [[FlatEarthAtheist knowing for certain that He exists, is truly the Supreme Being, and created them]]. This is because the demons’ self-worship came first, and only when the rest of the world did not fall in line did their anger stew until it became absolute hatred. {{This Very Wiki}}’s page for ''Literature/{{Perelandra}}''[[note]]the second book in the Space Trilogy[[/note]] calls this position [[DeconstructedTrope insane, like that of a man who saws off the tree branch he himself is sitting on]]. It’s suggested that the demons have had a VillainousBreakdown for millennia, ever since Lucifer’s original fall, but sadly they are so innately powerful that no mere mortal can do anything to stop them and [[TurnsRed they’ll ruin as much of creation as they can before their final defeat]].

** A ''lot'' of [[CloudCuckooLander Dale Gribble's]] UsefulNotes/ConspiracyTheories run on these. For the most part, Dale simultaneously thinks of "the government" as an all-powerful entity that can do whatever it wants without repercussion, while also believing that every government figure of any kind of authority whatsoever is an incompetent moron. The irony of this doublethink on Dale's part is that there's an actual conspiracy going on nearby -- his wife Nancy has been cheating on him with John Redcorn for years, and Dale has never noticed. This has been used to show both that Dale isn't all really there mentally and that his thought process is [[IRejectYourReality so far gone that he just invents his own reality]] where he's always right.