Editing Memory hole

{{short description|Mechanism to erase public records}}
{{Other uses}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2021}}
A '''memory hole''' is any mechanism for the deliberate alteration or disappearance of inconvenient or embarrassing documents, photographs, transcripts or other records, such as from a [[website]] or other archive, particularly as part of an attempt to give the impression that something never happened.<ref name="mother">[http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/06/nevada-tea-partier-memory-hole-website-sharron-angle-harry-reid-senate Weinstein, Adam, ''Nevada Tea Partier's Memory Hole'', 9 June 2010] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100613222435/http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/06/nevada-tea-partier-memory-hole-website-sharron-angle-harry-reid-senate |date=13 June 2010 }}. [[Mother Jones (magazine)|Mother Jones]].</ref> The concept was first popularized by [[George Orwell]]'s 1949 [[utopian and dystopian fiction|dystopian novel]] ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]'', where [[the Party (Nineteen Eighty-Four)|the Party]]'s [[Ministry of Truth]] systematically re-created all potentially embarrassing historical documents, in effect, re-writing all of history to match the often-changing state propaganda. These changes were complete and undetectable.

==Origins==
In ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'', the "memory hole" is a small chute leading to a large [[incinerator]] used for [[:censorship]]:<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/google-s-memory-hole-a-bottomless-pit-don-pittis-1.2641648|title=Google's memory hole a bottomless pit: Don Pittis|last=Pittis|first=Don|publisher=[[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation]]|date=13 May 2014|access-date=3 August 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html?_r=0|title=Amazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle|last=Stone|first=Brad|work=[[The New York Times]]|date=19 July 2009|access-date=3 August 2014}}</ref>

{{quote|In the walls of the cubicle there were three orifices. To the right of the speakwrite, a small [[pneumatic tube]] for written messages, to the left, a larger one for newspapers; and in the side wall, within easy reach of Winston's arm, a large oblong slit protected by a wire grating. This last was for the disposal of waste paper. Similar slits existed in thousands or tens of thousands throughout the building, not only in every room but at short intervals in every corridor. For some reason they were nicknamed memory holes. When one knew that any document was due for destruction, or even when one saw a scrap of waste paper lying about, it was an automatic action to lift the flap of the nearest memory hole and drop it in, whereupon it would be whirled away on a current of warm air to the enormous furnaces which were hidden somewhere in the recesses of the building.<ref>Orwell (1954) pp. 34–35.</ref>}}

''Nineteen Eighty-Four'''s protagonist [[Winston Smith (Nineteen Eighty-Four)|Winston Smith]], who works in the [[Ministry of Truth]], is routinely assigned the task of revising old newspaper articles in order to serve the propaganda interests of the government. In one instance, the weekly chocolate ration was decreased from 30 grams to 20. The next day the newspaper announced that the chocolate ration had not been reduced to 20 grams per week, but ''increased'' to 20 grams. Any previous mention of the ration having been 30 grams per week needed to be destroyed.

The memory hole is referenced while O'Brien tortures Smith; O'Brien produces evidence of a coverup by the Party, exciting Smith that such documentation exists.  However, O'Brien then destroys the evidence in the memory hole and denies not only the existence of the evidence but also any memory of his actions.  Smith realizes that this is [[doublethink]] in action, as O'Brien has actively suppressed his memory of both a politically inconvenient fact and his action taken to destroy the evidence of it.<ref>{{cite book|title=On "Nineteen Eighty-Four": Orwell and Our Future|last=Bhabha|first=Homi K.|chapter=Doublespeak and Minority of One|publisher=[[Princeton University Press]]|year=2010|isbn=978-1400826643|pages=32–33|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vynzZcvqmVgC&pg=PA32}}</ref>

== See also ==

{{portal|Novels}}
* {{annotated link|/dev/null}}
* {{annotated link|Ash heap of history}}
* {{annotated link|Bit bucket}}
* {{annotated link|Blue wall of silence}}
* {{annotated link|Book censorship in the United States}}
* {{annotated link|Burn bag}}
* {{annotated link|Censorship of images in the Soviet Union}}
* {{annotated link|Cover up}}
* {{annotated link|Damnatio memoriae}}
* [[De-commemoration]]
* {{annotated link|Historical revisionism}}
* {{annotated link|The Memory Hole (web site)}}, a website whose goal was to preserve documents which were in danger of being lost
* [[Motivated forgetting]]
* {{annotated link|Pact of forgetting}}
* [[Colonial amnesia|Postcolonial amnesia]]
* {{annotated link|Retcon}}
* [[Selective omission]]
* {{annotated link|Spiral of silence}}
* [[Truth-seeking]]

==References==
'''Notes'''
{{reflist}}
* Phelps, Richard P. (2020, Summer) [https://www.nas.org/academic-questions/33/2/down-the-memory-hole-evidence-on-educational-testing Down the Memory Hole: Evidence on Educational Testing], Academic Questions.

'''Sources'''
{{refbegin}}
* George Orwell, ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]'', first published by Martin Secker & Warburg, London, 1949. This reference, [[Penguin Books]] pocket edition, 1954.
{{refend}}

== External links ==
* {{wiktionary-inline}}

{{Censorship}}
{{Nineteen Eighty-Four}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Memory Hole}}
[[Category:Fictional elements introduced in 1949]]
[[Category:English phrases]]
[[Category:Historical negationism]]
[[Category:Nineteen Eighty-Four]]
[[Category:Political catchphrases]]