https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/08/leftists_go_after_two_plus_two_equals_four.html
Those on the left continues to believe that, if they can erase the line between real and imaginary, they can convince people that socialism will work.
In George Orwell’s dystopian Nineteen Eighty-Four, the concept that two plus two equals four had extraordinary symbolic weight. The State, as embodied in Big Brother, controlled everything that people could think or say.
Part of how the rebellious Winston Smith fought back against this totalitarianism was to remind himself that, no matter what the State said, two plus two did, in fact, equal four. To the all-powerful State, though, Smith’s belief in objective math was a threatening form of insanity. The State therefore used a mixture of torture and cajoling to force Smith to embrace a State-sanctioned “sanity” that denied reality:
“You are a slow learner, Winston.”
“How can I help it? How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four.”
“Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.”
By the novel’s end, with the State’s torture having completely broken him, Smith readily conceded that, yes, if the State said that two plus two equals five, that would be the correct answer.