2 + 2 = 5
The phrase "two plus two equals five" is a slogan used in literature and other media, most notably the 1949 dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. In the novel, it is used as an example of an obviously false dogma that one may be required to believe, similar to other obviously false slogans promoted by Ingsoc in the novel.
Orwell's protagonist, Winston Smith, uses the phrase to wonder if the State might declare "two plus two equals five" as a fact; he ponders whether, if everybody believes it, that makes it true. The Inner Party interrogator of thought-criminals, O'Brien, says of the mathematically false statement that control over physical reality is unimportant; so long as one controls one's own perceptions to what the Party wills, then any corporeal act is possible, in accordance with the principles of doublethink.
Self-evident truth and self-evident falsehood
The equation 2 + 2 = 4 has been proverbial as the type of an obvious truth since the 16th century, and appears as such in Johann Wigand's 1562 De Neutralibus et Mediis Libellus: "That twice two are four, a man may not lawfully make a doubt of it, because that manner of knowledge is grauen into mannes nature."René Descartes' realm of pure ideas considers that self-evident idea such as two plus two equals four may, in fact, have no reality outside the mind. According to the First Meditation, the standard of truth is self-evidence of clear and distinct ideas. However, Descartes questions the correspondence of these ideas to reality.
In his play Dom Juan, Molière's title character is asked what he believes. He answers that he believes that two plus two equals four.
That 2 + 2 = 5 is the archetypical untruth is attested at least as early as 1728. Ephraim Chambers' Cyclopædia, or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, published in that year, follows its definition of the word absurd with this illustrative example: "Thus, a proposition would be absurd, that should affirm, that two and two make five; or that should deny 'em to make four." Similarly Samuel Johnson said in 1779 that "You may have a reason why two and two should make five, but they will still make but four."
The first known sympathetic reference to the equation 2 + 2 = 5 appears in an 1813 letter by Lord Byron to his soon-to-be wife Anabella Milbanke in which he writes, "I know that two and two make four—& should be glad to prove it too if I could—though I must say if by any sort of process I could convert 2 & 2 into five it would give me much greater pleasure."
French and Russian literature
Although the phrase "2 + 2 = 5" had earlier been used to indicate an absurdity in general, its use within a political setting is first attested at the dawning of the French Revolution. Abbé Sieyès, in his What Is the Third Estate?, mocked the fact that the Estates-General gave disproportionate voting power to the aristocracy and the clergy in with the following analogy: "Consequently if it be claimed that under the French constitution, 200,000 individuals out of 26 million citizens constitute two-thirds of the common will, only one comment is possible: it is a claim that two and two make five."Honoré de Balzac's novel Séraphîta contains the following passage:
Victor Hugo used this phrase in 1852. He objected to the way in which the vast majority of French voters had backed Napoleon III, endorsing the way liberal values had been ignored in Napoleon III's coup. In his 1852 pamphlet, Napoléon le Petit, he writes: "Now, get seven million five hundred thousand votes to declare that two and two make five, that the straight line is the longest road, that the whole is less than its part; get it declared by eight millions, by ten millions, by a hundred millions of votes, you will not have advanced a step."
Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky is known to be influenced by Hugo and his Napoléon le Petit. In Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground, the protagonist implicitly supports the idea of two times two making five, spending several paragraphs considering the implications of rejecting the statement "two times two makes four". His purpose is not ideological, however. Instead, he proposes that it is the free will to choose or reject the logical as well as the illogical that makes mankind human. He adds: "I admit that twice two makes four is an excellent thing, but if we are to give everything its due, twice two makes five is sometimes a very charming thing too."
The idea seems to have been significant to Russian literature and culture. Ivan Turgenev wrote in Prayer, one of his Poems in Prose "Whatever a man prays for, he prays for a miracle. Every prayer reduces itself to this: Great God, grant that twice two be not four." Also similar sentiments are said to be among Leo Tolstoy's last words when urged to convert back to the Russian Orthodox Church: "Even in the valley of the shadow of death, two and two do not make six." Even turn-of-the-century Russian newspaper columnists used the phrase to suggest the moral confusion of the age. Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin in God and the State, classifies Deism as: "Imagine a philosophical vinegar sauce of the most opposed systems, a mixture of Fathers of the Church, scholastic philosophers, Descartes and Pascal, Kant and Scottish psychologists, all this a superstructure on the divine and innate ideas of Plato, and covered up with a layer of Hegelian immanence accompanied, of course, by an ignorance, as contemptuous as it is complete, of natural science, and proving just as two times two make five; the existence of a personal God." In The Reaction in Germany Bakunin compares the behavior of Compromising Positivists to the one of Juste-milieu at the beginning of the July Revolution quoting a French journal: "The Left says, 2 times 2 are 4; the Right, 2 times 2 are 6; and the Juste-milieu says, 2 times 2 are 5".
Deux et deux font cinq was the title of a short story collection by French absurdist writer Alphonse Allais published in 1895. Similarly, a 1920 art manifesto by Russian imaginist poet Vadim Shershenevich was titled 2 × 2 = 5''.
Soviet planning poster
The Soviet Union began its first five-year economic plan in 1928. After 1930 Joseph Stalin announced that the plan would be completed in four years. Propagandist Iakov Guminer supported this campaign with a 1931 poster reading "Arithmetic of an alternative plan: 2+2 plus the enthusiasm of the workers=5". George Orwell may have been influenced by this poster.George Orwell
George Orwell had used the concept before publishing Nineteen Eighty-Four in 1949. During his career at the BBC, he became familiar with the methods of Nazi propaganda. In his essay "Looking Back on the Spanish War", published in 1943, Orwell wrote:In the view of most of Orwell's biographers, the main source for this was Assignment in Utopia by Eugene Lyons, an account of his time in the Soviet Union. This contains a chapter "Two Plus Two Equals Five", that referred to Guminer's slogan.
However, Orwell spoke of the Nazis, so he may have been making reference to the Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, who once, in a debatably hyperbolic display of loyalty to Adolf Hitler, declared, "If the Führer wants it, two and two makes five!"
In Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell writes:
After Orwell
In politics and religion
In presidential debates prior to the 2009 Iranian presidential elections, reformist candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi accused his interlocutor, president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, of being illogical and said: "If you ask what two by two makes he would answer five." In the following days, one of the slogans chanted by Mousavi's supporters was "two by two makes five!"Media critic Andrew Keen uses the phrase in his 2007 critique of Wikipedia's policy to let anyone edit. He believes, along with Marshall Poe, that this leads to an encyclopedia of common knowledge, not expert knowledge. He believes the "wisdom of the crowd" will distort truth.
In 2017, Italian Catholic priest Antonio Spadaro, a close associate of Pope Francis, tweeted "Theology is not #Mathematics. 2 + 2 in #Theology can make 5. Because it has to do with #God and real #life of #people..." This remark was taken by many traditionalist Catholics to be referring to alleged contradictions between certain interpretation of Amoris laetitia, an apostolic exhortation on how divorced and remarried Catholics can return to the church, and long standing Catholic doctrine on marriage, remarriage, and divorce. Some characterized Spadaro as alleging that one could act counter to the doctrine of the Catholic church if they felt that God allowed them to do so, in spite of any moral of theological contradictions encountered. Others have defended him, claiming that he was merely referring to the Catholic view that God will never be able to be perfectly comprehended by human reason alone. Others compared him humorously to Rex Mottram, a character in Evelyn Waugh's 1945 novel Brideshead Revisited. In the novel, Mottram, during his catechesis as he disinterestedly prepares to enter the Catholic church to marry another main character, makes no effort to rationally ascertain any aspect of the faith, attributing all contradictions to his sinfulness.
Cultural references
In Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, the hero John Galt posits that "the noblest act you have ever performed is the act of your mind in the process of grasping that two and two make four".The English rock band Radiohead used the slogan for their 2003 song "2 + 2 = 5".
In the ' episode "Chain of Command |Chain of Command, Part II", Captain Picard is tortured by a Cardassian in a manner similar to the torture of Winston Smith by O'Brien from Nineteen Eighty-Four. During the episode, the Cardassian officer tries to coerce Picard to admit seeing five lights when in fact there were only four. Picard valiantly sticks to reality. Near the end when Picard is about to be brought back to his crew, he defiantly declares, once again, "There!... Are!... Four!... Lights!" However, later in a counseling session with Troi, Picard admits that he believed he did see five lights at the end.
In the Iranian short film Two & Two, a teacher in an authoritarian school uses "2 + 2 = 5" as tool to instill conformity.
In the video game ', the character Ocelot will repeat "2 + 2 = 5," as one of a few phrases he says after telling the player he has received drug resistance training. This is a reference to Ocelot's own doublethink during the game.
In the video game Orwell, the achievement '2+2=5' is unlocked for ensuring the public acceptance of the Orwell surveillance system and the eradication of Thought, a prominent anti-government movement, therefore ensuring the continued and total control of The Nation's totalitarian government.
Brazilian songwriter Caetano Veloso wrote a song called "Como 2+2", in which one of the verses translates as "Everything all right like 2 + 2 are 5", a reference to the dictatorship that ruled Brazil then.
In the Sesame Street pitch tape, one of the Muppets suggests the title of the show to be the 2 and 2 Are Five Show; another Muppet turns down the proposed title with the remark "Are you crazy? This is supposed to be an educational show! Two plus two don't make five!"
Dostoevsky's dialogue about two times two equaling five is recited in the 2018 HBO movie Fahrenheit 451.
In business texts about synergy, "2 + 2 = 5" is used without irony to indicate that the outcome of a collective effort is greater than the sum of individual efforts.