Called “deconstruction” or “cancel culture,” George Orwell had his novel’s main character, Winston, working at the Ministry of Truth where his job was to falsifies the nation’s past, thus allowing the government to alter the trajectory of the nation’s future.
After altering historical records, the truth was put down a “memory hole” which took it to an incinerator in the basement:
“I know, of course, that the past is falsified, but it would never be possible for me to prove it, even when I did the falsification myself.
After the thing is done, no evidence ever remains. The only evidence is inside my own mind, and I don’t know … that nay other human being shares my memories … Everything faded into mist. The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth.”
Orwell added:
“Those who control the past control the future, and those who control the present control the past.”