Why wasn't O'Brien considered a thought criminal?

Question

Given that O'Brien shows a high level of awareness of the Party's deceptiveness and malice (e.g. the fact that he admitted to being involved in creating and promoting the Goldstein myth), to what extent does he actually believe in the system himself? Why wasn't he considered a thought criminal? Or were Inner Party members not actually expected to conform to the party's beliefs to the same extent that Outer Party members were as long as everyone else was convinced that they did? Or is he practicing some form of doublethink?

By way of example, he said in chapter 3:

The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness; only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing.

I suppose that a closely related question is whether the telescreen in his house actually worked and whether he could actually turn it off. If it worked, who was monitoring him, and what were they actually monitoring?

Answer 1

One of the primary ways that the Party differs from other dictatorships is that they know full well what they are doing (seeking power for its own sake), so it's perfectly natural that O'Brien would be aware of it. In a sense, the fact that he accepts that is evidence that he's not a thought criminal, and him refusing to accept that would be thoughtcrime.

So, the Party's actual philosophy was a lot different than what it projected to others (big surprise). That being said, O'Brien did, in fact, believe the Party's philosophy - it's just that agreeing with the system means that he agreed with the Party pursuing power for its own sake.

With regards to the telescreen issue, it's worth noting that conversations held while the telescreen was supposedly off were still recorded. (It's not known if that was because the telescreen was on the whole time or if O'Brien was simply using a different recording device).

The book tells us very little about other members of the Inner Party or the specifics of its internal governance structure, so it's a little unclear whether Inner Party members would still be watched by the Thought Police or by other Inner Party members. We do know that the Inner Party is structured as an oligarchy, and that it's very debatable whether Big Brother actually exists or not; these facts at least suggest a relatively flat power structure, but the point isn't directly provable from the books. So, again, it's not clear exactly what the actual mechanism would be to hold another Inner Party member accountable for thought crime would be (especially if there's not actually a central "leader," so to speak).

It's also worth noting that O'Brien insists that the Party declaring something to be true could quite literally make it true; given that he appeared to be truthful about the Party's philosophy in other places, it's safe to assume that he actually believed this himself. This belief is related to - but definitely different than - solipsism. The Party wants to rewrite the past? Well, the past only exists in peoples' memories and in written records, and the Party controls both. The Party says that 2 + 2 = 5? Well, it's true because they claimed it is.

Presumably that belief would entail some kind of doublethink on his part.

So, O'Brien's fully aware of the Party's malice and also believes that the Party can literally control truth. And yes, as @Gaurav pointed out in the comments, "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

Answer 2

O'Brien is the party, he is the one who creates the reality for others. He is a member of the "Inner Party" and the one who creates the illusion; O'Brien is the one in charge of everything and controlling society, and he is the one that labels thought criminals so.

Answer 3

I had the theory that when O'Brien revealed he trolled Winston, he was a prisoner of the thought police who was used to attract thought criminals. He mentions he wrote the manifesto and that " “They got me long ago.” He seems to understand thought crime way too intimately for someone who is blindly loyal to the party.

What if the thought police convert people just like they did with Winston? It is strange that they never killed Winston but instead exhausted resources to convert him. I think the party prefers to convert as somebody who knows thoughtcrime can be used as a dangerous weapon. What if Obrien climbed through the ranks after his conversion as the party completely cured his insanity? He would no longer be a threat as his will was broken. So he was given all the rights of an inner party member.

Maybe that also explains how Winston trusted him based on intuition alone. Because at the time he was or had been a thought criminal.

I think it would have been cool to learn more about O'Brien but the majority of the fun comes from not knowing who he is.