In George Orwell's classic novel of a futuristic dystopian
society, 1984, the "telescreen" is an ubiquitous symbol of the
government's omniscient presence in the lives of its citizens. Orwell foresaw (perhaps
presciently) a future in which government would never trust its subjects and the
implementation of a totalitarian political system would serve to supplant any prospects
of insurrection against those who ruled. As Orwell noted early in his first
chapter, "[t]he instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there
was no way of shutting it off completely." The telescreen's presence, as the novel's
narrator would observe, was designed not just to project a constant stream of images and
words intended to manipulate and control the population but to actively monitor the
population, as is evident in the following passage, also from Chapter
One:
"The
telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above
the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it, moreover, so long as he
remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen
as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched
at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any
individual wire was
guesswork."
Orwell's
description of the telescreen and its role in monitoring and brainwashing the population
on behalf of the "Thought Police" provided his novel's most enduring image of an
autocratic regime determined to prevent the free expression of thought and the exercise
of any activity that could potentially be construed as threatening to the ruling
regime's hold on power. The telescreen has continued, as suggested, to serve as a
metaphor for a ubiquitous government that increasingly acts without the consent of those
it purports to represent while slowly but surely manipulating emotions to its
benefit.
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