What is big brother. Big brother is watching you

Big Brother is a character in the famous novel by George Orwell "1984", the eternal leader of Oceania and the Ingsots party. After he came to power, the history of Oceania was completely rewritten, Big Brother became its main character, the sole leader of the party since pre-revolutionary times. Other significant participants in the events of that time were erased from memory. In the book, Big Brother is presented as a black mustachioed man around the age of 45, with a rough but masculinely attractive face. Big Brother's face is featured on numerous posters throughout Oceania. “On every landing, the same face looked out from the wall. The portrait was made in such a way that no matter where you went, your eyes would not let go. The older brother is looking at you, the caption read. Whether Big Brother really exists or is just an image created by propaganda is unknown. The protagonist, Winston Smith, asks the zealous party member O'Brien: "Does he exist in the sense in which I exist?", And he hears in response: "The elder brother exists and is immortal - as the personification of the party."

In the book "The 101 Most Influential Non-Existent Personalities," Big Brother, who has become a symbol of totalitarianism and government control over man, took second place.

In 1998, the annual "Big Brother Award" was established for the most flagrant violation of the freedom of citizens by a state or company.

Now "Big Brother" is a common name for a state or organization seeking to establish total surveillance or control over the people. After the book was written, the theory “Big Brother is watching you” appeared, according to which the secret services of all developed countries organized a mechanism for total surveillance of citizens, organizations and other states, including surveillance of Internet users. However, every year we receive more and more evidence that this is actually happening around us.

Surveillance is carried out on the Internet, by monitoring cellular communications and any communications, through payments using electronic systems, video surveillance equipped with face recognition systems, through documenting movement in transport and across borders. Search services are a particularly convenient tool for collecting information about Internet users: by setting search queries, the user involuntarily informs the search engine, and through it - to special services and other interested organizations, a lot of information about their interests and preferences, as well as their social circle. Other convenient means of collecting information are email and instant messengers, as well as browsers and the operating system installed on the user's computer.

Only sophisticated precautions can resist such surveillance, which include the use of cryptography, open source software, and anonymization tools.

George Orwell and his immortal works "Animal Farm" ("Animal Farm") and "1984" are real monuments that can serve as an indispensable tool for studying the basics of a totalitarian regime and contain a description of all its key methods and practices. Each of them is the features of the modern world that the author has suffered, experienced on his own experience and bitterly realized by the author. Today we will talk a little about what made Orwell create his anti-utopias, study the main features of totalitarian regimes using the example of the novel "1984" and try to apply the knowledge gained in practice, drawing analogies with the realities of today.

Great Expectations and Disappointments by George Orwell

George Orwell (or Eric Arthur Blair is his real name) is a British subject born in India. It was England that became the country that inspired Marx to study the labor of factory workers and became the laboratory for the famous Capital. Orwell was an ideological follower of his teachings, who considered it his duty to ensure the possibility of fair remuneration and guarantees of rest for the working people and to make a feasible contribution to the establishment of the world domination of the proletariat. To this end, Orwell participated in the war of liberation in Spain. It is unlikely that he regretted his everyday life at the front, but these days were the hardest experience in his life, which made him reconsider his idealistic views on socialism and communism. He captured the most striking events of this segment of Orwell's biography in the novel "Memory of Catalonia" (1937), as well as his essay "Memories of the War" (1942, hereinafter - essay).

War is devoid of any kind of romance, war is hard, thankless work, it is dirt in every sense of the word.

"Lice are lice and bombs are bombs, even though you're fighting for the fairest cause in the world" (1).

The first thing that the author recalls in his essay is “disgusting smells of human origin are haunting you everywhere.” Orwell describes the barracks latrine in detail and admits that it "does its bit to destroy my illusions about the Spanish Civil War." Toilets, sweat, blood, rotting, mutilation, corpses... What could be worse than these military paraphernalia? Even greater disgust and physical rejection cause moral impurity. Propaganda, injustice, global lies - this face of war becomes the most unbearable for Orwell. He is bitterly aware that the most just cause can use the most unjust methods, and is not at all ready to put up with this - he tirelessly writes about this:

“As for the broad masses, their opinions, which are unusually rapidly changing in our days, their feelings can be regulated like a stream of water from a tap, all this is the result of the hypnotic influence of radio and television. For intellectuals, such metamorphoses, I think, are rather caused by concerns about personal well-being and simply about physical safety. At any moment they may turn out to be both “for” war and “against” war, in neither case having a clear idea of ​​what it is” (2).

“I saw little of the atrocities in the war in Spain<…>. What struck me, and continues to strike me, is the habit of judging atrocities by believing or questioning them, according to the political preferences of those who judge. Everyone is ready to believe in the cruelties perpetrated by the enemy, and no one - perpetrated by the army, which they sympathize with; facts are simply not taken into account” (3).

“I remember I once said to Arthur Koestler: “History stopped in 1936,” and he nodded, immediately understanding what he was talking about. Both of us meant totalitarianism in general and especially in those particulars that are characteristic of the Spanish Civil War. Even from a young age I was convinced that there is no event that a newspaper would tell truthfully, but only in Spain for the first time I saw how newspapers manage to cover what is happening in such a way that their descriptions do not have the slightest relation to the facts - it would be even better if they blatantly lied. I read about major battles, although in fact not a shot was fired, and I did not find a single line about battles when hundreds of people died. I read about the cowardice of regiments that actually displayed desperate courage, and about the heroism of victorious divisions that were miles from the front line, and in London the newspapers picked up all these fictions, and enthusiastic intellectuals invented deep theories based on events that never happened. . In general, I saw how history is written based not on what happened, but on what should have happened according to various party “doctrines” (4).

All these events left an indelible imprint on Orwell's memory. From now on, he became an opponent not only of capitalism that oppresses the proletariat, but most importantly, of the hypocritical and perverted forms of pseudo-socialist states - fascism and Russian socialism, which are based on true terror and oppression of the personality of their citizens.

It was these motives that served as the starting point for the creation of his immortal works "Animal Farm" and "1984". If the first novel describes in color the revolutionary process of regime change and the establishment and gradual perversion of the dictatorship of the welfare state, then the second novel describes the life of a totalitarian state in its heyday.

A significant amount of evidence suggests that the Soviet Union is the prototype of Oceania, and the Big Brother (or “Big Brother” - in the translation of V. Golyshev) is Joseph Stalin. Both contemporary to the author and to us, the illustrations depict a tireless observer without fail "with a mustache" and with an obvious resemblance to Joseph Vissarionovich.

It was the ideological enemy that drew the English writer and Soviet intelligence.

However, let's leave this peremptory accusation of Orwell's exposure of the Stalinist regime in the Soviet past. Of course, Orwell hated with all his heart the regime that had been established in the Soviet Union and drew a huge number of horrific examples precisely from Soviet reality. But he hated fascism, Spanish communism, degenerate English socialism no less. In one of his letters, Orwell explains his motivation for creating 1984:

“My new novel is not an attack on socialism or the British Labor Party, which I support ... I am sure that totalitarian ideas have roots in the minds of intellectuals and have tried to carry these ideas to their logical conclusion. The events of the book take place in Britain precisely to show that the English-speaking countries are no better than any other, and that totalitarianism, if not fought against, will triumph everywhere” (5).

The task of his work was not so much to denounce the regimes existing and contemporary to the author, but to send a warning to posterity in the distant future about what the most good and liberal intentions can “degenerate” into in building a state of general welfare and justice. He did not count on the understanding of his contemporaries, feeling like a stranger in his time. He admitted this in his “Little Poem”: “…I wasn’t born for an age like this” (A little poem, 1935).

It seems that Orwell was right, because in the 21st century his works have become especially popular. Indeed, today many of the terms introduced by the writer have become not only capacious designations for the key attributes of a totalitarian state, but have also firmly entered the everyday lexicon to describe the everyday phenomena of modern politics. With the words of the heroes of "1984" and quotes from the work, we will describe the "very juice" of totalitarianism. We hope this will inspire you not only to refresh many moments of the novel in your memory, but also to reflect on this topic.

Totalitarian patchwork

Big Brother or Big Brother

“On every landing, the same face looked out from the wall. The portrait was made in such a way that no matter where you stood, your eyes would not let go. BIG BROTHER IS LOOKING AT YOU - read the caption "(6) ⓘ Here and below page-by-page references to Orwell, George. 1984: [novel] / George Orwell; [translated from English. - V. Golysheva] - Moscow: AST, 2015. - 351 p..

"From every noticeable angle, the face of a black-whiskered looks out."

“On coins, on stamps, on book covers, on banners, posters, on cigarette packs, everywhere. Everywhere you are pursued by these eyes and envelops the voice. In a dream and in reality, at work and at food, on the street and at home, in the bathroom, in bed - there is no salvation. Nothing is yours but a few cubic centimeters in the skull” (7).

“Big Brother is the image in which the party wants to appear before the world. Its purpose is to serve as a focus for love, fear and reverence, feelings that are more easily directed to one person than to an organization. Under Big Brother is the Inner Party; its number is limited to six million - a little less than two percent of the population ... "(8).

War

“War, however, is no longer the desperate confrontation that it was in the first half of the 20th century. These are military actions with limited goals, and the opponents are not able to destroy each other, they are not materially interested in the war and do not oppose each other ideologically” (9).

“The essence of war is the destruction not only of human lives, but of all products of human labor. The main goal of modern warfare is to use up the production of the machine without raising the general standard of living. Even when weapons are not destroyed on the battlefield, their production is a convenient way to waste human labor and produce nothing for consumption” (10).

“At the same time, thanks to the feeling of war, and therefore of danger, the transfer of all power to the small top seems to be a natural, necessary condition for survival” (11).

“As an administrator, a member of the Inner Party must often know that this or that military report is not true, often he knows that the whole war is a fake and is either not being waged at all, or is being waged not at all for the purpose declared” (12) .

“In the past, the rulers of all countries, although they understood the commonality of their interests, and therefore limited the destructiveness of wars, still fought with each other, and the winner robbed the vanquished. These days they don't fight each other. War is waged by the ruling group against its subjects, and the purpose of war is not to avoid the capture of its territory, but to preserve the social order. Therefore, the very word "war" is misleading. We probably do not err against the truth if we say that, having become permanent, the war ceased to be a war ”(13).

doublethink

“The party says that Oceania has never entered into an alliance with Eurasia. He, Winston Smith, knows that Oceania was allied with Eurasia only four years ago. But where is this knowledge stored? Only in his mind, and he, one way or another, will soon be destroyed. And if everyone accepts the lies imposed by the party, if all the documents contain the same song, then this lie settles in history and becomes the truth. “Who controls the past,” says the party slogan, “controls the future; who controls the present controls the past. And yet the past, by its nature changeable, has never been changed. What is true now is true from time immemorial and forever and ever. Everything is very simple. All you need is a continuous chain of victories over your own memory. This is called "the conquest of reality"; in Newspeak, "doublethink".

“Knowing, not knowing; to believe in one's truthfulness, stating a deliberate lie; adhere simultaneously to two opposing opinions, understanding that one excludes the other, and be convinced of both; kill logic with logic; reject morality by proclaiming it; to believe that democracy is impossible and that the party is the guardian of democracy; forget what you want to forget, and recall it again when you need it, and immediately forget it again, and, most importantly, apply this process to the process itself - this is the subtlety: consciously overcome consciousness and at the same time not be aware that you are doing self-hypnosis. And you won’t even understand the word “doublethink” without resorting to doublethink” (14).

Demonstrations

“The workers left the factories and institutions and marched through the streets with banners, expressing gratitude to the Elder Brother for a new happy life under his wise leadership” (15).

Ministry of Truth (see also Past)

“In the largest section of the documentary department, there were people whose only task was to seek out and collect all copies of newspapers, books and other publications to be destroyed and replaced” (16).

“And somewhere, it is not clear where, anonymously, there was a guiding brain that drew a political line, according to which one part of the past had to be preserved, another to be falsified, and the third to be completely destroyed” (17).

Thoughtcrime

“It seemed to him that only now, having regained the ability to express thoughts, did he take an irrevocable step. The consequences of any action are contained in the action itself. He wrote:

Thought crime does not entail death:
thoughtcrime IS death.

“As we have already seen with the word 'free', some words that used to have a harmful meaning were sometimes kept for the sake of convenience - but cleared of undesirable meanings. Countless words such as "honor", "justice", "morality", "internationalism", "democracy", "religion", "science" simply ceased to exist. They were covered and thereby canceled a few generalizing words. For example, all the words grouped around the concepts of freedom and equality were contained in one word "thought crime", and the words grouped around the concepts of rationalism and objectivity were contained in the word "old thinking". Greater accuracy would be dangerous. According to his views, a member of the party had to resemble an ancient Jew who knew, without going into details, that all other peoples worshiped "false gods." He did not need to know that the names of these gods were Baal, Osiris, Moloch, Astarte, etc.; the less he knows about them, the more useful it is for his orthodoxy…”.

“We are enemies of the party. We do not believe in the principles of Ingsoc. We are thought criminals."

Newspeak

“You probably think that our task is to invent new words. Nothing happened. We destroy words by the dozens, hundreds every day. Don't you understand that the purpose of Newspeak is to narrow the horizons of thought? In the end, we make thoughtcrime simply impossible - there will be no words left for it. Each necessary concept will be expressed by a single word, the meaning of the word will be strictly defined, and secondary meanings will be abolished and forgotten ... Every year there are fewer and fewer words, everything is narrower and narrower than the boundaries of thought ”(18).

“Thinking in our modern sense will not exist. The faithful do not think - they do not need to think. Faithfulness is an unconscious state” (19).

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Victory

“The coming victory is an article of faith” (20).

“Three powers not only cannot conquer one another, but would not receive any benefit from this. On the contrary, as long as they are at enmity, they prop each other up like three sheaves. And as always, the ruling groups of the three countries are both aware and at the same time not aware of what they are doing. They have devoted themselves to conquering the world, but at the same time they understand that the war must go on constantly, without victory” (21).

“War has always been the guardian of sanity, and if we talk about the ruling classes, probably the main guardian. As long as the war could be won or lost, no ruling class had the right to be completely irresponsible. But when the war becomes literally endless, it ceases to be dangerous” (22).

Victory personifies not only the unattainable ideal and the dogma of faith, but also all other non-moral stimulating, intoxicating substances. Coffee, cigarettes and gin - all as one bear this proud name - "Victory" - this is all that motivates you to remain courageous and cheerful to live on.

P roly

Of course, "proles", in the English version "proles" - nothing more than an abbreviation for "proletariat". It will be useful to recall the origin of this word. From lat. Proletarius - not having, having only "proles" - from the Latin "offspring". It is precisely such, the have-nots, that Orwell draws a large part of the population of Oceania.

“If there is hope (Winston wrote), then it is in the proles” (23).

“If there is hope, then there is nowhere else for it to be: only in the proles, in this mass swirling in the backyards of the state, which makes up eighty-five percent of the population of Oceania, can a force capable of destroying the party be born. (…) Prolam, if only they could realize their power, conspiracies are useless. It is enough for them to stand up and shake themselves - like a horse shakes off flies. As soon as they want it, tomorrow morning they will smash the party to pieces” (24).

“They will never rebel until they become conscious, and they will not become conscious until they rebel” (25).

“Hard physical labor, caring for the house and children, petty quarrels with neighbors, cinema, football, beer, and most importantly gambling - that's all that fits into their horizons. It is considered undesirable for the proles to have a strong interest in politics. All that is required of them is primitive patriotism to appeal to when it comes to lengthening the working day or reducing rations. And if discontent seizes them - this also happened - this discontent leads to nothing, because due to the lack of general ideas it is directed only against small specific troubles ”(26).

"As the party slogan says, 'Proles and animals are free'" (27).

Past or "unsteady" past

“If a party can thrust its hand into the past and say about this or that event that it never happened, this is more terrible than torture or death” (28).

“Who controls the past,” says the party slogan, “he controls the future; who controls the present controls the past” (29).

“Daily and almost every minute the past was adjusted to the present. History, like old parchment, was scraped clean and rewritten, as many times as necessary. The issue of The Times, which, due to political changes and the erroneous prophecies of Elder Brother, was reprinted perhaps a dozen times, is still dated in the binder with the previous date, and there is not a single refuting copy in nature ”(30).

With statistics

“Statistics in their original form is the same fantasy as in the corrected one. Most often, it requires you to suck it out of your finger. For example, the Ministry of Plenty expected to produce 145 million pairs of shoes in the 4th quarter. It is reported that 62 million were actually produced. Winston, rewriting the forecast, reduced the target figure to 57 million - so that the plan, as always, turned out to be overfulfilled. In any case, 62 million is no closer to the truth than 57 million or 145. It is very likely that the shoes were not made at all. It is even more likely that no one knows how much it was produced, and, most importantly, does not want to know. One thing is known: an astronomical amount of shoes are produced on paper every quarter, while half the population of Oceania goes barefoot. The same is with any documented fact, large and small. Everything blurs in a ghostly world, and even today's date can hardly be determined" (31).

“The TV screen kept spouting fabulous statistics. Compared to last year, there is more food, more clothes, more houses, more furniture, more pots, more fuel, more ships, more helicopters, more books, more newborns - more than anything but disease, crime, and insanity. Every year, every minute, everything and everyone is rapidly rising to new and new heights” (32).

TV screen

“The telescreen worked both for reception and transmission. He caught every word ... (...) Of course, no one knew whether they were watching him at that moment or not. You had to live - and you lived, out of habit, which turned into an instinct, with the knowledge that your every word was being overheard and your every movement, until the lights went out, they were watching ”(34).

Economy and trade deficit

“... there was no food at home - except for a slice of black bread, which had to be saved until tomorrow morning” (35).

“In party stores, one everyday product, then another, was always disappearing. Now the buttons will perish, then the darning, then the laces ... ”(36).

“For as long as he could remember, food was never plentiful, there were never whole socks and underwear, furniture was always shabby and shaky, rooms were always unheated, trains in the subway were crowded, houses were dilapidated, bread was dark, coffee was vile, tea - a rarity, cigarettes - a few: nothing cheap and in abundance, except for synthetic gin. Of course, the body gets old and everything becomes wrong for it, but if you feel sick from an uncomfortable, dirty, meager life, from endless winters, from hardened socks, eternally faulty elevators, from ice-cold water, rough soap, from a cigarette disintegrating in your fingers , from the sharp taste of food, does this mean that this way of life is not normal? ”(37).

Orwell and modernity

Rereading Orwell, you are surprised how accurately and firmly many things have become part of our modern life. We can assume that the search for an analogy of the concepts considered is fantasy or even paranoia, or Orwell can be considered a prophet.

Endless warfare has long been a reality since the world became aware of such phenomena as terrorism, organized crime and corruption. You can endlessly declare war on them, direct colossal funds to combat these phenomena, justify many impartial political decisions with them, but it is impossible to win.

The annoying TV screen daily pours out tons of information that is far from reality and politically biased, and new historical facts or revelations have long shaken the picture of the world that seemed to be firmly established in school history lessons. "Doublethink" has enslaved media workers - the ministries of truth, and those who yesterday were historians today are reduced to third-rate talk shows in which history, science, and truth are renounced.

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Everyone decides for himself whether to accept this reality as a given and adapt to these manifestations of the modern world or fight them. If you chose the path of Don Quixote, then let the same Orwell encourage you, although his hero could not save himself and was “corrected” by the system ...:

"If you feel that it's worth being human, you won them anyway" (38).

“If you are in the minority - and even in the singular - this does not mean that you are insane. There is truth and there is untruth, and if you hold on to the truth, even in spite of the whole world, you are not mad” (39).

Hero 1984 Winston dedicated his diary to the future generation with hope:

“To the future or the past - a time when thought is free, people differ from each other and do not live alone, a time where truth is truth and the past does not turn into fiction. From the era of the same, the era of the lonely, from the era of Big Brother, from the era of doublethink - hello!

Let's send our greetings to a brighter future!

Links to sources

Remembering the War in Spain // Orwell, George. Barnyard. In memory of Catalonia. 1984. Essay / George Orcall. – M.: AST: Astrel, 2011. S. 504 Ibid. S. 506. Ibid. S. 508. Ibid. S. 513.

Orwell's letter to Francis Henson, July 16, 1949. Op. Quoted from: Golozubov A. Wolf and Sheep: George Orwell's Myths // Orwell, George. Barnyard. In memory of Catalonia. 1984. Essay / George Orwell. – M.: AST: Astrel, 2011. P.17. P. 4. P. 31. P. 233. P. 206. P. 212. P. 213. P. 214. P. 222. C. 40. C. 65. C. 45. C. 48. C. 58-59. P. 60. P. 214. P. 219, 220. P. 221 P. 77. P. 78. P. 79. P. 80. P. 81. P. 38. P. 39. P. 45. P. 46. ​​P. 67. P. 4. P. 5. P. 7. P. 55. P. 67. P. 184. S. 244.

Orwell, George. 1984: [novel] / George Orwell; [translated from English. - V. Golysheva] - Moscow: AST, 2015. P. 32.

Cover: Frame from the film "1984" (1956).

The expression about Big Brother is well known to both lovers of social dystopias and non-readers in general. Another thing is that they understand the meaning of these words differently.

Where did the phrase "Big Brother is watching you" come from?

The phrase "Big Brother is watching you" became famous after the release of the novel "1984" by the famous British writer J. Orwell, which continued the theme of the "betrayed" revolution, begun in his own work "Animal Farm", which was an allegory for the October Revolution of 1917 and subsequent developments in Russia.

Curious fact. The phrase “Big brother is watching you” was first translated by V. Golyshev in the Russian edition of the book as “Big brother is watching you”, but this translation did not take root in oral speech, transforming into a more tense “Big brother is watching you”. The same option was also used when dubbing film adaptations of the work (films).

What does it sound like in George Orwell's book?

The big brother in Orwell's book is the leader of the British revolution of the 50s, the founder of the Ingsots party and the ruler of the totalitarian state of Oceania. The image is frighteningly infernal, because none of the ordinary citizens of Oceania even knows (and many do not even think about) how real this person is, whether Big Brother really exists or is it just a phantom, a product of propaganda, the personification of the party. Only one thing is known - what it looks like; his portraits, painted in such a way that a person, wherever he stands, constantly feel the eyes of Big Brother on himself, hang on every square in London. The feeling of constant close attention is additionally pumped up by the inscription under the image - "Big Brother is watching you" and the fact that these words are supported by an extensive network of observers and informers for the timely identification and elimination of dissidents.

It is generally accepted that Orwell chose Stalin, a man and ruler whom the writer hated with all his heart, considering him a "traitor to the revolution", as one of the prototypes for the image of Big Brother. It was his features, a black-haired and black-moustached middle-aged man, that were used by the author of "1984" to create a portrait of the ruler of Oceania. However, in his interview with Life magazine, J. Orwell mentioned that when creating the book he “had in mind totalitarianism as such, specially modeling it in English society in order to show that no society is immune from such a fate”, especially since it is generally recognized that the fact that the only state that does not monitor its citizens is one that is physically incapable of providing appropriate measures.

Curious fact. In 1998, the American annual "Big Brother Award" was established for the most flagrant violation of the freedom of citizens by a state or company, and in 1999, as if in mockery, the first reality show "Big Brother" was launched on Dutch television, in which several people , selected according to the degree of maximum quarrelsomeness with each other, live in a closed space, literally stuffed with CCTV cameras, following the orders of Big Brother, who watches them around the clock, whose word is law. Adaptations of this show took place in several countries, including Russia.

In modern society, the term "Big Brother" is used to denote totalitarianism, anti-democracy and surveillance.

Curious fact. J. Orwell is the author of a number of stable expressions and terms, for example, "cold war", "doublethink", "orthodoxy".

The one that threw the cat Lola in the trash could only happen in Britain. Not because bank employees throw cats out only in Britain, but because only in Britain there is a security camera hanging on every corner.

Foggy Albion in this regard is ahead of the rest. According to a 2007 official report, there are 4.2 million security cameras operating in the UK at the same time. That is, approximately one cell for 14 people. If this is not impressive, then such a trump card is about 20% of the "world stocks" of security cameras :)) The average Briton gets into the field of view of the security camera 300 times a day.

The data, unfortunately, is from 2007. From the moment of publication, journalists regularly, word for word, as I am now, repeat these magic numbers. Even if they are not entirely true, the trend is on the face, however.

"Big Brother is watching you," Orwell wrote. This spring, journalists calculated that there were 32 security cameras operating within a radius of 200 yards (180 meters) of the author of "1984".

What are they following? The official version is behind the crimes. It is believed that this stops some.

The government spared no money in its time for the development of this infrastructure. Newspapers also added fuel to the fire. The most faint of heart managed to inspire the idea that the security camera = security. I personally met people who installed security cameras in their homes.

In reality, only 3% of crimes are solved with the help of security cameras.

You understand, Big Brother and surveillance is a grateful topic.

Last year, literally 100 meters from my office, the famous graffiti artist Banksy painted the following:

One nation under CCTV - a reference to the famous "One nation under god" - a fragment of the Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag.

Stephen Fry made a good point. What a stupid word CCTV (Closed-circuit television)! Even such a strong message as One nation under CCTV does not sound.

Worse than the traffic police, damn it.

PS. The graffiti was covered up by local authorities in April 2009. This is not the first time London County has destroyed works that would sell for £200,000 or more at auction. Big brother is watching you!

From 1922 to 1927, the future writer served in the colonial police in Burma, after which he lived for a long time in Great Britain and Europe, earning his living by odd jobs, at the same time he began to write fiction and journalism. Blair's first novel, Pounds in Paris and London, was published in 1933. A year later, two more books were published: The Priest's Daughter and Burmese Days. In 1935, the writer took on the pseudonym " George Orwell"and left for Spain to take part in the Civil War - later the story was devoted to this period "Memory of Catalonia"(1936) and the essay "Remembering the War in Spain" (1943).

In his famous book "Barnyard"(1945) Orwell showed the rebirth of revolutionary principles and programs. A kind of allegory for the revolution of 1917 and subsequent events in Russia, is still being reprinted and enjoys constant success. Dystopian novel "1984" (1949) became the ideological continuation of Animal Farm - the book depicted a totalitarian hierarchical system based on sophisticated physical and spiritual enslavement, permeated with universal fear, hatred and denunciation. The terms used in the novel, such as "doublethink", "newspeak" and "orthodox", are used to this day.

During his relatively short writing career Orwell wrote eight novels, 16 poems, as well as a great many essays and articles of a socio-critical and cultural nature.

"Evening" offers you a selection of famous quotes from the classics of modern literature.

"Absolutely white, like absolutely black, seems to be some kind of visual defect.

"All animals are equal, but some animals more equal than others".

"There is truth and there is untruth, and if you stick to the truth, even in spite of the whole world, you are not mad."

"Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. Serious sport is war minus murder".

"The totalitarian state establishes dogmas that cannot be changed and changes them from day to day."

"The one who controls the past controls the future. The one who controls the present controls the past."

"Nine times out of ten, a revolutionary is rock climber with a bomb in his pocket".

"A hierarchical society is possible only on the basis of poverty and ignorance."

"Freedom is the right to tell people what they don't want to hear."

"Each generation considers itself smarter than the last and wiser than the next."

"If the main goal in life is not the number of years lived, but honor and dignity, then what's the difference when to die?"

"People can be happy only on the condition that they do not consider happiness the goal of life."

"Life can give just one relief- intestines.

"Individual possesses power to the extent that he has ceased to be an individual."

"Big brother is watching you".