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"In 1970 I found little difficulty staying 30 years ahead of the man in the street, and now I find it difficult to stay 18 months ahead of the man on the street."
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One of the main themes of 1984 is the control of individuals and information in society by the state. One tool is the Telescreen, an obligatory and dominant item in the homes of the inhabitants of London, capital city of Airstrip One (previously known as England).
George Orwell did not orginate the word telescreen. An earlier use can be found in a 1938 short story by writer A.J. Burks:
Earlier still (!), Francis Flagg (a pseudonym of George Henry Weiss'), wrote in After Armageddon (1932) used the hyphenated version - see tele-screen:
Television surveillance is an now and everyday experience, albeit most often in the form of security
cameras and speed
cameras; argument rages over the goodness or otherwise of these systems.
This quote has a bit more physical description:
It's possible that the idea of a television screen that transmitted as well as received might be present in this quote from Catch That Rabbit, a 1944 story by Isaac Asimov:
See the entry for the Televisor from Arthur J. Burks' 1938 novella The Challenge of Atlantis for more details. Also, compare to the street membranes from Yevgeny Zamyatin's 1922 We. Consider also the Mirror Grid Multiple-View Surveillance Panel> from Wandl, The Invader (1939) by Ray Cummings.
(This item was originally contributed by Simon Smith.) Comment/Join this discussion ( 3 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This | Additional
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