potentialities. The Queen in
Snow White
has a TV screen that puts out just one commercial. In England, Robert Greene has a TV screen or magic mirror for spying in
Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay
. That was about 1592. The word existed before the thing. In 1948 the thing was back, I think. It was evident then it was going to be a part of everybodyâs life. Among the ingenuous there was a feeling that the faces that spoke at you were really looking. The TV was intrusive. The first post-war programmes were more didactic than diverting. The screen was for big faces, not for the tiny figures of old movies. The adjustment of vision we take for granted now wasnât easy at first â I mean the ability to take in a Napoleonic battle on a pocket set. The TV set in the corner of the living-room was an eye, and it might really be looking at you. It was a member of the household, but it was also theagent of a great corporation. I remember a lot of people were shy of undressing in front of it.
You think this is comic? Listen â
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. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in on your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live â did live, from habit that became instinct â in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized
.
No, not comic, but not as frightening as all that. Itâs the
possibility
of being caught out by the electronic eye that constitutes the real intrusion. Winston Smith isnât pursued to either the kitchen or the toilet â not, anyway, in Victory Mansions â by Big Brother. (Incidentally, it seems to me all wrong that he should be allowed to live alone in a flat. Wouldnât it be a matter of dormitories with a police thug in the end bed?) There can be plenty of subversive thought in bed, in the dark. The telescreen is perhaps no real menace â any more than bugging is to those who know it is going on. Itâs a metaphor of the death of privacy. The important thing is that it canât be switched off. Itâs like muzak, a perpetual reminder of the presence of the big corporation, the State, the anti-self.
But Winston is actually watched. Heâs rebuked from the screen by the morning physical-jerks instructress
.
Yes, but the occasionâs comic. Weâre not far from the Billy Butlin Holiday Camps, so popular in the post-war days. You were awakened in the morning with jocular cries from tannoys. You were cajoled into before-breakfast exercises to loud music.
Did Orwell know about these camps?
No, he died before they got going. And they didnât know about him. But the interesting thing is that they were immensely popular for a time, and that was when the term
camp
and the thought of even harmless regimentation ought to have sickened the average Briton. Of course, they were comparatively cheap. But that wasnât enough to recommend them. Men came out of the army to spend a summer fortnight with wife and family in an ambience which had a great deal of the army aboutit â reveille, cookhouses, dining-halls, organized diversions, physical jerks (an aspect of army life which most soldiers hated worse than going into battle). There were uniformed camp officers called redcoats â a name uncomfortably close to redcaps, which was what the Military Police were called. And there was always this loud big-brotherly voice from the loudspeakers, exhorting everybody to be happy. Late drinkers-up in the canteen at closing-time were danced off in a cunning conga-line by the female redcoats. The Butlin Holiday Camps proved that the British proletariat was not really averse to discipline. The working man opposed to army life not civilian freedom so much as the infusion
Snow White
has a TV screen that puts out just one commercial. In England, Robert Greene has a TV screen or magic mirror for spying in
Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay
. That was about 1592. The word existed before the thing. In 1948 the thing was back, I think. It was evident then it was going to be a part of everybodyâs life. Among the ingenuous there was a feeling that the faces that spoke at you were really looking. The TV was intrusive. The first post-war programmes were more didactic than diverting. The screen was for big faces, not for the tiny figures of old movies. The adjustment of vision we take for granted now wasnât easy at first â I mean the ability to take in a Napoleonic battle on a pocket set. The TV set in the corner of the living-room was an eye, and it might really be looking at you. It was a member of the household, but it was also theagent of a great corporation. I remember a lot of people were shy of undressing in front of it.
You think this is comic? Listen â
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. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in on your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live â did live, from habit that became instinct â in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized
.
No, not comic, but not as frightening as all that. Itâs the
possibility
of being caught out by the electronic eye that constitutes the real intrusion. Winston Smith isnât pursued to either the kitchen or the toilet â not, anyway, in Victory Mansions â by Big Brother. (Incidentally, it seems to me all wrong that he should be allowed to live alone in a flat. Wouldnât it be a matter of dormitories with a police thug in the end bed?) There can be plenty of subversive thought in bed, in the dark. The telescreen is perhaps no real menace â any more than bugging is to those who know it is going on. Itâs a metaphor of the death of privacy. The important thing is that it canât be switched off. Itâs like muzak, a perpetual reminder of the presence of the big corporation, the State, the anti-self.
But Winston is actually watched. Heâs rebuked from the screen by the morning physical-jerks instructress
.
Yes, but the occasionâs comic. Weâre not far from the Billy Butlin Holiday Camps, so popular in the post-war days. You were awakened in the morning with jocular cries from tannoys. You were cajoled into before-breakfast exercises to loud music.
Did Orwell know about these camps?
No, he died before they got going. And they didnât know about him. But the interesting thing is that they were immensely popular for a time, and that was when the term
camp
and the thought of even harmless regimentation ought to have sickened the average Briton. Of course, they were comparatively cheap. But that wasnât enough to recommend them. Men came out of the army to spend a summer fortnight with wife and family in an ambience which had a great deal of the army aboutit â reveille, cookhouses, dining-halls, organized diversions, physical jerks (an aspect of army life which most soldiers hated worse than going into battle). There were uniformed camp officers called redcoats â a name uncomfortably close to redcaps, which was what the Military Police were called. And there was always this loud big-brotherly voice from the loudspeakers, exhorting everybody to be happy. Late drinkers-up in the canteen at closing-time were danced off in a cunning conga-line by the female redcoats. The Butlin Holiday Camps proved that the British proletariat was not really averse to discipline. The working man opposed to army life not civilian freedom so much as the infusion
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