Orwell's Big Brother in Primitive Cultures, part II (in America and the West)
...waging war, creating economic shortages, and imparting false knowledge to the people through tortuous activities. Big Brother, a figment of Orwell’s imagination at the time, is certainly an issue of the present and certainly one of the future. In the present, society has its own Big Brother “watching over them.” Our society is run by computers with bar codes and numeric sequences that are all registered into an online database. Everything having to do with sequential numbers is in this database, from drivers’ licenses to identification, genetic coding, bank accounts, credit cards, stocks, birth certificates, social security numbers, is in this database. Every person is accounted for by a number: social security. From birth, this database collects everything it can on them. Medical records, passport applications, the first car they ever signed for, the first house they purchased, the number of groceries bought their entire life time using a credit card, amount of money in the bank accounts, everything, right down to the smallest transgression of a speeding ticket, this Big Brother collects it all, keeping a close eye on everyone. Then as society began developing, Big Brother began to make his presence apparent. Department stores put up security cameras, banks and automatic tellers have cameras, street lights have hidden cameras, cars have hidden cameras. No matter where anyone chooses to go, they are always being watched by someone, videotaped by something. This gave way into something new for the database: a face for a number. Before security and hidden cameras, John Smith was only number 593-98-0022, born November 9, 1957 to Wendy and George Smith of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, residing at...A myriad of information was available in this database for John Smith, number 593-98-0022, right down to his genetic make up, creating an uncomfortable anonymity for society. Information was out there, but so were fifteen-thousand John Smiths. Then came the hidden cameras. Without warning, a face was etched into the database’s memory, a face to go with the number. Every person caught on a hidden camera has been identified, marked, and placed with his/her name, social security number, and any other personal information that there is to know about them. There is no more anonymity. John Smith, number 593-98-0022 is a blond, blue-eyed male who at such and such a date was about 45 years of age, weighing 187 pounds, and tested positive for HIV. Then there is the Trojan Horse of our society that Big Brother has used to slip into everyone’s homes, jobs, and coffee shops: the Internet. The internet was the wave of the future. One could order flowers, type for taxis, reserve plane tickets, take high school courses, buy clothes, sign for a car, trade stock, and transfer money in banks through dial-up or digital connections. What a convenience for a nation that is characterized as lazy. Everything ever thought possible can be done with the click of a mouse or the stroke of a few keys while sitting comfortably in one’s own home. From the moment one si...