George Orwell was an English essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterized by lucid prose, biting social criticism, opposition to totalitarianism, and outspoken support of democratic
socialism. As a writer, Orwell is best known for the book Animal Farm and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (
1984). He also wrote Homage to Catalonia, an account of his experiences as a soldier for the Republican faction of the Spanish Civil
War. The Spanish Civil
War played the most important part in defining Orwell's
socialism. Having witnessed the success of the anarcho-
syndicalist communities in Anarchist Catalonia, and the subsequent brutal suppression of the anarcho-
syndicalists… Read more by the Soviet Union-backed
Communists, Orwell was strongly influenced by the anarchist critiques of the Soviet regime, and by the anarchists' emphasis on individual
freedom. Orwell's work remains influential in popular culture and in political culture, and the adjective "Orwellian"?describing totalitarian and authoritarian social practices?is part of the English language, like many of his neologisms, such as "
Big Brother" and "Thought Police".
Big Brother is a fictional character and symbol in
George Orwell's dystopian 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. He is ostensibly the leader of Oceania, a totalitarian state wherein the ruling party, Ingsoc, wields total power "for its own sake" over the inhabitants. In the
society that Orwell describes, every citizen is under constant surveillance by the authorities, mainly by telescreens (with the exception of the Proles).
The people are constantly reminded of this by the slogan "
Big Brother is watching you": a maxim that is ubiquitously on display. In modern culture, the term "
Big Brother" has entered the lexicon as a synonym for abuse of
government power, particularly in respect to
… Read more civil liberties, often specifically related to mass surveillance.
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