Dear Hari in the Corner,
This is an intriguing question. As most people know it was George Orwell who originally came up with the concept of Big Brother watching you. But why did he choose an older brother? Well, I recently had a chance to sit down with George and ask him that exact question, here’s what he had to say. “…” Well, because he’s dead; so I couldn’t actually get a response from his corpse. However, I knew my readers wouldn’t be satisfied with that answer therefore neither was I. I called the Psychic Hot-line on t.v. and I had them get a hold of Orwell’s spirit on the “other side” so that I could pose my question. According to the spirit the reason for the Big Brother idea was that people always believe that their big brother will love them and will always being looking out for them. A big brother is seen as a protector of the weak and innocent. A big half-brother might not love you quite as much, in fact he may be secretly jealous of the attention you get from your mutual father. After all maybe your father secretly blames his older son for the break-up of his first marriage, whereas he might see his second child as a new beginning, sort of a second chance to get it right. Maybe your older half-brother sort of senses this and decides to take out his frustration on me. It’s nothing physical, but the mental and emotional cruelty I have to suffer through causes me to resent both of my parents for not being able to see whats going on and putting and end to it and when I grow up I become an alcoholic just so that I can dull the pain…uhh…that’s what George Orwell’s spirit said to me. And of course it wouldn’t be Big Cousin because some cousins aren’t really all that close in fact some cousins live on completely different continents so you know that your big cousin isn’t watching you and even if he was he probably doesn’t even know the two of you are cousins. That’s why Big Brother is the best choice.