Utopia/Dystopia
- Utopia - perfect society, especially as regards politics, social structure, and the economy. An environment that makes it easy for each person to be fulfilled and happy.
- Dystopia - the opposite of utopia. A society in which the conditions are extremely bad. Very difficult to be happy and/or fulfilled. Very possibly repressive society with strict rules that don’t necessarily make a whole lot of sense, and tend to make people miserable. A lot of fear, hate, and possibly violence. Often carries a current trend to extremes; cautionary tale.
- The reason I grouped them together is both that they are the two extremes of the same continuum, and that dystopias often masquerade as utopias. Brave New World, for instance. Everyone’s happy because they’re drugged. In fact it’s a crime to be unhappy. Free thought is discouraged. People are prepared through genetic engineering and behavior modification to be happy in whatever role society assigns them to. Not the utopia it appears in the beginning.
- Long history going back to Plato’s Republic 360 B.C.E.
- Explores the question of happiness and fulfillment - can you have a society where everyone achieves those states? Does it require a loss of freedom, and if so, is it a worthy trade?
- Have we outgrown Utopias as a society? When I think of Utopias, I either think of an unacceptable number of strictures - personal happiness subsumed in the happiness of the whole, or I think the author is naive, and I tend to be a pretty optimistic person.
- Explores human reaction to repression and unhappiness.
- Explores methods of obtaining control.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (also Post-apocalyptic)
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