How We Write Dystopia
Added 2023-10-07 17:57:51 +0000 UTCMy little bonus video this month!
Comments
Have you read parable of the sower?? It’s incredible realistic dystopian novel following how society actually seems to be playing out. Instead of an authoritarian government the ruin is due to capitalism’s natural conclusion.
Natalia Anthony
2023-11-17 22:10:26 +0000 UTCIt’s an interesting point, and interesting partly because these forums, the vagrants, the marginals, etc, are so totally not the focus of like, the giver or 1984
Big Joel
2023-10-10 03:46:30 +0000 UTCI like your observation regarding commonalities between dystopian novels, but in the end your analysis feels a bit too much like the online left's classic "why don't they talk about capitalism?". That's a fair question, but in this context it's a bit uncharitable to the authors. Somewhat superficially, I don't think Atwood warning against making women into baby factories and Orwell thinking that people getting disappeared to general indifference is bad is an indication that they have accepted individual freedom as "unassailable". More to the point, these works confront the fact that industrial society, capitalist or otherwise, requires some degree of uniformity to function. Neatly organized communities whose way of life can be more easily administred. Forms that can be turned into statistics. The incentive for the state is to always demand more uniformity, and this is something to be vigilant about in any economic system. It is not just the "liberal subject" who is crushed by the state. Quite the contrary. The people who now support status quo liberalism in Western countries likely would have little trouble conforming to the demands of a more invasive state in exchange for greater material comfort. Rather, the victims of state power, of villagization, of resettlement, of forced language assimilation, of displacement in favor of state megaprojects, etc. are typically found at the ethnic, cultural and geographic periphery: they are nomads, vagrants, marginals, indigenous and colonized "for their own good".
Phil
2023-10-09 17:35:00 +0000 UTC
