With the popularity of The Hunger Games – books and movies – I started hearing the word dystopia more often. Dictionary.com defines the word as “a society characterized by human misery, as squalor, depression, disease, and overcrowding.” Its antonym, of course, is utopia.
The Hunger Games wasn’t the first dystopian novel. Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury and 1984 by George Orwell are probably two of the most famous. I’ve always had a fascination with dystopian novels, probably because they illustrate the worst WHAT IF scenario – what happens when a world, civilization, or society goes to extremes to control its people. These novels expose the dark underbelly of humanity.
Since the 18th century, there have been numerous dystopian novels. Here’s a partial list of the better known novels:
Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
The Time Machine by HG. Wells (1895)
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
The Trial by Franz Kafka
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis
Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler
The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Minority Report by Philip K. Dick
Anthem by Ayn Rand
Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Logan’s Run by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson
This Perfect Day by Ira Levin
Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy
The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula LeGuin
The Running Man by Stephen King
The Children of Men by P.D. James
The Giver by Lois Lowry
The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Special by Scott Westerfield
The Passage by Justin Cronin
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
The Road by Cormanc McCarthy
The Day After Tomorrow (based on Whitley Strieber’s book the Coming Global Superstorm)
Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut
A number of these titles were also made into movies. Sometimes, the movies were better than the novels. They breathed life and color and texture into the dystopian world.
Today, I came across a fascinating website, Dystopia Tracker, that keeps track of how many of the concepts in dystopian novels, movies, TV shows, and games have become a reality. They even have categories for these concepts: State & Control, Body & Mind, Relationships & Communication, Work & Business, Leisure & Entertainment, Cities & Environment, and War & Geopolitics.
There are excerpts from the various novels and movies. Beneath a startling number of them, you see the number of realizations that visitors have noted. Under the quote for Farenheit 451, for example, there are 2 realizations.
When you click it, you’re taken to a page that actually shows 3 realizations. The third one is rather curious: a Kindle user claims that you don’t really own your ebooks, that Amazon wiped out his entire Kindle library without explanation. I supposed that would be a form of book burning!
So when I was poking around on the site, I wondered what I have always wondered: do storytellers tap into a future that’s fixed? Or are they tapping into a quantum field of possibilities? If the future is NOT set in stone, if we create it collectively, moment to moment, then do these dystopian stories help us to avoid the future they depict?
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Happy Summer Solstice! May we collectively create a more humane and loving world.
Happy Solstice! Summer and Winter!
I think Darren’s comment is the best example of the answer to the question posed at the end of your post. It’s the longest day of the year for us in the Northern Hemisphere but the shortest for those in the Southern Hemisphere. It’s the example that Mother Earth (Spaceship Gaia) is full of polar opposites.
So while I agree more with Lauren that dystopian stories are a reflection of our current reality for a broad view (international news, global politics, actual societies) there’s a lot of personal utopia that exists in neighborhoods, families, and small scale day-to-day stuff. Like Megan’s art and how she teaches art. Or like my grandbabies. 😀
Grandbabies are the greatest motivation I’ve ever had to create utopia, regardless of the dystopia I was raised within…
intriguing post – and i think we definitely do collectively create our future – a number of the books i’ve read/movies i’ve seen – but many i have not – i don’t know that i will ever forget blade runner and solyent green – and a belated happy happy summer solstice!
dystopian stories have a number of effects, showing people a not quite worst case scenario and prepping them to be thankful for anything not “quite” so bad….. But question is HOW we AVOID such a downfall… hmmmmm, any direct answers!! maybe a general / capita decrease in CARBON footprint… finding a way to enjoy and exist on minimum resources…. hey Rob… reading a Koontz book early… scanned to a Brando bio… page xvi of intro read the word “klieg” 20 minutes later Koontz’s (Sole S.) book…. ones spelling of it “ie” the other “ei… then again in order to avoid the dystopia… honesty and understanding,,,, and REAL productive work………
I’m not sure that dystopian stories help us to avoid the future they predict – they could well do the opposite if they get into our thinking processes. It’s a tricky subject. But things that seem impossible now will come about, hopefully they will be for the good. If we let our imaginations fly the possibilities are limitless – we are very much still at the beginning.
I lost my post as the net went down here.
Orewell wrote Coming Up For Air about the regimentation of the corporate world with men coming out of suburban houses that looked the same wearing the same suit carring the same briefcase as like robots they all went for the train.
A song goes through my head about the book called Little Boxes where people live in houses full of Ticky Tack and they all look just the same.
Happy Solstice. I am watching the World Cup watching the oposite solstice in the southern hemisphere.
I haven’t read that Orwell book. Onto my ever growing list!
Right- the ticky tack song!
Blade Runner, THX-1138, Soylent Green, and the Terminator movies also represent visions of a dystopian future. Let’s hope society never devolves to *that* point. And if it does, at least we won’t be around to see it. Happy Summer Solstice! 🙂
Wow, how did I forget those? Blade Runner is one of my favorites!
Blessings at the Solstice!
Very interesting speculations………………I wonder if you ever read “The Fifth Sacred Thing” by Starhawk? She postulates a future in which California is split into two societies, one a right wing Christian dystopia, the other a kind of ecological utopia.
Personally, I think so much of this preoccupation with dystopia (you see it constantly in the movies, always violent societies where everyone is shooting it out) reflects not the future, but what we have now. Just turn on the TV – we have a patriarchal culture obsessed with power over, dominance through force rather than consensus, and abuse of the earth, rather than concern with healing and preserving our resources. We’re already a “dystopia”, and the paradigm out there cannot envision a future in which people, when confronted with crisis and change, actually cooperate and communicate, rather than reverting to fascism and violence.
And yet………….history does demonstrate that there have been many societies that have done exactly that. In fact, civilization is a form of massive cooperation and creative collaboration. Violence and force aren’t really creative – they may blight and enforce, but people share, create, and sustain only from love………..
Sorry about the lecture……………………..
HAPPY SOLSTICE!
Good points, Lauren! I haven’t read that Starhawk book, but onto my list it goes.
I wonder, too, if the future is fluid or fixed. I’ve read many of those books, and you reminded me of some that were incredibly good, I thought. That Marge Piercy book I haven’t thought of in years but immediately remembered scenes from it when I saw the title. I might re-read it. Happy Summer! 🙂
I loved that Piercy book and have it o my re-read list!
Good post and happy Winter Solstice from Down-under.
Today is the shortest day of the year for us.
Well, happy shortest day of the year, Daz!