Dystopia

[Chesterton]

Here's the Wiki for List of Dystopian Literature. You'll notice it starts in the 19th century and continues to flourish through the 20th, and continues today. So you notice this begins right at the fruition of the Enlightenment era, when Western civilization began to turn from religion to reason and science. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction states that dystopian works depict a negative view of "the way the world is supposedly going in order to provide urgent propaganda for a change in direction."

So my topic is that Western civilization sought and effected a change in direction (from religion to reason/science), and then immediately started reasoning (correctly IMO) that the change is bad, and can inevitably lead to nothing but horror. Weird, huh?

By way of footnote I should remind you that the most famous dystopian novel, 1984, was based on actual Soviet society, so dystopia certainly isn't confined to speculative fiction. We've seen the horrors of it lived out in Russia, Germany, China, Cuba, North Korea, etc.

 

[~Zao~]

More likely they stayed within the structure of the curbed street diagrammed of the crocked road city planning, that being as breathlessly out of control since before the beginning of time to the point that spiralling felt normal so everyone just fell into threat of normalcy ... a chemical fragrance familiar

 

[Nithavela]

Here's the Wiki for List of Dystopian Literature. You'll notice it starts in the 19th century and continues to flourish through the 20th, and continues today. So you notice this begins right at the fruition of the Enlightenment era, when Western civilization began to turn from religion to reason and science. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction states that dystopian works depict a negative view of "the way the world is supposedly going in order to provide urgent propaganda for a change in direction."

So my topic is that Western civilization sought and effected a change in direction (from religion to reason/science), and then immediately started reasoning (correctly IMO) that the change is bad, and can inevitably lead to nothing but horror. Weird, huh?

Dystopian fiction is just a sub-genre of specutalive fiction, where the author extrapolates the current state of the world and makes a few assumptions to end up with a fictional future world in which he sets his story. In dystopian fiction, the world is overwhelmingly negative, while in utopian fiction it is overwhelmingly positive, with a lot of grey area in between.

I think that speculative fiction indeed coincided with a growing securalism in the world. People stopped viewing the world as god-given and permanent and instead saw it as constantly changing and evolving. Before that was the renessaince, where art was concentrated on the classical era, and before that were the middle ages where art always depicted the world as it presented itself to the artist, which is why medieval paintings show ancient soldiers looking just like their contemporary counterparts.

By stating that "western civilisation" decided that things were going down the drain, you are ignoring the huge mountain of utopian fiction which serves as a more upbeat and optimistic counterpoint. You are also ignoring the mountains of evidence of society moving in positive directions as a result of securalism, with more secular countries routinely scoring high in development indexes, citizen happyness, low crime rates and so on.

 

[HTacianas]

Here's the Wiki for List of Dystopian Literature. You'll notice it starts in the 19th century and continues to flourish through the 20th, and continues today. So you notice this begins right at the fruition of the Enlightenment era, when Western civilization began to turn from religion to reason and science. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction states that dystopian works depict a negative view of "the way the world is supposedly going in order to provide urgent propaganda for a change in direction."

So my topic is that Western civilization sought and effected a change in direction (from religion to reason/science), and then immediately started reasoning (correctly IMO) that the change is bad, and can inevitably lead to nothing but horror. Weird, huh?

By way of footnote I should remind you that the most famous dystopian novel, 1984, was based on actual Soviet society, so dystopia certainly isn't confined to speculative fiction. We've seen the horrors of it lived out in Russia, Germany, China, Cuba, North Korea, etc.

You could say that Mormonism is the first dystopian religion.

If you read Age of Reason, Thomas Paine attempted to use reason against Christianity. His argument was that all of the new planets discovered proved Christianity wrong. If all those planets existed, along with their inhabitants, the earth wasn't as special as Christianity made it out to be. His ideas went "viral" for decades after.

Joseph Smith had it that since there were all those planets existed, with all those inhabitants, they must all have their own gods.

Where did all those gods come from? Smith had the answer. Both Smith and Paine have since been proven wrong.

 

[Nithavela]

What you also shouldnt forget is that a world where everyone is happy and where the protagonist is living an idyllic, peacefull and fullfilled life makes for a boring story.

 

[Tom 1]

Here's the Wiki for List of Dystopian Literature. You'll notice it starts in the 19th century and continues to flourish through the 20th, and continues today. So you notice this begins right at the fruition of the Enlightenment era, when Western civilization began to turn from religion to reason and science. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction states that dystopian works depict a negative view of "the way the world is supposedly going in order to provide urgent propaganda for a change in direction."

So my topic is that Western civilization sought and effected a change in direction (from religion to reason/science), and then immediately started reasoning (correctly IMO) that the change is bad, and can inevitably lead to nothing but horror. Weird, huh?

By way of footnote I should remind you that the most famous dystopian novel, 1984, was based on actual Soviet society, so dystopia certainly isn't confined to speculative fiction. We've seen the horrors of it lived out in Russia, Germany, China, Cuba, North Korea, etc.

I think a fair bit of it hinges on Neitzsche’s ‘God is dead’ notion, the idea that mankind needed to move beyond looking to a deity for moral guidance, and create his own moral principles. He was aware of how badly that could turn out, and (I think) also the virtual (?) impossibility - or just impossibility- of completely disentangling any ‘new start’ from what went before. As an idea I’m not sure if it has really got much past some interesting rhetoric.
It’s interesting also that Marx launched into his ideas of building a different society with his cryptic rant about some private issue he had with God, or the idea of God. It all seems to be the sort of thing that the story of the apple and the snake in Genesis is getting at.

 

[Eudaimonist]

So my topic is that Western civilization sought and effected a change in direction (from religion to reason/science), and then immediately started reasoning (correctly IMO) that the change is bad, and can inevitably lead to nothing but horror. Weird, huh?

I love dystopian fiction, but that certainly isn't my evaluation of what it actually is.

Dystopian fiction isn't about "fear of change", and it does NOT claim that change is inevitably bad. I can't think of even a single dystopian novel that makes that claim, or even implies this.

Indeed, the scariest dystopias are about societies that are so stable that they barely change at all. Two examples:

George Orwell's 1984 is that world's "end of history". The world is stuck with three giant superpowers (Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia) that are locked in an endless war which continues indefinitely because it preserves the structure of their societies. There is no hope for change.

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is about an ultra-conservative world state that controls its citizens through mental programming, happy pills, and the promotion of shallow hedonism. This society too has no end in sight. It will last as long as humanity lasts.

There is nothing about these novels that suggests that change is automatically good or bad. They are warnings about travelling in the wrong direction and then getting stuck!

In my reading of the cause of dystopian fiction, the big changes in people's lives during the rise of capitalism (and later, socialism) gave people the sense that change is possible. Regarding of how they felt about either of these developments, many people saw the possibility of positive change.

With the awareness that positive change is possible came the realization that negative change is also possible. Utopian novels appeared along with dystopian novels exploring such possibilities.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Chesterton]

Dystopian fiction is just a sub-genre of specutalive fiction, where the author extrapolates the current state of the world and makes a few assumptions to end up with a fictional future world in which he sets his story. In dystopian fiction, the world is overwhelmingly negative, while in utopian fiction it is overwhelmingly positive, with a lot of grey area in between.

I think that speculative fiction indeed coincided with a growing securalism in the world. People stopped viewing the world as god-given and permanent and instead saw it as constantly changing and evolving. Before that was the renessaince, where art was concentrated on the classical era, and before that were the middle ages where art always depicted the world as it presented itself to the artist, which is why medieval paintings show ancient soldiers looking just like their contemporary counterparts.

By stating that "western civilisation" decided that things were going down the drain, you are ignoring the huge mountain of utopian fiction which serves as a more upbeat and optimistic counterpoint. You are also ignoring the mountains of evidence of society moving in positive directions as a result of securalism, with more secular countries routinely scoring high in development indexes, citizen happyness, low crime rates and so on.

I'm not ignoring anything. Utopian literature dates as far back as Plato, Cicero, Augustine, etc. I'm talking about what I made the thread about, which seems to have begun in the 19th century.

What you also shouldnt forget is that a world where everyone is happy and where the protagonist is living an idyllic, peacefull and fullfilled life makes for a boring story.

Then why did they write boring stories? The truth is they're boring because they're bad stories.

Some early utopian literature includes imaginings of theocracy, which I suppose would be dystopia to a fellow like you. Also, what I heard once, is that science fiction fans distinguish between hard and soft SF - hard being plausible and realistic, and soft being that which uses magical plot devices. Dystopian literature, no doubt influenced by science and technology, uses things like the drug in Brave New World, and the ubiquitous video cameras in 1984. Utopian novels use stuff like space aliens, or "a guy falls into a crack in the ground and Poof! lands in a utopia". They're very fanciful. So utopian literature is for the most part bad literature, and not much worthy of consideration. Children's stories such as Aschenputtel, Schneewittchen, and Das Kapital have more realistic and important ideas in them.

 

[Chesterton]

I love dystopian fiction, but that certainly isn't my evaluation of what it actually is.

Dystopian fiction isn't about "fear of change", and it does NOT claim that change is inevitably bad. I can't think of even a single dystopian novel that makes that claim, or even implies this.

That's what the Greek prefix "dys-" in dystopia means - bad. Bad, pain, trouble, unhappy, abnormal - too many connotations to list, but they're all bad. Even today, if someone insults you, you've been "dyssed".

Indeed, the scariest dystopias are about societies that are so stable that they barely change at all. Two examples:

George Orwell's 1984 is that world's "end of history". The world is stuck with three giant superpowers (Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia) that are locked in an endless war which continues indefinitely because it preserves the structure of their societies. There is no hope for change.

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is about an ultra-conservative world state that controls its citizens through mental programming, happy pills, and the promotion of shallow hedonism. This society too has no end in sight. It will last as long as humanity lasts.

There is nothing about these novels that suggests that change is automatically good or bad. They are warnings about travelling in the wrong direction and then getting stuck!

Stuck in the wrong direction is bad. Wrong = bad.

In my reading of the cause of dystopian fiction, the big changes in people's lives during the rise of capitalism (and later, socialism) gave people the sense that change is possible. Regarding of how they felt about either of these developments, many people saw the possibility of positive change.

With the awareness that positive change is possible came the realization that negative change is also possible. Utopian novels appeared along with dystopian novels exploring such possibilities.

It's not about change in general. Ancient peoples knew much better than we do how much change is always possible. They lived in a time when their entire political, religious and social order could be overturned suddenly by the next alien army sweeping over the border, which happened a lot more often back then. I seriously wish that we in the West today realized it as well as they did.

 

[Chesterton]

I think a fair bit of it hinges on Neitzsche’s ‘God is dead’ notion, the idea that mankind needed to move beyond looking to a deity for moral guidance, and create his own moral principles. He was aware of how badly that could turn out, and (I think) also the virtual (?) impossibility - or just impossibility- of completely disentangling any ‘new start’ from what went before. As an idea I’m not sure if it has really got much past some interesting rhetoric.

Yes, he knew it would turn out badly, but was unconcerned, and embraced it. "Beyond Good and Evil" simply means "Let's now call good evil, and evil good".

It’s interesting also that Marx launched into his ideas of building a different society with his cryptic rant about some private issue he had with God, or the idea of God. It all seems to be the sort of thing that the story of the apple and the snake in Genesis is getting at.

Yeah he had an issue with God. His initial interest as a young man (apart from drinking) was destroying religion, which only later spread to the related aim of destroying the free market (i.e., destroying freedom).