What makes a story Dystopian?

[Paradoxum]

I don't think I'd go with governance or legality, but rather being systematic, pervasive and ongoing.

To take an extreme (hmm,and interesting) example a society that practically worships anarchy and systematically prevents governance would almost surely be dystopian.

One with no governmental structure because 99% of the population was wiped out by the meteor strike would not, as I see it, be dystopian per se.

I think you could say that is still somewhat connected to governance. Perhaps you could say that purposeful anarchy is a position on governance.

But perhaps you're right... maybe it's just about the bad affects of a widespread idea, ideology, or attitude.

 

[keith99]

I think you could say that is still somewhat connected to governance. Perhaps you could say that purposeful anarchy is a position on governance.

But perhaps you're right... maybe it's just about the bad affects of a widespread idea, ideology, or attitude.

Decades ago I read a very strange story. Told from the view of a high ranking police officer. In this world the civilians are divided into 2 almost 2 different races, pedestrians and automobile drivers. Police use strange kinds of transport, never anything with wheels as that would put them in the automobile driver class.

And All along they are talking about SQs. For any group in the population. Eventually we find our SQ = Sanity Quotient. The police, the face of the government seem to be doing all they can in a hopeless situation.

Would you consider this a dystopian story?

And does anyone else remember this one and perhaps the name?

 

[RDKirk]

A dystopian story is a story that puts a society under critical philosophical scrutiny.

There are degrees, I suppose. A story could have a "dystopian setting" while not caring much about that setting except as atmosphere. It could be an entirely different sort of story, such as a cop story or a love story. Blade Runner comes to mind.

A story gets deep into dystopian territory when the pattern of society itself comes under intense scrutiny. Examples are 1984, Brave New World, Anthem, Atlas Shrugged, We, Ecotopia, and A Handmaid's Tale.


eudaimonia,

Mark

I agree, that's what I've been trying to say, and your examples are good examples.

In the case of Fringe's Observers, the Observers and their technology are too far into the future to consider them any different from the Fithp or the Psychlos. It can't really be said that current trends are plausibly leading to them, as is the case with the works you cited.

 

[RDKirk]

Decades ago I read a very strange story. Told from the view of a high ranking police officer. In this world the civilians are divided into 2 almost 2 different races, pedestrians and automobile drivers. Police use strange kinds of transport, never anything with wheels as that would put them in the automobile driver class.

And All along they are talking about SQs. For any group in the population. Eventually we find our SQ = Sanity Quotient. The police, the face of the government seem to be doing all they can in a hopeless situation.

Would you consider this a dystopian story?

And does anyone else remember this one and perhaps the name?

I've heard someone else speak of that, but I haven't read it. Sounds like Dick, though.

 

[Paradoxum]

I agree, that's what I've been trying to say, and your examples are good examples.

In the case of Fringe's Observers, the Observers and their technology are too far into the future to consider them any different from the Fithp or the Psychlos. It can't really be said that current trends are plausibly leading to them, as is the case with the works you cited.

Observer tech might not exist soon, but significant human genetic engineering itself will be available this century... probably in my lifetime. I don't know how old you are, but my lifetime seems quite relevant.

The main Fringe problem is brain without heart, and that might be do-able.

 

[RDKirk]

Observer tech might not exist soon, but significant human genetic engineering itself will be available this century... probably in my lifetime. I don't know how old you are, but my lifetime seems quite relevant.

Well, when I was a teenager, we didn't think the first half of "2001: A Space Odyssey" should be considered science fiction. If we could go from getting a rocket off the pad only 50% of the time to placing a man on the moon in only nine years, surely we would have a permanent base on the moon, a permanent space station, and Pan Am commercial space flights in thirty years. That seemed like a no-brainer, a sure bet.

But here we are nearly half a century later, and we don't have a permanent space station, or a permanent moon base, or even Pan Am.

 

[Paradoxum]

Well, when I was a teenager, we didn't think the first half of "2001: A Space Odyssey" should be considered science fiction. If we could go from getting a rocket off the pad only 50% of the time to placing a man on the moon in only nine years, surely we would have a permanent base on the moon, a permanent space station, and Pan Am commercial space flights in thirty years. That seemed like a no-brainer, a sure bet.

But here we are nearly half a century later, and we don't have a permanent space station, or a permanent moon base, or even Pan Am.

I see your point, but genetic engineering isn't space travel.

Sure, maybe genetic engineering may grow slower than expected, but there's no reason to assume that.

 

[RDKirk]

I see your point, but genetic engineering isn't space travel.

Sure, maybe genetic engineering may grow slower than expected, but there's no reason to assume that.

Take human society as it is today and say someone discovered tomorrow how to increase IQ by 100 percent with a single $1,000,000 injection.

Who would get it, given today's economic and political environment? Enough to create an Observer world? Or a utopia? Or would the knowledge wind up being squandered and have no widespread social effect at all?

Let's face it: We have the technology and economic capability to have ended world hunger decades ago.

 

[TillICollapse]

In the case of Fringe's Observers, the Observers and their technology are too far into the future to consider them any different from the Fithp or the Psychlos. It can't really be said that current trends are plausibly leading to them, as is the case with the works you cited.

What makes Fringe unique, however ... is that concepts of past, present, and future, largely become irrelevant ... because the arena in which Fringe plays out involves competing causalities happening in real time, playing off each other. The past (all the way back to the First People) and the future (Observers) all arguably exist at various points in the multiverse, thus making concepts of past/present/future irrelevant in Fringe.

One reason I was so drawn to Fringe, is because it very much portrays a concept I've played with for some time: the idea that our own universe is comprised of a large number, perhaps near infinite, "causalities" ... all competing for each other, playing off each other. IOW ... what appears to be one continuous causality, is in reality various causalities interacting. One of the reasons I liked Fringe, is because it portrayed my own ideas lol

Observer tech might not exist soon, but significant human genetic engineering itself will be available this century... probably in my lifetime. I don't know how old you are, but my lifetime seems quite relevant.

The main Fringe problem is brain without heart, and that might be do-able.

Overall, the "answer" in Fringe is indeed the "heart": love. It becomes the unpredictable element which trumps the Observers probability factoring, imo. Some found this aspect to Fringe cheesy ... but I thought it played out in a way that actually made sense in the show, more or less.

Well, when I was a teenager, we didn't think the first half of "2001: A Space Odyssey" should be considered science fiction. If we could go from getting a rocket off the pad only 50% of the time to placing a man on the moon in only nine years, surely we would have a permanent base on the moon, a permanent space station, and Pan Am commercial space flights in thirty years. That seemed like a no-brainer, a sure bet.

But here we are nearly half a century later, and we don't have a permanent space station, or a permanent moon base, or even Pan Am.

I miss those shows Arthur C. Clarke used to host

 

[Eudaimonist]

I'd like to make one additional observation. A dystopian novel can sometimes contain a utopian contrast. I suppose it is a judgment call whether or not to call the novel dystopian or utopian.

I'm not going to give away any major spoilers for Ecotopia, but stop reading now if you want to stay a virgin.

*SPOILERS*

A good example of a "dystopian" novel that might as well be considered utopian is Ecotopia, which spends very little narrative time outside of Ecotopia itself. The basic plot is that someone from New York City (cue disturbing music) manages to get inside the American North West, where a civil war led to the creation of a secretive ecofascist state. (The author doesn't see it that way, but I digress.) He is skeptical of this new society, but is eventually won over by its "natural" way of life (ignoring all of the re-education camps that the citizenry were forced to endure just after the civil war.)

It's clear that the author approves of Ecotopia. Most of the novel is spent in Ecotopia, though perhaps one could call New York City the barely seen dystopia in the novel. Also, the main character is a skeptic most of the way through, so from his perspective at least, Ecotopia is only dubiously a utopia.

I've listed it as dystopian, but I think that a good argument can be made that it is actually a utopian novel, and that distinction can be difficult to make.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[RDKirk]

I'd like to make one additional observation. A dystopian novel can sometimes contain a utopian contrast. I suppose it is a judgment call whether or not to call the novel dystopian or utopian.

I'm not going to give away any major spoilers for Ecotopia, but stop reading now if you want to stay a virgin.

*SPOILERS*

A good example of a "dystopian" novel that might as well be considered utopian is Ecotopia, which spends very little narrative time outside of Ecotopia itself. The basic plot is that someone from New York City (cue disturbing music) manages to get inside the American North West, where a civil war led to the creation of a secretive ecofascist state. (The author doesn't see it that way, but I digress.) He is skeptical of this new society, but is eventually won over by its "natural" way of life (ignoring all of the re-education camps that the citizenry were forced to endure just after the civil war.)

It's clear that the author approves of Ecotopia. Most of the novel is spent in Ecotopia, though perhaps one could call New York City the barely seen dystopia in the novel. Also, the main character is a skeptic most of the way through, so from his perspective at least, Ecotopia is only dubiously a utopia.

I've listed it as dystopian, but I think that a good argument can be made that it is actually a utopian novel, and that distinction can be difficult to make.


eudaimonia,

Mark

It sounds similar to Brave New World, which was a dystopia only to the outsider (who represented the reader). Funny I hadn't even heard of it, that I can recall. It sounds like a book that should have bounced around my clique during my college years.

 

[Eudaimonist]

It sounds similar to Brave New World, which was a dystopia only to the outsider (who represented the reader).

I'd say that the high tech society of Brave New World is a dystopia, and the author clearly sees it and presents it that way. Many hints are dropped to that effect, such as describing both Lenina and an inflatable chair as "pneumatic" (suggesting that Lenina is so shallow she is as empty and fake as the chair).

Of course, the shallow and hedonistic citizens of that world would disagree and would think of their society as a utopia.

Ecotopia would be like Huxley presenting the hedonistic society of Brave New World as a corrective to our own society. Actually, hedonism is a part of Ecotopian culture, so that may be what Callenbach did.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[RDKirk]

I'd say that the high tech society of Brave New World is a dystopia, and the author clearly sees it that way. Of course, the shallow and hedonistic citizens of that world would disagree.


eudaimonia,

Mark

We may have to discuss as a separate concept a society that could be either a utopia or a dystopia, depending on the attitudes of the author and his intended audience.

The Taliban were perfectly happy with what they'd done with Afghanistan. Likewise, the exact same society of "A Handmaid's Tale" would be utopian in some eyes.

 

[RDKirk]

"Planet of the Apes" (the novel and the first movie) IMO depicted a world that was a lousy place for a human to live, but it wasn't clear as a dystopia until the last scene.

IMO, the "we did this to ourselves" factor is a requirement of a dystopia.

 

[keith99]

Is Omelas Utopia or Dystopia?

http://engl210-deykute.wikispaces.umb.edu/file/view/omelas.pdf

 

[RDKirk]

Is Omelas Utopia or Dystopia?

http://engl210-deykute.wikispaces.umb.edu/file/view/omelas.pdf

IMO, not a utopia (or we should say, "eutopia"). I don't think the fact that the story speaks of gaining pleasure for many by confining wretchedness to one is any different morally from what happens today. Difference in numbers on each side of the equation, but the equation remains.

Not different from Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery."

But not a dystopia either. I don't subscribe to the binary principle.

 

[Paradoxum]

Take human society as it is today and say someone discovered tomorrow how to increase IQ by 100 percent with a single $1,000,000 injection.

Who would get it, given today's economic and political environment? Enough to create an Observer world? Or a utopia? Or would the knowledge wind up being squandered and have no widespread social effect at all?

Let's face it: We have the technology and economic capability to have ended world hunger decades ago.

Well, I kinda doubt the singular change would cost that much (though research would be costly)... or cost that much for long. After a few years it would probably become much more affordable.

Sequencing the human genome was a major project in 2000, but now it MUCH faster and easier, and will likely be used for everyday healthcare soon.

 

[Paradoxum]

Overall, the "answer" in Fringe is indeed the "heart": love. It becomes the unpredictable element which trumps the Observers probability factoring, imo. Some found this aspect to Fringe cheesy ... but I thought it played out in a way that actually made sense in the show, more or less.

I agree emphasizing heart can be a bit cheesy, but I don't remember thinking it was really cheesy alot.

I naturally like science and can tend to disregard the importance of the arts, but I think it's important (for me at least) to remember the importance of such things.

I like progress for the sake of progress, and I know I need to control that. I'd think human cloning was cool, even if I think it might be less than ideal.

 

[RDKirk]

Sequencing the human genome was a major project in 2000, but now it MUCH faster and easier, and will likely be used for everyday healthcare soon.

I'd put big money against it, for the same reason that full-body MRI scans--which have been available and even affordable for about 15 years--are still not being used for everyday health care: Because they discover too many possible later problems that insurance companies don't want to face.

 

[Paradoxum]

I'd put big money against it, for the same reason that full-body MRI scans--which have been available and even affordable for about 15 years--are still not being used for everyday health care: Because they discover too many possible later problems that insurance companies don't want to face.

We don't have health insurance in the UK. US will keep up with Europe.