| A DYSTOPIA is a community or society that is in some important way undesirable or frightening. Such societies appear in many artistic works, particularly in stories set in a future. Dystopias are often characterized by dehumanization, totalitarian governments, environmental disaster, or other characteristics associated with a cataclysmic decline in society. It’s a society in which everything has gone horribly wrong and injustice or chaos holds sway. This might be a post-apocalyptic society where all governments have collapsed and human beings have to fight to survive; or it might be a totalitarian society in which powerful authority figures control every aspect of citizens’ lives. Dystopias are, naturally, more realistic and relevant to most people than utopias because our societies have many problems, and we worry about the future. In fact, dystopian stories are almost always about problems that we already have in this world. In literature, seemingly utopian societies often turn out to be dystopian, as in the case of The Giver by Lois Lowry. In this book, the society at first appears to be perfect and orderly. But slowly we learn that people have gained their security and order by giving up their freedom and creativity, and ultimately we come to see this “perfect” society as dystopian.EXAMPLES OF DYSATOPIAS:
TYPES OF DYSTOPIAS: The majority of dystopias (though not all!) fall into one of two categories- Post-Apocalyptic dystopias are the aftermath of some horrible calamity. The disaster is always an expression of society’s greatest fears – during the Cold War, post-apocalyptic dystopias were depicted as the aftermath of nuclear war. In the 21st century, we are less afraid of nuclear war but more afraid of disease and climate change, so we imagine dystopian futures stemming from ecological collapse or the outbreak of some horrible virus. Statist dystopias are the opposite of post-apocalyptic ones. In these dystopias, the government has grown to the point where it controls everything and suppresses all individual freedoms, especially freedom of thought and expression. Sources: //literaryterms.net/dystopia/ | A UTOPIA is a community or society possessing highly desirable or near perfect qualities. It is an imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect. For thousands of years human beings have dreamt of perfect worlds, worlds free of conflict, hunger and unhappiness. But can these worlds ever exist in reality? The word was first used in the book Utopia (1516) by Sir Thomas More. In 1516 Sir Thomas More wrote the first 'Utopia'. He coined the word 'utopia' from the Greek ou-topos meaning 'no place' or 'nowhere'. But this was a pun - the almost identical Greek word eu-topos means a good place. So at the very heart of the word is a vital question: can a perfect world ever be realized? EXAMPLES OF UTOPIAS:
TYPES OF UTOPIAS: a. Moral All these utopias use and explore questionable morals or ethics, such as the genetic perfection of human beings. They might be about political ethics, environmental ethics, religious ethics, or the ethics of science. b. Political/Economic/Social Many utopias are based on a particular political, social, or economic philosophy. The author believes (or at least wants to explore the possibility) that a society following a pure form of their philosophy would be without flaws. Of course, no such utopias have ever existed in real life and in most stories, the society turns out to be very imperfect indeed, usually a nightmare. But they are still a source of inspiration to writers. c. Ecological In an ecological utopia, humans live in perfect harmony with nature: their society produces no pollution, their food sources are sustainable, and the environment is protected, bringing about happiness for humans. d. Religious A religious utopia is one based on the precepts of a particular religion. Christian authors throughout history have written utopian stories about what society would be like if everyone was a perfect Christian. But you could also do the same thing for Islam, Buddhism, or any other religion – the problem, of course, is that it might not be persuasive to readers who belong to a different tradition! e. Science/Technological In a technological utopia, scientists and engineers have worked out technological development, such as genetic engineering or total surveillance, perfectly. In these stories, human problems are treated as technical glitches, to be resolved solely through technology. Sources: //literaryterms.net/utopia/ |
| Click HERE for Shmoops Utopia becomes a Dystopia |
| Pixar’s WALL-E has another ambiguous utopia on-board the Axiom. The people have all their needs met by robots, and live entirely in comfort and ease. However, this life is also dystopian in a sense – because they have all their material comforts, the people on the ship are fat, lazy, and immature. |
By: Katrina Brown
“Good and evill we know in the field of this World grow up together almost inseparably; and the knowledge of good is… involv’d and interwoven with the knowledge of evill”
-John Milton, Areopagitica
Dystopias and utopias have remained a point of fascination because of both their extreme nature and their ability to imagine the grand and grotesque. Recently, dystopias in particular have seemed to capture the public’s attention, with their portrayal of all the ways society can go wrong—one needs only to think about examples from pop culture such as The Hunger Games, Divergent, The Good Place, Handmaid’s Tale, and The Maze Runner. This is perhaps an indicator that society’s fears, rather than its hopes, are at the forefront of its collective minds. But what is it that keeps dystopias and utopias so fashionable, so perpetually intriguing, and most of all, so diverse? How is it that we keep coming up with infinitely many ways for the world to go so perfectly right or horribly wrong?
The truth is that, at their core, utopias and dystopias are a reflection of human nature itself, and the potential within that nature. It is this potential that enables humans to build cities and destroy wildlife, to dramatically increase human lifespans and happiness but also to create (and use) the atomic bomb. It is an undeniable fact that for better or worse, humans have changed and shaped the world to their liking– in a way that could lead to our demise or to a yet unprecedented level of prosperity. Indeed, in many people’s conceptualization of the future, extreme prosperity is followed by extreme destruction. However, like human nature, dystopias and utopias, the good and the bad, are intricately wound up in each other. As John Milton argued in Areopagitica, a speech decrying the censorship of books, one cannot know good without also knowing evil. He says that it is only through confrontation with evil, through temptation, that true good can be expressed, as a “good” choice is meaningless without an alternative.
The reason why utopias and dystopias ultimately stand the test of time and keep society’s fascination is because they reflect the polarity of human nature—extreme violence and destruction; extreme healing and unity. Utopias and dystopias then are an exploration of those poles; a journey through which society better understands its limits and potential downfalls. Utopias hold perpetual interest because, like a cockatoo with a mirror, humans are fascinated by this vision of themselves that behaves like them yet remains apart from them. In the same way, dystopias hold within them the power of the abject, the ability to show society what it is it fears most about itself.
Utopias have always existed in the imagination as what society could look like if human nature was purely good, and many religions have painted the picture. In Christianity’s Garden of Eden as well as in Heaven, humans are imagined without evil, purified by God. Religion has imagined the evil of human nature as well in the purest form of dystopia: Hell.
The dramatization of humanity’s good and evil, and the exploration of what that would look like, has taken form in more contemporary ways as well. The Handmaid’s Tale explores the potential of human nature to oppress, as well as the potential to survive adversity. The Hunger Games, explores the same, and evokes the question, “what are we capable of?” Within both of these works, the good of human nature is illustrated as well, a tiny flame that cannot be suffocated no matter how great the darkness. Another contemporary example is The Giver, which instead of exploring what we are capable of, explores the idea that it is the range of emotion, of good and evil, that makes us human. Were society ever to try to change or limit human nature to create utopia, the resulting lives and society would be less meaningful, for what is happiness without sadness? What is good without evil? Milton would argue that we cannot know one without knowing the other. These facts of life, like the light and the dark, must operate in tandem to create the dimensionality of human experience, and the meaning found in it.
Ultimately, utopias and dystopias are so compelling because they reflect human potential exaggerated on a grand scale. The potential of a single human who is actively good, multiplied by a million humans who are actively good, results in a utopia. The way in which this delicate balance swings ultimately rests with the author of such societies, and their belief in whether human nature is good or evil—as well as how “good” and “evil” is best expressed. In fact, this conflicted duality of human nature itself is what relegates both utopia and dystopia to the realm of fiction and prevents them from being achievable in reality. Such is the reason why utopias and dystopias become so prickly to write about and analyze; to reconcile the pure good of utopia with the duality of human nature is impossible. To truly have utopia, human nature itself would have to change to allow for an elevated state of being.
Humans are all mixtures of good and evil, of right and wrong, of negative outcomes born of the best good intentions. Humans are both the terrorism of 9/11 and the heroism of its first responders. Because of this duality, pure utopia will never exist, and neither will pure dystopia. Instead, society will always be a mix, and must not only come to terms with, but also celebrate the real world ramifications of this fact.