HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

A dystopia (from
Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...
δυσ- "bad, hard" and τόπος "place"; alternatively cacotopiaCacotopia (from κακός ''kakos'' "bad") was the term used by
Jeremy Bentham Jeremy Bentham (; 15 February 1748 ld Style and New Style dates, O.S. 4 February 1747– 6 June 1832) was an English philosopher, jurist, and social reformer regarded as the founder of modern utilitarianism. Bentham defined as the "fundam ...
in his 1818 Plan of Parliamentary Reform (Works, vol. 3, p. 493).

or simply anti-utopia) is a speculated community or society that is undesirable or frightening. It is often treated as an Opposite (semantics), antonym of ''
utopia A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book '' Utopia'', describing a fictional island soc ...
'', a term that was coined by
Sir Thomas More Sir Thomas More (7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535), venerated in the Catholic Church as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, judge, social philosopher, author, statesman, and noted Renaissance humanist. He also served Henry VIII as Lor ...
and figures as the title of his best known work, published in 1516, which created a blueprint for an ideal society with minimal crime, violence and poverty. The relationship between utopia and dystopia is in actuality not one simple opposition, as many
utopia A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book '' Utopia'', describing a fictional island soc ...
n elements and components are found in dystopias as well, and '' vice versa''. Dystopias are often characterized by rampant fear or distress ,
tyrannical A tyrant (), in the modern English usage of the word, is an absolute ruler who is unrestrained by law, or one who has usurped a legitimate ruler's sovereignty. Often portrayed as cruel, tyrants may defend their positions by resorting to r ...
governments, environmental disaster, or other characteristics associated with a cataclysmic decline in society. Distinct themes typical of a Dystopian Society include: complete control over the people in a society through the usage of propaganda, heavy censoring of information or denial of free thought, worshiping an unattainable goal, the complete loss of individuality, and heavy enforcement of conformity. Despite certain overlaps, dystopian fiction is distinct from post-apocalyptic fiction, and an undesirable society is not necessarily dystopian. Dystopian societies appear in many fictional works and artistic representations, particularly in stories set in the future. The best known by far is
George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalit ...
's '' Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (1949). Other famous examples are Aldous Huxley's '' Brave New World'' (1932), and
Ray Bradbury Ray Douglas Bradbury (; August 22, 1920June 5, 2012) was an American author and screenwriter. One of the most celebrated 20th-century American writers, he worked in a variety of modes, including fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery, and ...
's ''
Fahrenheit 451 ''Fahrenheit 451'' is a 1953 dystopian novel by American writer Ray Bradbury. Often regarded as one of his best works, ''Fahrenheit 451'' presents an American society where books have been personified and outlawed and "firemen" burn any that ar ...
'' (1953). Dystopian societies appear in many sub-genres of fiction and are often used to draw attention to society,
environment Environment most often refers to: __NOTOC__ * Natural environment, all living and non-living things occurring naturally * Biophysical environment, the physical and biological factors along with their chemical interactions that affect an organism or ...
, politics, economics, religion, psychology, ethics, science, or technology. Some authors use the term to refer to existing societies, many of which are, or have been,
totalitarian Totalitarianism is a form of government and a political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual and group opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high if not complete degree of control and reg ...
states or societies in an advanced state of collapse. Dystopias, through an exaggerated worst-case scenario, often make a criticism about a current trend, societal norm, or political system. The entire substantial sub-genre of alternative history works depicting a world in which Nazi Germany won the Second World War can be considered as dystopias. So can other works of Alternative History, in which a historical turning point led to a manifestly repressive world. For example, the 2004 mockumentary '' C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America,'' and Ben Winters' ''
Underground Airlines ''Underground Airlines'' is a 2016 novel by Ben Winters which is set in a contemporary alternate-history United States where the American Civil War never occurred because Abraham Lincoln was assassinated prior to his 1861 inauguration and ...
'', in which
slavery in the United States The legal institution of human chattel slavery, comprising the enslavement primarily of Africans and African Americans, was prevalent in the United States of America from its founding in 1776 until 1865, predominantly in the South. Sla ...
continues to the present, with "electronic slave auctions" carried out via the Internet and slaves controlled by electronic devices implanted in their spines, or
Keith Roberts Keith John Kingston Roberts (20 September 1935 – 5 October 2000) was an English science fiction author. He began publishing with two stories in the September 1964 issue of ''Science Fantasy'' magazine, "Anita" (the first of a series of stor ...
'' Pavane'' in which 20th Century Britain is ruled by a Catholic theocracy and the
Inquisition The Inquisition was a group of institutions within the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy, conducting trials of suspected heretics. Studies of the records have found that the overwhelming majority of sentences consisted of penances, ...
is actively torturing and burning "heretics". Some scholars, such as
Gregory Claeys Gregory Claeys (born 18 August 1953) is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of London. Career He gained his PhD at the University of Cambridge, where he studied at Jesus College, and was a Junior Research Associate (1981–83) at K ...
and Lyman Tower Sargent, make certain distinctions between typical synonyms of dystopias. For example, Claeys and Sargent define ''literary dystopias'' as societies imagined as substantially worse than the society in which the author writes. Some of these are anti-utopias, which criticise attempts to implement various concepts of utopia. In the most comprehensive treatment of the literary and real expressions of the concept, ''Dystopia: A Natural History'', Claeys offers a historical approach to these definitions. Here the tradition is traced from early reactions to the
French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...
. Its commonly anti-collectivist character is stressed, and the addition of other themes—the dangers of science and technology, of social inequality, of corporate dictatorship, of nuclear war—are also traced. A psychological approach is also favored here, with the principle of fear being identified with despotic forms of rule, carried forward from the history of political thought, and group psychology introduced as a means of understanding the relationship between utopia and dystopia. Andrew Norton-Schwartzbard noted that "written many centuries before the concept "dystopia" existed,
Dante Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: ' ...
's '' Inferno'' in fact includes most of the typical characteristics associated with this genre – even if placed in a religious framework rather than in the future of the mundane world, as modern dystopias tend to be". In the same vein, Vicente Angeloti remarked that "
George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalit ...
's emblematic phrase, ''a boot stamping on a human face — forever'', would aptly describe the situation of the denizens in Dante's Hell. Conversely, Dante's famous inscription ''Abandon all hope, ye who enter here'' would have been equally appropriate if placed at the entrance to Orwell's " Ministry of Love" and its notorious "
Room 101 The Ministry of Truth, the Ministry of Peace, the Ministry of Love, and the Ministry of Plenty are the four ministries of the government of Oceania in the 1949 dystopian novel ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'', by George Orwell. The use of contradictory ...
".


Etymology

‘Dustopia’ being the original spelling for ‘Dystopia’ first appeared in Lewis Henry Younge's, ''Utopia: or Apollo’s Golden Days'' in 1747. Additionally, ''dystopia'' was used as an antonym for ''
utopia A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book '' Utopia'', describing a fictional island soc ...
'' by
John Stuart Mill John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 – 7 May 1873) was an English philosopher, political economist, Member of Parliament (MP) and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of classical liberalism, he contributed widely to ...
in one of his 1868 Parliamentary Speeches (''
Hansard ''Hansard'' is the traditional name of the transcripts of parliamentary debates in Britain and many Commonwealth countries. It is named after Thomas Curson Hansard (1776–1833), a London printer and publisher, who was the first official prin ...
Commons'') by adding the prefix "dys" ( grc, δυσ- "bad") to "topia", reinterpreting the initial "u" as the prefix "eu" ( grc, ευ- "good") instead of "ou" ( grc, οὐ "not"). It was used to denounce the government's Irish land policy: "It is, perhaps, too complimentary to call them Utopians, they ought rather to be called dys-topians, or caco-topians. What is commonly called Utopian is something too good to be practicable; but what they appear to favour is too bad to be practicable".Cf
"Dystopia Timeline"
, in ''Exploring Dystopia'', "edited and designed by Niclas Hermansson; Contributors: Acolyte of Death ('Gattaca'), John Steinbach ('Nuclear Nightmare'), ndDavid Clements ('From Dystopia to Myopia')" (''hem.passagen.se''), Niclas Hermansson, n.d.,
Web Web most often refers to: * Spider web, a silken structure created by the animal * World Wide Web or the Web, an Internet-based hypertext system Web, WEB, or the Web may also refer to: Computing * WEB, a literate programming system created by ...
, 22 May 2009.
According to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'', a "dystopia" is:
"An imaginary place or condition in which everything is as bad as possible; opp. UTOPIA (cf. CACOTOPIA). So dystopian n., one who advocates or describes a dystopia; dystopian a., of or pertaining to a dystopia; dystopianism, dystopian quality or characteristics."
The example of first usage given in the ''OED'' (1989 ed.) refers to the 1868 speech by John Stuart Mill quoted above. Other examples given in the ''OED'' include:
See also Michael S. Roth, "A Dystopia of the Spirit" 230ff., Chap. 15 in Jörn Rüsen, Michael Fehr, and Thomas Rieger, eds.,
Thinking Utopia
', ''
Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical ...
'' Preview, n.d.,
Web Web most often refers to: * Spider web, a silken structure created by the animal * World Wide Web or the Web, an Internet-based hypertext system Web, WEB, or the Web may also refer to: Computing * WEB, a literate programming system created by ...
, 22 May 2009.
Decades before the first documented use of the word "dystopia" was "cacotopia"/"kakotopia" (using grc, κακόs, "bad, wicked") originally proposed in 1818 by
Jeremy Bentham Jeremy Bentham (; 15 February 1748 ld Style and New Style dates, O.S. 4 February 1747– 6 June 1832) was an English philosopher, jurist, and social reformer regarded as the founder of modern utilitarianism. Bentham defined as the "fundam ...
, "As a match for utopia (or the imagined seat of the best government) suppose a cacotopia (or the imagined seat of the worst government) discovered and described".Bentham, Jeremy. (1818). ''Plan of Parliamentary Reform, in the form of a catechism''. Though dystopia became the more popular term, cacotopia finds occasional use; Anthony Burgess, author of ''
A Clockwork Orange ''A Clockwork Orange'' may refer to: * ''A Clockwork Orange'' (novel), a 1962 novel by Anthony Burgess ** ''A Clockwork Orange'' (film), a 1971 film directed by Stanley Kubrick based on the novel *** ''A Clockwork Orange'' (soundtrack), the film ...
'', said it was a better fit for Orwell's ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' because "it sounds worse than dystopia".Beaumont, Matthew. (2006)
Cacotopianism, the Paris Commune, and England's Anti-Communist Imaginary, 1870–1900
''ELH'', 73(2): 465–487.


Society

Dystopias typically reflect contemporary
sociopolitical Political sociology is an interdisciplinary field of study concerned with exploring how governance and society interact and influence one another at the micro to macro levels of analysis. Interested in the social causes and consequences of how ...
realities and extrapolate worst-case scenarios as warnings for necessary social change or caution. Dystopian fictions invariably reflect the concerns and fears of their creators' contemporaneous culture. Due to this, they can be considered a subject of social studies. In dystopias, citizens may live in a dehumanized state, be under constant surveillance, or have a fear of the outside world. In the film What Happened to Monday the protagonists risk their lives by taking turns onto the outside world because of a
one-child policy The term one-child policy () refers to a population planning initiative in China implemented between 1980 and 2015 to curb the country's population growth by restricting many families to a single child. That initiative was part of a much bro ...
place in this futuristic dystopian society. In a 1967 study,
Frank Kermode Sir John Frank Kermode, FBA (29 November 1919 – 17 August 2010) was a British literary critic best known for his 1967 work '' The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction'' and for his extensive book-reviewing and editing. He was ...
suggests that the failure of religious prophecies led to a shift in how society apprehends this ancient mode. Christopher Schmidt notes that, while the world goes to waste for future generations, people distract themselves from disaster by passively watching it as entertainment. In the 2010s, there was a surge of popular dystopian young adult literature and blockbuster films. Some have commented on this trend, saying that "it is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism". Cultural theorist and critic Mark Fisher identified the phrase as encompassing the theory of capitalist realism ‐ the perceived "widespread sense that not only is capitalism the only viable political and economic system, but also that it is now impossible even to imagine a coherent alternative to it" – and used the above quote as the title to the opening chapter of his book, ''Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?''. In the book, he also refers to dystopian film such as ''
Children of Men ''Children of Men'' is a 2006 dystopian action thriller film co-written and directed by Alfonso Cuarón. The screenplay, based on P. D. James' 1992 novel ''The Children of Men'', was credited to five writers, with Clive Owen making uncredited ...
'' (originally a novel by
P. D. James Phyllis Dorothy James, Baroness James of Holland Park, (3 August 1920 – 27 November 2014), known professionally as P. D. James, was an English novelist and life peer. Her rise to fame came with her series of detective novels featuring th ...
) to illustrate what he describes as the "slow cancellation of the future". Theo James, an actor in '' Divergent'' (originally a novel by Veronica Roth), explains that "young people in particular have such a fascination with this kind of story ..It's becoming part of the consciousness. You grow up in a world where it's part of the conversation all the time – the statistics of our planet warming up. The environment is changing. The weather is different. There are things that are very visceral and very obvious, and they make you question the future and how we will survive. It's so much a part of everyday life that young people inevitably – consciously or not – are questioning their futures and how the Earth will be. I certainly do. I wonder what kind of world my children's kids will live in."


Common themes


Politics

In '' When the Sleeper Wakes'', H. G. Wells depicted the governing class as hedonistic and shallow.William Steinhoff, "Utopia Reconsidered: Comments on ''1984''" 153, in Eric S. Rabkin, Martin H. Greenberg, and Joseph D. Olander, eds., ''No Place Else: Explorations in Utopian and Dystopian Fiction''. .
George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalit ...
contrasted Wells's world to that depicted in Jack London's '' The Iron Heel'', where the dystopian rulers are brutal and dedicated to the point of fanaticism, which Orwell considered more plausible.William Steinhoff, "Utopia Reconsidered: Comments on ''1984''" 147, in Eric S. Rabkin, Martin H. Greenberg, and Joseph D. Olander, eds., ''No Place Else: Explorations in Utopian and Dystopian Fiction''. . The political principles at the root of fictional utopias (or "perfect worlds") are idealistic in principle and result in positive consequences for the inhabitants; the political principles on which fictional dystopias are based, while often based on utopian ideals, result in negative consequences for inhabitants because of at least one fatal flaw."Utopia"
'' The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language'', 4th ed., 2004, '' Dictionary.com'',
Web Web most often refers to: * Spider web, a silken structure created by the animal * World Wide Web or the Web, an Internet-based hypertext system Web, WEB, or the Web may also refer to: Computing * WEB, a literate programming system created by ...
, 11 February 2007.
Mary Ellen Snodgrass Mary Ellen Snodgrass (born February 29, 1944) is an American educator and writer of textbooks and general reference works. Biography Snodgrass was born on February 29, 1944 in Wilmington, North Carolina to William and Lucy Robinson. She atte ...
, ''Encyclopedia of Utopian Literature'', ABC-Clio Literary Companion Ser. (Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio Inc., 1995) xii.
Dystopias are often filled with
pessimistic Pessimism is a negative mental attitude in which an undesirable outcome is anticipated from a given situation. Pessimists tend to focus on the negatives of life in general. A common question asked to test for pessimism is " Is the glass half emp ...
views of the ruling class or a government that is brutal or uncaring, ruling with an "iron fist". Dystopian governments are sometimes ruled by a fascist or communist regime or dictator. These dystopian government establishments often have protagonists or groups that lead a " resistance" to enact change within their society, as is seen in Alan Moore's ''
V for Vendetta ''V for Vendetta'' is a British graphic novel written by Alan Moore and illustrated by David Lloyd (with additional art by Tony Weare). Initially published between 1982 and 1985 in black and white as an ongoing serial in the British anthol ...
''.Jane Donawerth, "Genre Blending and the Critical Dystopia", in ''Dark Horizons: Science Fiction and the Dystopian Imagination'', ed. Raffaella Baccolini and Tom Moylan (New York: Routledge, 2003). Dystopian political situations are depicted in novels such as '' We'', '' Parable of the Sower'', ''
Darkness at Noon ''Darkness at Noon'' (german: link=no, Sonnenfinsternis) is a novel by Hungarian-born novelist Arthur Koestler, first published in 1940. His best known work, it is the tale of Rubashov, an Old Bolshevik who is arrested, imprisoned, and tried ...
'', '' Nineteen Eighty-Four'', '' Brave New World'', '' The Handmaid's Tale'', '' The Hunger Games'', '' Divergent'' and ''
Fahrenheit 451 ''Fahrenheit 451'' is a 1953 dystopian novel by American writer Ray Bradbury. Often regarded as one of his best works, ''Fahrenheit 451'' presents an American society where books have been personified and outlawed and "firemen" burn any that ar ...
'' and such films as ''
Metropolis A metropolis () is a large city or conurbation which is a significant economic, political, and cultural center for a country or region, and an important hub for regional or international connections, commerce, and communications. A big c ...
'', ''
Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
'' (1985), '' Battle Royale'', '' FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions'', '' Soylent Green'', '' Logan's Run'', and '' The Running Man'' (1987).


Economics

The economic structures of dystopian societies in literature and other media have many variations, as the economy often relates directly to the elements that the writer is depicting as the source of the oppression. There are several
archetypes The concept of an archetype (; ) appears in areas relating to behavior, historical psychology, and literary analysis. An archetype can be any of the following: # a statement, pattern of behavior, prototype, "first" form, or a main model that ot ...
that such societies tend to follow. A theme is the dichotomy of planned economies versus
free market In economics, a free market is an economic system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers. Such markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of government or any ot ...
economies, a conflict which is found in such works as Ayn Rand's '' Anthem'' and Henry Kuttner's short story "The Iron Standard". Another example of this is reflected in Norman Jewison's 1975 film '' Rollerball'' (1975). Some dystopias, such as that of ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'', feature
black market A black market, underground economy, or shadow economy is a clandestine market or series of transactions that has some aspect of illegality or is characterized by noncompliance with an institutional set of rules. If the rule defines the ...
s with goods that are dangerous and difficult to obtain or the characters may be at the mercy of the state-controlled economy. Kurt Vonnegut's '' Player Piano'' depicts a dystopia in which the centrally controlled economic system has indeed made material abundance plentiful but deprived the mass of humanity of meaningful labor; virtually all work is menial, unsatisfying and only a small number of the small group that achieves education is admitted to the elite and its work. In Tanith Lee's '' Don't Bite the Sun'', there is no want of any kind – only unabashed consumption and hedonism, leading the protagonist to begin looking for a deeper meaning to existence. Even in dystopias where the economic system is not the source of the society's flaws, as in ''Brave New World'', the state often controls the economy; a character, reacting with horror to the suggestion of not being part of the social body, cites as a reason that works for everyone else. Other works feature extensive
privatization Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...
and corporatism; both consequences of
capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private ...
, where privately owned and unaccountable large corporations have replaced the government in setting policy and making decisions. They manipulate, infiltrate, control, bribe, are contracted by and function as government. This is seen in the novels '' Jennifer Government'' and '' Oryx and Crake'' and the movies ''
Alien Alien primarily refers to: * Alien (law), a person in a country who is not a national of that country ** Enemy alien, the above in times of war * Extraterrestrial life, life which does not originate from Earth ** Specifically, intelligent extrater ...
'', ''
Avatar Avatar (, ; ), is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means "descent". It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, goddess or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appear ...
'', '' RoboCop'', '' Visioneers'', ''
Idiocracy ''Idiocracy'' is a 2006 American science fiction comedy film directed by Mike Judge and co-written by Judge and Etan Cohen. Starring Luke Wilson, Maya Rudolph, Dax Shepard, and Terry Crews, the film tells the story of Corporal Joe Bauers (W ...
'', ''Soylent Green'', '' WALL-E'' and '' Rollerball''. Corporate republics are common in the
cyberpunk Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a dystopian futuristic setting that tends to focus on a "combination of lowlife and high tech", featuring futuristic technological and scientific achievements, such as artificial intelligence and ...
genre, as in
Neal Stephenson Neal Town Stephenson (born October 31, 1959) is an American writer known for his works of speculative fiction. His novels have been categorized as science fiction, historical fiction, cyberpunk, postcyberpunk, and baroque. Stephenson's work e ...
's ''
Snow Crash ''Snow Crash'' is a science fiction novel by the American writer Neal Stephenson, published in 1992. Like many of Stephenson's novels, it covers history, linguistics, anthropology, archaeology, religion, computer science, politics, cryptography ...
'' and Philip K. Dick's '' Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?'' (as well as the film ''
Blade Runner ''Blade Runner'' is a 1982 science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott, and written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples. Starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, and Edward James Olmos, it is an adaptation of Philip K. Dick's ...
'', influenced by and based upon Dick's novel).


Class

Dystopian fiction frequently draws stark contrasts between the privileges of the ruling class and the dreary existence of the working class. In the 1931 novel ''Brave New World'' by Aldous Huxley, a class system is prenatally determined with Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons, with the lower classes having reduced brain-function and special conditioning to make them satisfied with their position in life. Outside of this society there also exist several human settlements that exist in the ''conventional'' way but which the class system describe as "savages". In ''Ypsilon Minus'' by Herbert W. Franke, people are divided into numerous alphabetically ranked groups. In the film ''Elysium'', the majority of Earth's population on the surface lives in poverty with little access to health care and are subject to worker exploitation and police brutality, while the wealthy live above the Earth in luxury with access to technologies that cure all diseases, reverse aging, and regenerate body parts. Written a century earlier, the future society depicted in H.G. Wells' '' The Time Machine'' had started in a similar way to ''Elysium'' – the workers consigned to living and working in underground tunnels while the wealthy live on a surface made into an enormous beautiful garden. But over a long time period the roles were eventually reversed – the rich degenerated and became a decadent "livestock" regularly caught and eaten by the underground cannibal Morlocks.


Family

Some fictional dystopias, such as '' Brave New World'' and ''
Fahrenheit 451 ''Fahrenheit 451'' is a 1953 dystopian novel by American writer Ray Bradbury. Often regarded as one of his best works, ''Fahrenheit 451'' presents an American society where books have been personified and outlawed and "firemen" burn any that ar ...
'', have eradicated the family and keep it from re-establishing itself as a social institution. In ''Brave New World'', where children are reproduced artificially, the concepts of "mother" and "father" are considered obscene. In some novels, such as ''We'', the state is hostile to motherhood, as a pregnant woman from One State is in revolt.Gorman Beauchamp, "Zamiatin's ''We''" 70, in Eric S. Rabkin, Martin H. Greenberg, and Joseph D. Olander, eds., ''No Place Else: Explorations in Utopian and Dystopian Fiction''. .


Religion

Religious groups play the role of the oppressed and oppressors. In ''Brave New World'' the establishment of the state included lopping off the tops of all crosses (as symbols of Christianity) to make them "T"s, (as symbols of Henry Ford's Model T).
Margaret Atwood Margaret Eleanor Atwood (born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, teacher, environmental activist, and inventor. Since 1961, she has published 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of non-fiction, ...
's novel '' The Handmaid's Tale'' takes place in a future United States under a Christian-based theocratic regime. One of the earliest examples of this theme is Robert Hugh Benson's ''
Lord of the World ''Lord of the World'' is a 1907 dystopian science fiction novel by Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson that centres upon the reign of the Antichrist and the end of the world. It has been called prophetic by Dale Ahlquist, Joseph Pearce, Pope Benedic ...
'', about a futuristic world where Marxists and Freemasons led by the Antichrist have taken over the world and the only remaining source of dissent is a tiny and persecuted
Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
minority.


Identity

In the Russian novel '' We'' by Yevgeny Zamyatin, first published in 1921, people are permitted to live out of public view twice a week for one hour and are only referred to by numbers instead of names. The latter feature also appears in the later, unrelated film '' THX 1138''. In some dystopian works, such as Kurt Vonnegut's '' Harrison Bergeron'', society forces individuals to
conform Conformity is the act of matching attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to group norms, politics or being like-minded. Norms are implicit, specific rules, shared by a group of individuals, that guide their interactions with others. People often cho ...
to radical egalitarian social norms that discourage or suppress accomplishment or even competence as forms of inequality.


Violence

Violence is prevalent in many dystopias, often in the form of war, but also in urban crimes led by (predominately teenage) gangs (e.g. ''
A Clockwork Orange ''A Clockwork Orange'' may refer to: * ''A Clockwork Orange'' (novel), a 1962 novel by Anthony Burgess ** ''A Clockwork Orange'' (film), a 1971 film directed by Stanley Kubrick based on the novel *** ''A Clockwork Orange'' (soundtrack), the film ...
''), or rampant crime met by blood sports (e.g. '' Battle Royale'', '' The Running Man'', '' The Hunger Games'', '' Divergent'', and '' The Purge''). It is also explained in
Suzanne Berne Suzanne Berne (born January 17, 1961 Washington, D.C.) is an American novelist known for her foreboding character studies involving unexpected domestic and psychological drama in bucolic suburban settings. Berne's debut novel, '' A Crime in the Nei ...
's essay "Ground Zero", where she explains her experience of the aftermath of 11 September 2001.


Nature

Fictional dystopias are commonly urban and frequently isolate their characters from all contact with the natural world. Sometimes they require their characters to avoid nature, as when walks are regarded as dangerously anti-social in Ray Bradbury's ''Fahrenheit 451'', as well as within Bradbury's short story "
The Pedestrian "The Pedestrian" is a science fiction short story by American writer Ray Bradbury. This story was originally published in the August 7, 1951 issue of ''The Reporter (magazine), The Reporter'' by The Fortnightly Publishing Company. It is includ ...
". In
C. S. Lewis Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963) was a British writer and Anglican lay theologian. He held academic positions in English literature at both Oxford University (Magdalen College, 1925–1954) and Cambridge Univer ...
's '' That Hideous Strength'', science coordinated by government is directed toward the control of nature and the elimination of natural human instincts. In ''Brave New World'', the lower class is conditioned to be afraid of nature but also to visit the countryside and consume transport and games to promote economic activity. Lois Lowry's "
The Giver ''The Giver'' is a 1993 American young adult dystopian novel written by Lois Lowry, set in a society which at first appears to be utopian but is revealed to be dystopian as the story progresses. In the novel, the society has taken away p ...
" shows a society where technology and the desire to create a utopia has led humanity to enforce climate control on the environment, as well as to eliminate many undomesticated species and to provide psychological and pharmaceutical repellent against human instincts. E. M. Forster's "
The Machine Stops "The Machine Stops" is a science fiction short story (12,300 words) by E. M. Forster. After initial publication in ''The Oxford and Cambridge Review'' (November 1909), the story was republished in Forster's ''The Eternal Moment and Other Storie ...
" depicts a highly changed global environment which forces people to live underground due to an atmospheric contamination. As Angel Galdon-Rodriguez points out, this sort of isolation caused by external toxic hazard is later used by Hugh Howey in his series of dystopias of the Silo Series. Excessive pollution that destroys nature is common in many dystopian films, such as '' The Matrix'', '' RoboCop'', '' WALL-E'', ''
April and the Extraordinary World ''April and the Extraordinary World'' (french: Avril et le Monde truqué, lit=April and the Deceptive World) is a 2015 animated alternate history film co-directed by Christian Desmares and Franck Ekinci, co-written by Ekinci and Benjamin Legrand, ...
'' and '' Soylent Green'', as well as in videogames like '' Half-Life 2''. A few "green" fictional dystopias do exist, such as in Michael Carson's short story " The Punishment of Luxury", and Russell Hoban's '' Riddley Walker''. The latter is set in the aftermath of nuclear war, "a post-nuclear holocaust Kent, where technology has reduced to the level of the
Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly ...
".


Science and technology

Contrary to the technologically utopian claims, which view technology as a beneficial addition to all aspects of humanity, technological dystopia concerns itself with and focuses largely (but not always) on the negative effects caused by new technology.Rushkoff, D. (2002). "Renaissance Now! Media Ecology and the New Global Narrative." ''Explorations in Media Ecology'', 1(1), 21–32.


Typical dystopian claims

1. ''Technologies reflect and encourage the worst aspects of human nature.'' Jaron Lanier, a digital pioneer, has become a technological dystopian: "I think it’s a way of interpreting technology in which people forgot taking responsibility." “'Oh, it’s the computer that did it, not me.' 'There’s no more middle class? Oh, it’s not me. The computer did it'" (Lanier). This quote explains that people begin to not only blame the technology for the changes in lifestyle but also believe that technology is an omnipotence. It also points to a technological determinist perspective in terms of reification.Chandler, D. (3 July 2013). Technological or Media Determinism. Retrieved 2 March 2015, from http://visual-memory.co.uk/daniel/Documents/tecdet/tdet05.html 2. ''Technologies harm our interpersonal communication, relationships, and communities.Rosenbaum, R. (1 January 2013). What Turned Jaron Lanier Against the Web? Retrieved 2 March 2015, from http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/what-turned-jaron-lanier-against-the-web-165260940/?all&no-ist'' * decrease in communication within family members and friend groups due to increased time in technology use * virtual space misleadingly heightens the impact of real presence; people resort to technological medium for communication nowadays 3. ''Technologies reinforce hierarchies – concentrate knowledge and skills; increase surveillance and erode privacy; widen inequalities of power and wealth; giving up control to machines. ''
Douglas Rushkoff Douglas Mark Rushkoff (born February 18, 1961) is an American media theorist, writer, columnist, lecturer, graphic novelist, and documentarian. He is best known for his association with the early cyberpunk culture and his advocacy of open sour ...
, a technological utopian, states in his article that the professional designers "re-mystified" the computer so it wasn't so readable anymore; users had to depend on the special programs built into the software that was incomprehensible for normal users. 4. ''New technologies are sometimes regressive (worse than previous technologies).'' 5. ''The unforeseen impacts of technology are negative.'' “ 'The most common way is that there’s some magic artificial intelligence in the sky or in the cloud or something that knows how to translate, and what a wonderful thing that this is available for free. But there’s another way to look at it, which is the technically true way: You gather a ton of information from real live translators who have translated phrases… It’s huge but very much like Facebook, it’s selling people back to themselves… ith translationyou’re producing this result that looks magical but in the meantime, the original translators aren’t paid for their work… You’re actually shrinking the economy.'" 6. ''More efficiency and choices can harm our quality of life (by causing stress, destroying jobs, making us more materialistic).Heitman, B. (13 April 2011). "The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood". (Books) (Book review). ''The Christian Science Monitor'', 146–150.'' In his article "Prest-o! Change-o!,” technological dystopian James Gleick mentions the remote control being the classic example of technology that does not solve the problem "it is meant to solve". Gleick quotes Edward Tenner, a historian of technology, that the ability and ease of switching channels by the remote control serves to increase distraction for the viewer. Then it is only expected that people will become more dissatisfied with the channel they are watching. 7. ''New technologies can solve problems of old technologies or just create new problems.'' The remote control example explains this claim as well, for the increase in laziness and dissatisfaction levels was clearly not a problem in times without the remote control. He also takes social psychologist Robert Levine's example of Indonesians "'whose main entertainment consists of watching the same few plays and dances, month after month, year after year,’ and with Nepalese Sherpas who eat the same meals of potatoes and tea through their entire lives. The Indonesians and Sherpas are perfectly satisfied". Because of the invention of the remote control, it merely created more problems. 8. ''Technologies destroy nature (harming human health and the environment). '' The need for business replaced community and the "story online" replaced people as the "soul of the Net". Because information was now able to be bought and sold, there was not as much communication taking place.


See also

* Alternate history *
Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction is a subgenre of speculative fiction in which the Earth's (or another planet's) civilization is collapsing or has collapsed. The apocalypse event may be climatic, such as runaway climate change; as ...
*
Biopunk Biopunk (a portmanteau of "biotechnology" or "biology" and "punk") is a subgenre of science fiction that focuses on biotechnology. It is derived from cyberpunk, but focuses on the implications of biotechnology rather than mechanical cyberware ...
*
Cyberpunk Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a dystopian futuristic setting that tends to focus on a "combination of lowlife and high tech", featuring futuristic technological and scientific achievements, such as artificial intelligence and ...
*
Digital dystopia Digital dystopia, cyber dystopia or algorithmic dystopia refers to an alternate future or present in which digitized technologies or also algorithms have caused major societal disruption. It refers to narratives of technologies influencing social ...
* Dissident * Inner emigration * Kafkaesque *
List of dystopian comics This is a list of dystopian comics. *'' Akira'' by Katsuhiro Otomo *'' Bitch Planet'' by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine De Landro *"Days of Future Past" (''The Uncanny X-Men'' #141-142) by Chris Claremont, John Byrne and Terry Austin *'' V ...
*
List of dystopian films This is a list of dystopian films. Dystopian societies appear in many speculative fiction works and are often found within the science fiction and fantasy genres. ''Dystopias'' are often characterized by dehumanization, totalitarian governments, ...
* List of dystopian literature * List of dystopian works *
Lovecraftian horror Lovecraftian horror, sometimes used interchangeably with "cosmic horror", is a subgenre of horror fiction and weird fiction that emphasizes the horror of the unknowable and incomprehensible more than gore or other elements of shock. It is named a ...
* Plutocracy * Police state * Self-fulfilling prophecy * Social science fiction * Societal collapse * Soft science fiction * Utopian and dystopian fiction


References

See also Gregory Claeys. "When Does Utopianism Produce Dystopia?" in: Zsolt Czigányik, ed. ''Utopian Horizons. Utopia and Ideology - The Interaction of Political and Utopian Thought'' (Budapest: CEU Press, 2016), pp. 41–61.


External links


Dystopia Tracker
predictions about the future and their realisations in real life.
Dystopic
dystopian fiction and its place in reality.
Dystopias
in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.
Climate Change Dystopia
discusses current popularity of the dystopian genre. * Alexandru Bumbas, Penser l’anachronisme comme moteur esthétique de la dystopie théâtrale : quelques considérations sur Bond, Barker, Gabily, et Delbo, https://preo.u-bourgogne.fr/textesetcontextes/index.php?id=3524 {{Authority control Science fiction themes Social philosophy Speculative fiction Suffering