| | When I was in 7th grade I read the book 1984 by
George Orwell. Since then I have been
hooked on the sub-genre of fiction called “dystopian.” Yesterday I got the book “We” by Yevgeny
Zamyatin from the library. A couple of
sentences into the book I knew that I had found another great dystopian
novel. Dystopian novels are really a
subset of science-fiction. Dystopian
books are those that paint a bleak picture of the future – the opposite of
utopia. “Wow! How exciting!” you say, sarcastically. “Why wouldn’t everyone want to read about bleak
futures for our world!?!”
Since my first reading of 1984 I have read several other
books that can be characterized as dystopian:
Anthem by Ayn Rand, The Giver by Lois Lowry, Brave New World by Aldous
Huxley, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, The Minority Report by Philip K. Dick,
the Left Behind series by LaHaye and Jenkins, the Circle trilogy by Ted Dekker,
Killing Time by Caleb Carr, Animal Farm by George Orwell, Lord of the Flies by
William Golding, and Ringworld by Larry Niven.
I’ve also seen several dystopian movies: Children of Men, Minority
Report, I Robot, Clockwork Orange, I am Legend, Gattaca, Aeon Flux, Blade
Runner, Code 46, Equilibrium, The Island, A Scanner Darkly, V for Vendetta, THX
1138, The Matrix trilogy, Waterworld, the Truman Show, Terminator series and
Twelve Monkeys. Those 2 lists contain
many of my favorite books and movies, although there are a couple of books in
movies in that list that I don’t really care for.
You might still be wondering why this type of novel is so
intriguing to me. To me, these books are
statements. Each one of them is written
by an author who sees something in our current society – a trend or a school of
thought, maybe – that they feel is disruptive/unhealthy/detrimental – has some
sort of negative impact. They then write
about a future world – sometimes very similar to our own, sometimes very
different – in which the principle idea or set of ideas has been enacted on a
large scale and has resulted in a nightmarish world. Many times the focus is on a type of
government (i.e., 1984 and We). In others the focus is on a
specific technology or the advancement of technology in general (i.e., Gattaca and The Island).
These stories are precautionary tales. In a world where most human interventions are
described as “advancements,” it is interesting to take note of the (often
unintended) negative impacts of our actions – as the adage goes – before it is
too late. I like to think about what
consequences we might face in the future based on the decisions that our civilization
makes today. I like to think about how
future problems can be avoided if we are wise and consider all of our
options. I like to think about how
following one set of extreme views have led down very dark paths in the past
and that a healthy future is one in which all people are allowed to express
their ideas – not a society in which the individual is dead (see Equilibrium
for a great example).
While almost every one of these stories openly reveals the
author’s bias, collectively the stories are not one sided. They have been written by many different
authors from many different viewpoints.
These stories are thought experiments. In a way, they allow us to “learn from the
past” without having to experience it.
That may sound funny, but these stories can lay out powerful visions of
what our world could look like if we yield to one way of thinking. |
