“If you are a man, Winston, you are the last man. Your kind is extinct; we are the inheritors. Do you understand that you are alone? You are outside history, you are non-existent.” George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four
Dystopias have always had a fascination for readers and writers (just look at the detailed and passionate comments on my last post!). They are, in their way, a perfect place for fiction. They are places where conflict, and thus a dramatic story, is inevitable. Even if, as in Nineteen Eighty-Four, failure is inevitable, the urge to break free and escape this hellish place creates instant sympathy. We don’t mind that Winston Smith is a rather unlikely revolutionary—in his horrendous world, anyone might become a hero.
But to qualify as a dystopia, a place must be more than simply terrible. Mordor, of The Lord of the Rings, is not first on anyone’s holiday list; a country dominated by a disembodied force of evil was never going to be a recipe for success. And yet Mordor, though a horrifying and iconic place, does not have the same kind of chill as Airstrip One (formerly the UK) of Nineteen Eighty-Four, because Mordor’s evil is corrupting and savage, inspiring the holders of the rings to act on base instincts, rather than rational thought.
A true dystopia has to be something more insidious—a place which is just as ideal-driven as the brightest utopia.
Look at the broken society of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. If this were just a future where books had been superseded by huge, interactive screens and chattering “earpods,” (and goodness me but wasn’t he prophetic!) then it might be a grim social satire. But this is a place where the policy of the state is to burn all books, whatever their subject, for being dangerously subversive. And to the firemen, those who burn the books, it all makes perfect ideological sense:
We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it.
Because a dystopia is an ideal corrupted—a utopia taken beyond all bounds of sense and moderation. And it is perhaps not surprising that the classic western vision of hell is populated, not by creatures wholly evil, but beings of goodness that have fallen from grace. There is nothing worse, in our eyes, than good purposes that have become corrupt, through overreaching their ideals. Ray Bradbury’s firemen wanted people to be equal and safe, but found that this would be impossible if people were allowed to have other ideas. In the same way that any totalitarian state sees spies everywhere, because even to think differently is to disturb harmony.
After all, if everyone believes in one thing, anything, it does create a kind of peace. Plato argued this thousands of years ago in his Republic, where he suggested a “golden lie” to keep people contented. The imagined philosopher-kings of the Republic would spread the belief that individuals were born with different metals mixed into their bodies—gold, silver, copper etc. which would determine their place in life. Plato freely admitted that this was not fair, but with a stroke it would destroy ambition and conflict. It is notable that he also insisted that all storytellers and playwrights would be exiled. He claimed that it was because their fictional “lies” would corrupt people’s spirits, but it isn’t hard to see that they would also bring back a dangerous level of debate.
Perfection, then, is a dangerous concept indeed. It can create the best of worlds, and the most barbaric cruelty. It is bad enough in fiction, but when people try to make a “perfect state” a reality, we all know the results.
Is this then the fate of all those who strive for perfection—either to fail, or to create something which corrupts everything they stood for?
Perhaps. But I suspect that Thomas More, the creator of the most famous Utopia/Dystopia, would disagree. For he didn’t write Utopia in his own voice, but instead created a narrator called Raphael Hythloday. More was very fond of word-play. Roughly translated from Latin and Hebrew, this name means “God heals through divine nonsense.”
Our own world is too complicated to understand all at once. No one mind could ever hold all of its intricacies, so we hold up these utopias and dystopias, these ideal-driven mirrors. By depicting lands dominated by one or two ideas to an insane extent, they show both how far these ideas can go, and the dangers of letting this ever happen. More’s “divine nonsense” is not an end in itself, but a tool, and one which can warn us of the folly of putting too much faith in single, all-encompassing ideals.
And there are still people who say speculative fiction is just escapism…
David Whitley is British, and a recent graduate of the University of Oxford. His first novel is The Midnight Charter, a fantasy adventure for young adults which, to his complete astonishment, has sold on five continents in thirteen languages. The first of a trilogy, it will be published in the US by Roaring Brook in September.
I have always wondered about 1984. “We have always been at war with Eastasia” I have thought that perhaps Eastasia (if it exists at all and is not just something to push the people to work harder) is a very nice place and pities Oceania/Ingstoc. They are all dancing around ‘la dee da’ and wonder what the deal is with the massive smoghole off to the east.
After answering the previous post, I cannot help but say something here as well.
In a way, which I don’t think could have been avoided; it was pretty obvious that 1984 would be raised as an example. It has always been a shining example of terrifying distopia. And yet, I disagree, despite knowing the anger I might raise by stating my opinion.
I see 1984, not as a shining example of a distopia, but as the only true utopia ever really successful. Winston Smith’s rebellion was a failure because the enforcers of the Utopian society in which he lived crushed it at the start. As Thomas Moore as well as Plato and others have shown us, every Utopia must be maintained and enforced in order to be successful.
1984 was such a utopia; for the most part, it gave the impression that people were happy in their lives and their stations. Winston Smith however, was not, and this goes back to the point about the point of view one takes. From the point of view of Big Brother, the world of 1984 is a shining success story, and the world is a perfect utopia. Each superpower of the three has its people working and living in similar fashion in one way or another to the other two. The majority of the population believes in a golden lie, which allows for the continuity of the same societal order, and the enforcers make sure that societal order is maintained at any cost.
Thus, Orwell’s distopia, is a true-to-life representation of a true utopia. The reasons we all want to look at this world as a nightmare, as opposed to the heaven it is supposed to be are simple.
First, we empathize with Winston Smith, as Orwell wrote the book from his PoV. This makes sense, because the second reason, applies to Orwell as well as to the reader.
Second, we all fear to be Winston Smith, as opposed to being one of the enforcers of the utopia, or another of Smith’s peers who actually believe in it, and live our lives as “mindless drones.”
We–and I include myself here–want to see ourselves as more then just robots, enslaved to our society. The problem is, that in effect, that is what a Utopian society really demands; mindless repetition with the supposed belief that it will lead to happiness.
I’m rambling here, so I suppose I’ll stop now. But I do think anyone who’s read this got my point, and I welcome the discussion if you wish to add your voices to mine.
A.
RE: your comment from the last post…
The “right to life” that I spoke of is the right to take all the actions required by the nature of a rational being for the support, the furtherance, the fulfillment and the enjoyment of his or her own life. This is what needs protected from the initiation of physical force. There is no right to security, medical care, food, clean air, clean water, shelter. Nothing is guaranteed and nor should it be by sacrificing someone else’s rights to obtain it.
Like you say many people’s idea’s of a utopia focus on one or two aspects of life as opposed to something fundamental that would encompass many aspects of life. Seems like usually in the form of “I find such and such evil/bad for people, therefore I will build a society around being against this thing(s).” or vice versa “I find such and such good therefore I will build a society promoting this thing(s).”
@2
The point I tried to make in Part 1 is that a utopia needs defined as something more than just a “perfect” society because perfect is a subjective word. What is perfect to you may not be to me, and to me a perfect society is one where your ideas are not forced upon me. I may choose to read them and disagree just like you can choose to do the same with what I write but neither of us is forced to believe or pretend belief.
Like you said..you define a utopia as mindless repetetiveness with some undefined concept of happiness waiting at the end and which is of course forced on us. To me this is not a utopia at all but a dystopia in the extreme.
Also the definition would change depending on how you see human beings as your points show…2) everyone would be ok with being the oppressor we just wouldn’t like to be oppressed and 3) we are only mindless zombies and slaves to society anyway. So yes by how you see human beings perhaps 1984 does show a utopia. I just completely disagree.
A utopia does not need mindless repetetiveness or forced happiness, what it needs is protection of an individuals right to life (which I defined above). If that right is consistently upheld then the world would be a lot closer to a utopia in which we are all free to pursue our own vision of happiness and keep what we earn.
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While we both seem to agree that the world of Orwell’s 1984 was not a pleasant place to live, we both seem to look at this through Winston Smith’s eyes. Had we read a book described to us by one of his neighbors, one of the multitudes of the masses, but not an enforcer of the world, we would likely have seen a much happier, and more boring picture of the same place which Winston Smith inhabits.
Winston Smith, is a minority in 1984, and that is because something he saw at his job, broke the Golden Lie, which allows the perpetuation of a traditional Utopian society.
Speaking of which, What I mentioned in my previous reply to the first half of this post, was that for me, there is no Utopia without Distopia, and vice-versa. I believe they are in fact one and the same. No utopian society could survive without enforcement, thereby creating a Distopia (For the Winston Smith’s of that society), and no Distopia is complete without the structure of an unhappiness in an existing Utopia. They always occur together, largely based on the PoV.
What I said about 1984 was that this is the only version of a Utopian society which is successful. the reason for saying that is that despite the Winston Smith’s of the 1984 world, the Utopian whole is maintained through the enforcement and suppression which is built into the system.
In all other utopia/distopia books I’ve ever read or watched movies of, the Utopia is shattered in the end, because it cannot be maintained indefinitely. Orwell’s world, successfully creates the impression of a lasting “utopian” world, because any attempts at disrupting it would be suppressed successfully.
On the topic of your idea for a utopian society, I would agree that your idea has a lot of merit, and would indeed come very close to, if not all the way to a utopian society. but it wouldn’t work, as no other Utopia ever works. there is always someone who would think differently than you do about the rules governing the society you describe, and a distopian thought would emerge. Lacking any enforcement of such a world would lead to it’s destruction. Not that I don’t like the idea, I’m just saying… Like any other Utopia, it is bound to ultimately fail for one reason or another.
A.
Ah, but the society of 1984 cannot last simply because it will collapse due to resource depletion, pollution, etc…
Social forces are not the only ones that will impose change on societies, be they Utopian, Dystopian or anything in between.
@5
The thing about the utopia I described is that people are free to disagree. As long you aren’t initiating physicaly force and are protected from others initiating it then I don’t see how it could become a dystopia. Also I’d argue that we have never seen a true utopia, only versions that are corrupted in some way to show how only focusing on a certain aspect and forcing people to follow some arbitrary rule will lead to the destruction of the so-called utopia. IMHO I don’t think you can consider an ideal that is forced upon people to be an utopia either. By not having an accurate description of what a utopia would entail there is no reason to say that one would fail no matter what.
Fantastic!
Ahem, sorry, always great to see people engaging with a subject so completely:
@1 Oooo… interesting idea, and entirely possible. After all, the attitude of a lot of people towards disturbing states is to ignore them and hope they go away.
@6 Heh, that would be so very appropriate. Years and years of political struggle until Big Brother is finally triumphant, and then a volcano wipes it all out. That would be strangely cathartic…
Redhanded and Betterthenyouknew, so many points, but just a couple of thoughts:
Redhanded, I understand what you mean by rights to life. But IMHO, saying that someone has a right to the furtherance, fulfillment and enjoyment of their life, but no rights to shelter or medical care as this tramples on other’s rights, seems a little contradictory. Unless, I suppose, they have very low expectations of a quality of life! After all, sustaining an enjoyable life requires people with a wide variety of skills, and sadly we can’t count on altruism providing them all!
Perhaps it would be better to say that humans have a duty to provide such things, rather than a right to receive. In which case, a push from central organisations is useful in overcoming natural selfishness, to guarantee that same basic level of fulfillment.
But… having said all that, I absolutely believe that just because an absolute utopia is unlikely in our world, we shouldn’t cease to strive. The level of consensus that we’ve reached in many parts of the world nowadays is truly remarkable compared to even a hundred years ago. And if we’re lucky, we may even find a system that suits everyone without repressive force. Got to hope, haven’t we?
Betterthenyouknew, it’s interesting that you make the point of seeing through Winston Smith’s eyes, and that everyone else is utterly content. Well, possibly, though sadly I suspect that this had something to do with an unfortunate vein of snobbery that ran through George Orwell – his working class characters in 1984 seem to be almost brain-dead on the entertainment provided for them. Of course, you could argue that was to make Winston more unusual, but I imagine there would have been a few more revolutionaries in a real world version – although, of course, Winston Smith wouldn’t have known about them!
I do worry, though, about utopias and dystopias being completely the same. After all, if everyone in a utopia genuinely agrees, then no enforcement is necessary. This doesn’t appear often in fiction (obvious lack of drama, rather like a depiction of heaven), and even rarer than reality, although a few small settlements here and there might have started off this way.
But I would say that 1984 is the archetypal dystopia, rather than utopia, precisely because it basis itself on such nihilistic and contradictory principles as “War is Peace” and the necessity of lies. I.e. those in charge know there is something untenable about their position. At least Plato thought he was suggesting the right thing!
Heavens, and you thought you rambled! Still, brilliant to see such an in-depth discussion!