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Dystopia - New World Encyclopedia Dystopia From New World Encyclopedia Jump to: navigation , search Previous (Dysprosium) Next (Dziga Vertov) A dystopia (from the Greek δυσ- and τόπος, alternatively, cacotopia , [1] kakotopia , cackotopia , or anti-utopia ) is the vision of a society that is the opposite of utopia . A dystopian society is one in which the conditions of life are miserable , characterized by human misery, poverty , oppression, violence, disease, and/or pollution . While there have been actual societies which have experienced most if not all of these characteristics, the term dystopia is largely a literary term, referring to a class of literary works that serve as cautionary tales against some form of totalitarianism of the left or right. Some academic circles distinguish between anti-utopia and dystopia. George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four is a dystopia because its leaders do not aspire to or use the rhetoric of utopia to justify their power. Orwell's Animal Farm is a classic anti-utopia, in which the pigs come to justify their leadership in the name of creating a utopian society. Contents 1 Origin of the word 2 Elements of a dystopian society 2.1 Social control 2.1.1 Loss of Civil Society 2.1.2 Nature 2.2 Political ideologies 2.3 Lack of social cohesion 2.4 Economic coercion 3 Typical Features of dystopian fiction 3.1 The back story 3.2 The Hero 3.3 The conflict 3.4 Climax and dénouement 4 Destroying dystopia 5 Legacy 6 Notes 7 References 8 External links 9 Credits The literature of dystopia draws on the human experience of the failure of states and ideologies to create the utopias, or even the more modest aims of good governance, often abridging human freedom in the name of some ideal that leads to authoritarian, even totalitarian consequences. Origin of the word Did you know? Dystopia refers to a place too bad to be practicable, the opposite of utopia which is too good The first known use of the term dystopia appeared in a speech before the British Parliament by Greg Webber and John Stuart Mill in 1868. In that speech, Mill said, "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 favor is too bad to be practicable." His knowledge of Greek suggests that he was referring to a bad place, rather than simply the opposite of Utopia. The Greek prefix "dys" ("δυσ-") signifies "ill," "bad" or "abnormal"; Greek "topos" ("τόπος") meaning "place"; and Greek "ou-" ("ου") meaning "not." [2] Thus, dystopia refers to an imagined place where almost everything is bad, a play on the term utopia that was coined by Thomas More . Elements of a dystopian society Dystopian societies are portrayed with different defining features. There are dystopias of the political left and right, religious and atheistic, futuristic or allegoristic . However, they share numerous concerns and characteristics. One thing they often share in common is that they resemble a utopian or harmonious society but with at least one fatal flaw; [3] . Whereas a utopian society is founded on the good life, a dystopian society’s dreams of improvement are overshadowed by stimulating fears of the “ugly consequences of present-day behavior.” [4] Social control While utopian societies seek to achieve social harmony, one defining feature of most dystopias is the desire to impose severe social restrictions on the characters' lives. This can take the form of social stratification, where social class is strictly defined and enforced, and social mobility is non-existent (see caste system ). In Brave New World the class system is prenatally assigned into groups, either the Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas, or Epsilons. In the lower castes, single embryos are "bokanovskified," so that they produce between eight and ninety-six identical siblings, making the citizens as uniform as possible. [5] Another form of social control is expressed in We by Evgeny Zamyatin , where people are permitted to live out of public view for only an hour a day. They are not only referred to by numbers instead of names, but are neither "citizens" nor "people," but "ciphers." Another feature of social control is the pressure to conform, sometimes expressed as a requirement to not excel. In these works, the society is ruthlessly egalitarian, in which ability and accomplishment, or even competence, are suppressed or stigmatized as forms of inequality. Kurt Vonnegut 's Harrison Bergeron is one such example. In Ray Bradbury 's Fahrenheit 451, the dystopia represses the intellectuals with particular force, because most people are willing to accept it, and the resistance to it consists mostly of intellectuals. [6] In Ayn Rand 's Atlas Shrugged, the protagonist Dagny Taggart struggles to keep Taggart Transcontinental thriving in a world that spurns innovation and excellence. All of Dagny's opponents cite "equality of opportunity" and the "public good" as their justifications for opposing free market capitalism and competition . Loss of Civil Society One characteristic feature of dystopia a total absence of civil society. There are no social groups besides the state, as in We, or such social groups are subdivisions of the state, under government control, as the Junior Anti-Sex League in 1984. In particular, independent religions are notable by their absence. 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). [7] The state may stage, instead, a personality cult , with quasi-religious rituals about a central figure, usually a head of state or an oligarchy of some sort, such as Big Brother in 1984, or The Benefactor of We. In explicitly theocratic dystopias, such as Margaret Atwood 's The Handmaid's Tale, the religion is the state, and is enforced with the same vigor as any secular dystopia's rule; it does not provide social bonds outside the state. Even more than religion, family is attacked by dystopian societies. In some societies, it has been completely eradicated, but clearly at great effort, and continuing efforts are deployed to keep it down, as in Brave New World, where children are reproduced artificially, where the concept of a "mother" or "father" is obscene. In others, the institution of the family exists, but great efforts are deployed to keep it in service of the state, as in 1984, where children are organized to spy on their parents. In We, the escape of a pregnant woman from the United States is a revolt; the hostility of the state to motherhood is a particularly common trait. [8] Nature The society frequently isolates the characters from all contact with the natural world. Dystopias are commonly urban, [9] and generally avoid nature, as when walks are regarded as dangerously anti-social in Ray Bradbury 's Fahrenheit 451. In Brave New World, the lower classes of society are conditioned to be afraid of nature , but also to visit the countryside and consume transportation and games to stabilize society. Political ideologies Dystopian societies come in all forms of governments and political systems. These systems include, but are not limited to, Anarchism , bureaucracy , socialism , communism , chaos, excessive capitalism, fascism , totalitarianism , dictatorships and other forms of political, social and economical control. [10] [11] However, they all share one political feature in common. The political system seeks to enforce a predominant ideology to the exclusion of all others. In their effort to enforce the prevailing ideology, these governments exert great power over the citizens, as dramatically depicted in 1984 as the authority to decree that Two + two = five. [12] One corollary to the imposition of social control is the government use of censorship to promote its political ideology. In Ray Bradbury 's Fahrenheit 451, the government prohibits reading and sends firemen to burn books, thus preventing critical thinking that might lead citizens to question authority. Jack London 's The Iron Heel presents the dystopian rulers are brutal and dedicated to the point of fanaticism. [12] Lack of social cohesion While fanaticism is the more typical form of dystopian politics, an alternative version to social control is lack of social cohesion. In When the Sleeper Wakes, H. G. Wells depicted the governing class as hedonistic and shallow. [13] Anthony Burgess ' A Clockwork Orange depicts a society in which there is little governmental control and the people themselves cause chaos. Economic coercion A commonly occurring theme in dystopias is a Planned economy under state control. Such economic coercion generally is predicated on the loss of individualism and the amount of social control exerted by the government through the access to goods and services. Such concerns are generally an indictment of the excesses of collectivist societies. The works of Ayn Rand 's, such as Anthem, as well as Lois Lowry's The Giver exemplify these concerns. Some dystopias, such as 1984, feature black markets with goods that are dangerous and difficult to obtain, another commentary on the problems of state-controlled economies. 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. In Brave New World, a character, reacting with horror to the suggestion of not being part of the social body, cites as a reason that everyone works for everyone else. [14] Other works feature extensive privatization. In this context, big businesses often have far more control over the populace than any kind of government and thus act as governments themselves instead of businesses, as can be seen in the novel Jennifer Government. This is common in the genre of cyberpunk, such as in Blade Runner and Snow Crash, which often features corrupt and all-power