How our opinions on dystopias reflect who we are as individuals
On October 21, 1949, George Orwell received a remarkable letter. It was penned by Orwell’s former French teacher and fellow writer, Aldous Huxley, whose own dystopian novel, Brave New World, had been published in 1932. The letter’s message was foremost congratulatory, as Orwell had recently published 1984. While Huxley acknowledged the “profound importance” of Orwell’s novel, he suggested, echoing the themes of his novel, that tyrannical control is best maintained by encouraging mindless hedonism. As Huxley put it: “The lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience.” Huxley predicted that “the nightmare of Nineteen Eighty-Four [was] destined to modulate into the nightmare of a world having more resemblance to that which [he] imagined in Brave New World.” Put simply, Huxley believed that his dystopian masterpiece was ultimately more prophetic than Orwell’s. Yet, their works and Huxley’s assertion, might be said to reflect their respective politics. In Orwell’s case, a hatred of the Stalinist regime and in Huxley’s case, a concern about rampant capitalism.
While we might argue that elements of both visions have been realized, we live hedonistic lives under unprecedented electronic surveillance, the current appetite for dystopian stories is unabated. Following the seven decades since Huxley’s letter to Orwell, books and films, both fiction and non-fiction, have envisioned a plethora of existential threats for the human race. And we also continue to debate which visions are most reflective of our current societal ills.
We never argue about if our world will face a crisis, but popular culture offers various scenarios for how this would take place and who would be responsible. In The Hunger Games, sadistic elites sacrifice peasants for their viewing pleasure. Stephen King’s The Stand portrays a global pandemic that results in a grand battle between good and evil. If you remain unconvinced that we obsess over this topic, try to count the number of times New York City, the symbolic metropolitan of the West, has been utterly eviscerated in family-friendly Marvel movies.
It is the very disagreement over the cause of our destruction that is so illuminating. Award-winning author, Lionel Shriver, alludes to this point in her latest novel, The Mandibles. The book envisions a near future where a fiscally irresponsible American government amasses a debt load which the world is no longer interested in buying. As the American government nears the precipice of financial ruin, the characters make predictions of what will happen next. One of them is Lowell Stackhouse, a Keynesian economist who consistently denies that America is facing monetary collapse. Speaking through Stackhouse, Shriver astutely observes that “Plots set in the future are about what people fear in the present.” I think Shriver’s insight can be taken a step further. “Fear in the present” is not monolithic. Fear manifests itself differently among various segments of society. Correspondingly, people will likely cling to dystopias that vindicate their current fears, and the concomitant moral assumptions that undergird them. Therefore, the quibbles we have over how we’ll eventually perish, are at least partially rooted in our current debates about properly living in the present.
Take The Walking Dead for example. A few years after the great recession, a show portraying a small group of people staying alive amidst a flesh-eating zombie epidemic, broke the record for the most popular cable drama ever. While its absolute viewership was large, the show’s themes – strict justice, loyalty, suspicion of foreigners – were particularly alluring for conservatives. Tellingly, in an interview with Forbes, Jared Kushner mentioned that the 2016 Trump campaign specifically targeted ads to The Walking Dead viewers. By contrast, The Handmaid’s Tale, an Emmy award winning series in which America is ruled by cruel Christian theocrats, had an inverse relationship regarding its demographic appeal. The show was loved by progressives (described as “spectacular” by the New York Times), and generally loathed by conservatives (described as “propaganda” by The National Review).
The respective fandoms of these dystopias may also reflect the political climates in which they emerged. For socially conservative folks living in the President Obama era, it was arguably cathartic to see guns, strong borders, and capital punishment portrayed as essential tools to maintain social order. Similarly, progressive people living in the President Trump era may find relief in watching a strong female lead fight against a vicious patriarchy. Ultimately, both ideological camps seem to favour the disaster storyline which emulates their distinct Weltanschauungs.
When debating which tales of destruction are most plausible, it behooves us to remember that dystopias serve as a mirror for both our fondest fears and our political beliefs. Despite the ideological differences that are sometimes revealed by our preferences, perhaps dystopias currently serve as a safer proxy for otherwise acrimonious political debates. Finally, as Halloween reminds us, our fears and our humanity are not mutually exclusive. We can scare one another with a variety of terrifying scenarios, but still share candy afterwards!