I don't want comfort. I want God.
I want poetry. I want real danger.
I want freedom. I want goodness. I want sin.
Early science fiction was largely utopic-
-showing us a world where progress and technology led to a better society for all.
Well, at least those groups they remembered to include.
And this makes sense.
Early science fiction comes largely from France, England, and the United States.
And in those three countries, during the latter part of the nineteenth century, things were getting better.
Sure, a lot was still going wrong, but whole generations grew up in a time
where year by year the average person became more prosperous, healthier, and more in control of their political destiny.
So authors simply speculated that trend would continue.
Advances in medicine would make us immune to disease,
machines would make our lives labor free,
and the decaying monarchies that they still saw tottering on in Europe
would inevitably give way to universal democratic freedom.
Then World War one happened, along with the Russian Revolution,
and the cracks started to show.
Darker elements and less completely Pollyanna and story lines began to make their way into sci-fi
But the roaring 20s still held these in check then came the crash
Fascism started to march across Europe Russia spiraled from the naive optimism of the revolution into Stalinist
totalitarianism and
democracy was on the retreat the idea that capitalism would bring us all a
prosperous and easy life lay in shambles across the southern plains of the United States and so
Dystopic literature really began we'll start with one of my personal favorites
We the progenitor novel written by a Soviet author, but first published in New York
we details a time when humankind has decimated itself with weapons of mass destruction and the final remaining enclave of
civilization exists under the totalitarian domination of the benefactor
Released the very same year Stalin came to power. It imagines the extreme of top-down government in it
Every aspect of people's lives are regulated from who they see everyday to what time they go for walks
The police state surveil severy one and the most basic deviation from what is set out by the benefactor is considered a crime
it's the first place that truly paints for us the horrifying possibility that rather than a freer more liberated Society our
Advances will instead lead us to the logical conclusion of mechanization
to the idea that human beings are simply parts of the giant machine of state and
Collective effort will be warped into a homogenizing of humanity in order to make us all more easily
Interchangeable parts, and this idea is echoed in the first great English dystopian novel brave new world here, though
It's taken even further with a society that venerates Ford and the idea of the assembly line
in fact years are even marked after Ford or
Before Ford and people are born into specific castes based on the work that the government believes they're physically and mentally cut out to do
Rooted in the growing understanding of psychology and pharmacology
brave new world features a setting where everyone is conditioned from a young age to accept their role in society and to
Conform to its rules and whenever this starts to feel oppressive whenever someone begins to feel taboo emotions, like sadness or depression
They're encouraged to take soma an opioid like drug that helps suppress negative feelings and keep society
orderly in the story
we followed two Outsiders a poet and a psychologist who struggle with the constraints of this perfect and
Orderly world humanity is built eventually in their travels
they come to a reservation where the world government has set aside some land for people to live in the
Traditional way with religion and disease and art and tragedy and they bring back one of these as they call them
savage human beings to their perfected society as you can probably guess this savage human being doesn't exactly
integrate well
and they all end up getting hauled off before the
rezident world controller of Western Europe to face exile and this is perhaps the most
Important part of the book because it does something very few dystopian novels do it presents an argument
For the dystopia while the resident world controller is called his Ford ship and has books
with the famous
40 he's also
one of the few people in society who knows of the world before the world state who has read the old books and thought about
the ways things used to be
in an exchange about why the Society of brave new world couldn't understand a fellow and why no modern work like it would ever be
Created he says you can't make flavors without steel and you can't make tragedies without social instability
The world is stable
Now people are happy they get what they want and they never want what they can't get
They're well off. They're safe. They're never ill and they're not afraid of death
They're blissfully ignorant of passion and old age
They're plagued with no mother or father and they've no wives or children or lovers to feel strongly about
They're so conditioned that they practically can't help behaving as they ought to behave and if anything should go wrong
their soma the exchange continues with the savage saying all the same a fellow's good a
fellow's better than those feel ease feel ease being neat cheap sensory movies that they have in that brave new world the controller responds of
Course it is, but that's the price we have to pay for stability
You've got to choose between happiness and what people used to call high art
we've sacrificed the high art we have the feel ease and the scent organ instead and
The savage response it all seems to me quite horrible and then the controller offers the central
counter-argument in the book saying
Of course
It does
Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with over compensations for misery. And of course
stability isn't nearly so spectacular as
Instability and being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune. None of the
Picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt?
Happiness is never grand
And that is what makes brave new world the perfect opening salvo in the exploration of dystopias because it asks the question
How do we get there? How would a modern society ever actually become a dystopia?
Sometimes it's through raw greed or lust for power
but equally as often it's through people thinking they know the best way for Humanity to live and
Trying to impose that vision on all of us and it also forces us to ask ourselves our truth and beauty
but with suffering and if so
Are they worth it?
Are those the things that really make us human and if we mill them out of our existence?
Do we give up the most fundamental the most noble part of what we are or are we those of us who desire liberty?
Greedy forcing the less fortunate to suffer so that we may have our freedoms and are those the only two options?
Is there a third path?
While brave new world leaves this question open join us next time for an author who feels like he has a pretty definitive
answer as we talk about
1984 we'll see you then
You