Dystopia

A dystopia (from Ancient Greek δυσ- 'bad' and τόπος 'place'; alternatively, cacotopia, kakotopia, or simply anti-utopia) is a community or society that is undesirable or frightening. It is translated as 'not-good place' and is an antonym of utopia, a term that was coined by Sir Thomas More and figures as the title of his best known work, Utopia, published 1516, a blueprint for an ideal society with minimal crime, violence and poverty. Dystopias are often characterized by dehumanization, tyrannical governments, environmental disaster, or other characteristics associated with a cataclysmic decline in society. Dystopian societies appear in many fictional works and artistic representations particularly in stories set in the future. Some of the most famous examples are George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Dystopian societies appear in many sub-genres of fiction and are often used to draw attention to society, environment, politics, economics, religion, psychology, ethics, science or technology. Some authors use the term to refer to existing societies, many of which are or have been totalitarian states or societies in an advanced state of collapse. Some scholars, such as Gregory Claeys and Lyman Tower Sargent, make certain distinctions between typical synonyms of dystopias. For example, Claeys and Sargent define literary dystopias as societies imagined as substantially worse than the society in which the author writes, whereas anti-utopias function as criticisms of attempts to implement various concepts of utopia.In his Dystopia: A Natural History (Oxford University Press, 2017) Claeys offers a more nuanced and historical approach to these definitions. Here the tradition is traced from early reactions to the French Revolution. Its commonly anti-collectivist character is stressed, and the addition of other themes (the dangers of science and technology, of social inequality, of corporate dictatorship, of nuclear war) are also traced. Though several earlier usages are known, dystopia was used as an antonym for Utopia by John Stuart Mill in one of his Parliamentary Speeches 1868 (Hansard Commons) by adding the prefix 'dys' (Ancient Greek: δυσ- 'bad'), reinterpreting the initial U as the prefix 'eu' (Ancient Greek: ευ- 'good') instead of 'ou' (Ancient Greek: οὐ 'not'). It was used to denounce the government's Irish land policy: '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 favour is too bad to be practicable'. Decades before the first documented use of the word 'dystopia' was 'cacotopia' (using Ancient Greek: κακόs, 'bad, wicked') originally proposed in 1818 by Jeremy Bentham, 'As a match for utopia (or the imagined seat of the best government) suppose a cacotopia (or the imagined seat of the worst government) discovered and described'. Though dystopia became the most popular term, cacotopia finds occasional use; Anthony Burgess, author of A Clockwork Orange, said it was a better fit for Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four because 'it sounds worse than dystopia'. Dystopias typically reflect contemporary sociopolitical realities and extrapolate worst-case scenarios as warnings for necessary social change or caution. Dystopian fictions invariably reflect the concerns and fears of its contemporaneous culture. Due to this they are a subject of social studies. Syreeta McFadden notes that contemporary dystopian literature and films increasingly pull their inspiration from the worst imaginings of ourselves and present reality, making it often hard to distinguish between entertainment and reality. In a 1967 study Frank Kermode suggests that the failure of religious prophecies led to a shift in how society apprehends this ancient mode. Christopher Schmidt notes that while the world goes to waste for future generations we distract ourselves from disaster by passively watching it as entertainment. In recent years there has seen a surge of popular dystopian young adult literature and blockbuster films. Theo James, actor in Divergent, notes that 'young people in particular have such a fascination with this kind of story', saying 'It's becoming part of the consciousness. You grow up in a world where it's part of the conversation all the time – the statistics of our planet warming up. The environment is changing. The weather is different. There are things that are very visceral and very obvious, and they make you question the future and how we will survive. It's so much a part of everyday life that young people inevitably — consciously or not — are questioning their futures and how the Earth will be. I certainly do. I wonder what kind of world my children's kids will live in.'