Humpty Dumpty once said that a word meant whatever he chose it to mean. And the Humpty-Dumpties of modern media clearly think they can do the same thing when they use the word ‘dystopian’ to describe any unpleasant scenario any writer may conjure up for the future.
But merely a horrid situation does not a dystopia make.
A dystopia is the outcome of any dysfunctional attempt to create or subvert a utopian vision. An asteroid hitting earth and wiping out half of its population is a monumental disaster, but it is not necessarily the precursor to a dystopia unless in the aftermath, some people try to institute a new form of society with anti-utopian consequences.
So to understand what truly constitutes a dystopia, we need to begin with utopian aspirations. And while ‘utopia’ has also been loosely used to refer to anything some individual may fancy as an ideal world, there is an indisputable historical basis for connecting ‘utopia’ to a core set of societal transformations.
We can take three representative books that between them set out the main utopian themes for overcoming society’s deficiencies. It is important to note that they are utopian in the sense that while they recognise how far prevailing conditions were from what they present as an alternative, they do not envisage the need for any fantastical or other-worldly intervention for those conditions to be reformed in the direction of the alternative proffered.
These three books appeared between 1516 and 1656, during a period that witnessed a series of revolutionary changes in England that were to have major intellectual and political impact on the whole of Europe, and eventually across the world. It began with the declaration that the Pope and the Catholic monopoly of religious ideas were to be firmly rejected; a declaration made not by some quirky mystic or obscure theologian, but by the King of England himself. And it was to end with political upheavals that cost another English King not only his throne, but also his head.
The first of these books is Thomas More’s Utopia, which set out a moral vision of society wherein mutual respect and community bonds were secured through the minimisation of inequalities. No one was to possess or command access to much more resources than others; and none was left vulnerable through having too little of value to live on. The second is Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis, with an intellectual vision of society that recognised no authority on what was to be accepted as true except for when a given claim or hypothesis had been tested through observation, experimentation, cross-examination, and remained open to further revision. The third is James Harrington’s Oceana, which put forward a political vision of society that was democratically governed by citizens none of whom would be significantly disadvantaged in exercising their power over those who were to rule on their behalf, especially with land ownership spread more evenly, and political offices rotated frequently.
These three utopian tracts engendered in England radical currents of thought that were to come together in the cooperative communitarian outlook of the Owenites in the 19th century. Communities, on this view, should continue to progress towards the fuller realisation of three related objectives: mutual responsibility in sharing common resources and supporting each other in solidarity (the vision of Utopia); cooperative enquiry in checking and validating truth claims in every domain (the vision of New Atlantis); and citizen participation in securing democratic governance for the good of all (the vision of Oceana). The extent to which these tendencies are advanced, at the personal, organisational, and societal level, provides a measure for attaining what has been termed the Cooperative Gestalt.
Accordingly, dystopian portrayals of the future are best understood in relation to how they envision the Cooperative Gestalt of a society and its members come to be severely and systematically displaced. For example, in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, Huxley’s Brave New World, Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, and Wyndham’s The Chrysalids, the disposition to care for others on equal and respectful terms is pushed aside by alienation and distrust promoted by an oppressive hierarchy; the disposition to establish what warrants belief through open exchanges is held back by an unquestionable regime that has the sole say about what is ‘true’; and the disposition to take others’ views and concerns into account when making collectively binding decisions is subverted by the inclination to submit to the diktats of a Big Brother, a World Controller, a Commander, or some faceless ‘authorities’.
The art of dystopian fiction should ultimately be judged by how moving, imaginative and memorable it is in showing us the loss of the vital constituents of the Cooperative Gestalt. Whereas classic utopian writers have painted for us the dimensions that together would give us all a better society to live in, dystopia is where the readiness to embrace these improvements is institutionally and culturally suffocated.
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For more examples of how dystopian literature can highlight the threats to the Cooperative Gestalt and alert us to the dangers to our most precious dispositions, take a look at:
Kuan’s Wonderland; or
Whitehall through the Looking Glass
17 February 2015
25 January 2015
A Novel Exploration of Inequality
Kuan’s Wonderland tells the story of a ten-year old boy being snatched from home and taken to a bizarre world, where he is suspected of being an enemy of the state. As hope of escape begins to fade, he tries to adapt to his new life only to discover the true nightmare awaiting him.
Suitable for anyone aged 14/15 (KS4/Year 10) upwards, Kuan’s Wonderland has been widely acclaimed as a fantasy adventure & political fable, as well as a novel resource to help explore problems of inequality and exploitation:
Kate Pickett (Director, Equality Trust; & co-author of 'The Spirit Level: why more equal societies almost always do better'):
“Kuan’s Wonderland is a didactic novel that doesn’t hesitate to entertain the reader. It shows that political theorists can engage a wider public with an imaginative medium such as popular fiction without losing intellectual force. The Equality Trust welcomes this opportunity to work with Henry Tam with the publication of the learning resource for his novel as part of our Young Person’s Guide to Inequality.”
Julie Thorpe (Head of School & Youth Programmes, the Co-operative College):
"All the evidence points to the fact that more equal societies are happier places and yet the country we live in remains one of the least egalitarian and most divided in the world. The co-operative movement is committed to creating social institutions and enterprises where all members have an equal right and opportunity to participate and have their voices heard. It is vital that young people understand the problems of power inequality if we are to bring about change and Kuan's Wonderland offers a unique, imaginative, way of introducing them to the issue. We highly recommend it!"
Rachel Roberts (Director, Phoenix Education Trust; & Supporter, Student Voice):
“In our experience of working in schools we see young people are highly concerned with issues of justice, respect and equality. We also realise the value of empowering young people to explore these topics in an open way which captures their imaginations, awakens their curiosity and allows to develop their learning and understanding by following their own motivation. Kuan’s Wonderland and the resource guide which accompanies it enables just this. It is an innovative and valuable way of engaging young people to explore issues surrounding equality and democracy in a way which speaks to them.”
Nicolette Burford (Director, Documentary Film-Makers Cooperative; & Producer/Director, ‘No Room for Manoeuvre’):
“Kuan's Wonderland is a mesmerizing novel. It makes the imagination spring to life with amazing visions of strange beings and places. Readers young and old will be intrigued by the story and both teachers and students are going to have much to talk about and around it. There are very few books that offer so complex yet so clear and captivating a plot that mirrors the excesses, impunity, treachery and manipulativeness with which governments and oppressive regimes amass and abuse power to further the selfish interests of a small minority. The learning resource developed by the novelist and the Equality Trust will clearly be of great value to young people and schools.”
Pat Conaty (Fellow, New Economics Foundation; & co-author of 'The Resilience Imperative: Cooperative Transitions to a Steady-State Economy'):
“There is ample evidence that cooperative forms of interaction, in business as well as in social relations more generally, work much better than the top-down approach which is regrettably still the norm in our economy. To change the prevailing mindset we need to explore new ways to engage people of all ages in thinking about why mutuality and equality are vital to our wellbeing. The Equality Trust and Cambridge University are leading the way in showing how this can be done with Henry Tam’s novel, Kuan’s Wonderland – a thought-provoking political fable, and the accompanying learning resource, ‘A Novel Exploration of Inequality’.”
More details about the 'Novel Exploration of Inequality' project are available from: The Equality Trust.
Suitable for anyone aged 14/15 (KS4/Year 10) upwards, Kuan’s Wonderland has been widely acclaimed as a fantasy adventure & political fable, as well as a novel resource to help explore problems of inequality and exploitation:
Kate Pickett (Director, Equality Trust; & co-author of 'The Spirit Level: why more equal societies almost always do better'):
“Kuan’s Wonderland is a didactic novel that doesn’t hesitate to entertain the reader. It shows that political theorists can engage a wider public with an imaginative medium such as popular fiction without losing intellectual force. The Equality Trust welcomes this opportunity to work with Henry Tam with the publication of the learning resource for his novel as part of our Young Person’s Guide to Inequality.”
Julie Thorpe (Head of School & Youth Programmes, the Co-operative College):
"All the evidence points to the fact that more equal societies are happier places and yet the country we live in remains one of the least egalitarian and most divided in the world. The co-operative movement is committed to creating social institutions and enterprises where all members have an equal right and opportunity to participate and have their voices heard. It is vital that young people understand the problems of power inequality if we are to bring about change and Kuan's Wonderland offers a unique, imaginative, way of introducing them to the issue. We highly recommend it!"
Rachel Roberts (Director, Phoenix Education Trust; & Supporter, Student Voice):
“In our experience of working in schools we see young people are highly concerned with issues of justice, respect and equality. We also realise the value of empowering young people to explore these topics in an open way which captures their imaginations, awakens their curiosity and allows to develop their learning and understanding by following their own motivation. Kuan’s Wonderland and the resource guide which accompanies it enables just this. It is an innovative and valuable way of engaging young people to explore issues surrounding equality and democracy in a way which speaks to them.”
Nicolette Burford (Director, Documentary Film-Makers Cooperative; & Producer/Director, ‘No Room for Manoeuvre’):
“Kuan's Wonderland is a mesmerizing novel. It makes the imagination spring to life with amazing visions of strange beings and places. Readers young and old will be intrigued by the story and both teachers and students are going to have much to talk about and around it. There are very few books that offer so complex yet so clear and captivating a plot that mirrors the excesses, impunity, treachery and manipulativeness with which governments and oppressive regimes amass and abuse power to further the selfish interests of a small minority. The learning resource developed by the novelist and the Equality Trust will clearly be of great value to young people and schools.”
Pat Conaty (Fellow, New Economics Foundation; & co-author of 'The Resilience Imperative: Cooperative Transitions to a Steady-State Economy'):
“There is ample evidence that cooperative forms of interaction, in business as well as in social relations more generally, work much better than the top-down approach which is regrettably still the norm in our economy. To change the prevailing mindset we need to explore new ways to engage people of all ages in thinking about why mutuality and equality are vital to our wellbeing. The Equality Trust and Cambridge University are leading the way in showing how this can be done with Henry Tam’s novel, Kuan’s Wonderland – a thought-provoking political fable, and the accompanying learning resource, ‘A Novel Exploration of Inequality’.”
More details about the 'Novel Exploration of Inequality' project are available from: The Equality Trust.
24 January 2015
Contesting Dystopian Visions
Dystopian stories in novels, films and TV drama, have become fashionable of late. But while they compete in painting nightmarish scenarios of our future, they do not provide a shared vision of what the source of the imminent threat is. That is to be expected if one looks back on the history of dystopian writing. Some have focused on the restrictions placed on individuals – e.g., nameless subjects of a totalitarian state in the case of Zamyatin, or wealthy business executives in the case of Rand. Others have presented a dire fate for humanity resulting from some unexpected disaster – e.g., the arrival of the new-born in Wyndham’s ‘The Midwich Cuckoos’, or what preceded the journey recounted in McCarthy’s ‘The Road’.
However, one strand that runs from Wells’ ‘Time Machine’, through London’s ‘The Iron Heel’, Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’, Lewis’ ‘It Can’t Happen Here’, King’s ‘The Running Man’, to Atwood’s ‘The Year of the Flood’, shows that there is a core theme that many dystopian writers are concerned with – namely, the ruthless demarcation of society into the wealthy elite and the vulnerable masses. Of course they weave their contrasting accounts of how the pervasive divisiveness give rise to different kinds of problem – self doubt or even self loathing; starvation; resentment and hatred; environmental destruction; ending of the rule of law. And they come up with strikingly diverse responses – armed rebellion; drug-induced contentment; socio-biological transformation; and suicidal retaliation.
The reason why dystopias about wealth-driven fissures in society resonates with me most is that at the dawn of the 21st century, the inexorable expansion of corporate power is simply the biggest threat to our wellbeing. It is already pushing people into self-numbing consumerism, soul-crushing poverty, or in other cases, seething anger against the prevailing order. It is also fuelling unprecedented profit-led environmental destruction, and paving the way for plutocratic governments that will exclusively serve the rich and impose stringent controls over the rest. Unless writers and activists rouse the public to reverse its hegemony, the worst of all possible dystopias will be upon us soon.
However, one strand that runs from Wells’ ‘Time Machine’, through London’s ‘The Iron Heel’, Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’, Lewis’ ‘It Can’t Happen Here’, King’s ‘The Running Man’, to Atwood’s ‘The Year of the Flood’, shows that there is a core theme that many dystopian writers are concerned with – namely, the ruthless demarcation of society into the wealthy elite and the vulnerable masses. Of course they weave their contrasting accounts of how the pervasive divisiveness give rise to different kinds of problem – self doubt or even self loathing; starvation; resentment and hatred; environmental destruction; ending of the rule of law. And they come up with strikingly diverse responses – armed rebellion; drug-induced contentment; socio-biological transformation; and suicidal retaliation.
The reason why dystopias about wealth-driven fissures in society resonates with me most is that at the dawn of the 21st century, the inexorable expansion of corporate power is simply the biggest threat to our wellbeing. It is already pushing people into self-numbing consumerism, soul-crushing poverty, or in other cases, seething anger against the prevailing order. It is also fuelling unprecedented profit-led environmental destruction, and paving the way for plutocratic governments that will exclusively serve the rich and impose stringent controls over the rest. Unless writers and activists rouse the public to reverse its hegemony, the worst of all possible dystopias will be upon us soon.
02 January 2015
A Novel Indictment of Neoliberalism
Neoliberalism is nothing more than a fig leaf to cover up the most shameless campaign to reverse the democratic distribution of power, and hand ever more control and resources to the wealthy corporate elite.
Whitehall through the Looking Glass is a dystopian novel that shows what could happen if the current trends of rewarding the privileged and scapegoating the vulnerable were allowed to continue.
Frances O'Grady, the General Secretary of TUC (Trades Union Congress), has described it as “a timely reminder of the dangers of the rapidly-accelerating corporatisation of our political and economic life. With private firms increasingly running our NHS and administering welfare, so many of the services we cherish are at risk from the profit motive. From utilities to railways, we’ve already seen how the interests of shareholders and bosses trump those of workers, service users and taxpayers. As the general election approaches, Tam’s book is an important reminder of the risks of crude neoliberal ideology”.
The novel is available in both e-book and paperback format:
E-book version: Amazon UK or Amazon US
Paperback version: Barnes & Noble or CreateSpace
Whitehall through the Looking Glass is a dystopian novel that shows what could happen if the current trends of rewarding the privileged and scapegoating the vulnerable were allowed to continue.
Frances O'Grady, the General Secretary of TUC (Trades Union Congress), has described it as “a timely reminder of the dangers of the rapidly-accelerating corporatisation of our political and economic life. With private firms increasingly running our NHS and administering welfare, so many of the services we cherish are at risk from the profit motive. From utilities to railways, we’ve already seen how the interests of shareholders and bosses trump those of workers, service users and taxpayers. As the general election approaches, Tam’s book is an important reminder of the risks of crude neoliberal ideology”.
The novel is available in both e-book and paperback format:
E-book version: Amazon UK or Amazon US
Paperback version: Barnes & Noble or CreateSpace
22 December 2014
Winter's Tale with a Sting
“Out of the grey condensed sky, snowflakes fell. Like paratroopers dropped by mistake behind enemy lines, they drifted silently to the ground. Motionless they lay, waiting for an instruction that never came. More would arrive and the layer of pristine paralysis thickened. In Kuan’s world, every snowflake was different. In Shiyan, they were all identical, each one possessing the same solitary beauty as the holographic image projected in the virtual altar inside the House of Ou-Yang.”
In Kuan’s Wonderland, the arrival of winter brought our protagonist ever closer to the moment of truth, when he finally realised what those with power in Shiyan were planning all along.
In our own world, there is a similarly pervasive sense of naivety. People assume that there is nothing much to choose between politicians, when in fact the diverse agendas on offer could mean life and death differences for countless citizens. Perhaps an allegorical tale set in a strange realm may help trigger alarm bells that would otherwise remain silent.
Find out more by clicking on Kuan's Wonderland
In Kuan’s Wonderland, the arrival of winter brought our protagonist ever closer to the moment of truth, when he finally realised what those with power in Shiyan were planning all along.
In our own world, there is a similarly pervasive sense of naivety. People assume that there is nothing much to choose between politicians, when in fact the diverse agendas on offer could mean life and death differences for countless citizens. Perhaps an allegorical tale set in a strange realm may help trigger alarm bells that would otherwise remain silent.
Find out more by clicking on Kuan's Wonderland
18 November 2014
The Unbearable Emptiness of Time-travelling
When H. G. Wells introduced the Time Machine back in 1895, it served as an ingenious device to tell a dystopian story. By travelling to the distant future and returning to the present, the protagonist could share with us what the world could degenerate into if we did nothing to stop the polarisation between the haves and have-nots. It was a classic cautionary tale.
But sci-fi blockbusters today have become obsessed with Wells’ idea as a convenient plot filler and forgotten about his didactic concerns. From the reboot of Star Trek, through X-Men: Days of Future Past, to Interstellar, the most calamitous situation is always to be saved ultimately by someone in the future intervening to reconstruct the past.
What they overlook is that to posit time as the fourth dimension is to locate it as a unchangeable component of the space-time continuum. Whatever has happened cannot be undone. A moment thought would suffice to demonstrate that with infinite opportunities in the future to alter the past, if such alteration were possible, our memories would be continuously scrambled with nothing left to constitute any conception of our ongoing existence.
And to address this, there has long been a consensus that even if time-travelling were possible and someone from one point in time could affect events further back from that point, the impact would not in fact alter that past event, but only create an additional alternate timeline. So more and more alternate universes could be generated – some with the disaster in question averted, some with other unforeseen complications arising – but the tragedy that happened in the original past would remain a tragic event in that timeline.
So whatever heroic time-travelling deeds may appear on screen, they are just diversions from the dreadful events unfolding in the past presented to us at the outset. In truth, at best another world had been created, but in this one, things were as bad as ever. No one has been saved – only that in some parallel universe, a world with similar, but more fortunate, inhabitants has been brought into being. If you were about to be tortured, and someone said a clone of you had been produced on the other side of the world and given a luxurious lifestyle, it would not be of much comfort to you.
That is the vacuity of ‘time-travel’ salvation.
Our minds could of course jump around, to our memories of the past and imagined visions of the future. Vonnegut showed masterfully in Slaughter House 5 how shifting time perspectives could create greater literary depths. But in so doing, he also reminded us that we could never erase disasters that had befallen us with a dash of time-travelling. The bombing of Dresden, the massacre in Nanking, the inhumanity of Auschwitz, cannot be rubbed out of the space-time continuum. It is precisely because we can never change the past that we must strive for a better future.
But sci-fi blockbusters today have become obsessed with Wells’ idea as a convenient plot filler and forgotten about his didactic concerns. From the reboot of Star Trek, through X-Men: Days of Future Past, to Interstellar, the most calamitous situation is always to be saved ultimately by someone in the future intervening to reconstruct the past.
What they overlook is that to posit time as the fourth dimension is to locate it as a unchangeable component of the space-time continuum. Whatever has happened cannot be undone. A moment thought would suffice to demonstrate that with infinite opportunities in the future to alter the past, if such alteration were possible, our memories would be continuously scrambled with nothing left to constitute any conception of our ongoing existence.
And to address this, there has long been a consensus that even if time-travelling were possible and someone from one point in time could affect events further back from that point, the impact would not in fact alter that past event, but only create an additional alternate timeline. So more and more alternate universes could be generated – some with the disaster in question averted, some with other unforeseen complications arising – but the tragedy that happened in the original past would remain a tragic event in that timeline.
So whatever heroic time-travelling deeds may appear on screen, they are just diversions from the dreadful events unfolding in the past presented to us at the outset. In truth, at best another world had been created, but in this one, things were as bad as ever. No one has been saved – only that in some parallel universe, a world with similar, but more fortunate, inhabitants has been brought into being. If you were about to be tortured, and someone said a clone of you had been produced on the other side of the world and given a luxurious lifestyle, it would not be of much comfort to you.
That is the vacuity of ‘time-travel’ salvation.
Our minds could of course jump around, to our memories of the past and imagined visions of the future. Vonnegut showed masterfully in Slaughter House 5 how shifting time perspectives could create greater literary depths. But in so doing, he also reminded us that we could never erase disasters that had befallen us with a dash of time-travelling. The bombing of Dresden, the massacre in Nanking, the inhumanity of Auschwitz, cannot be rubbed out of the space-time continuum. It is precisely because we can never change the past that we must strive for a better future.
12 October 2014
Nightmare on Downing Street
Dystopian novels should hold up a mirror to the horrors that await us if we do nothing to divert disturbing trends. In Whitehall through the Looking Glass, I painted a picture of life under a shameless plutocratic government. More recently, when giving my views to the Civil Service College, I warned that we might not be far off from the pervasive oppression portrayed in the story.
“In this timid new world, privatisation and deregulation will keep handing more power to large corporations until there are no viable checks or balances against them. Civil servants, on short-term contracts, will be made keenly aware that they have to spend time in the private sector to impress their corporate masters (inside and outside government). Those who cannot point to a successful track record of serving business interests are unlikely to reach the upper echelons of Whitehall.
And once a corporate-led government has consolidated its position, it will remove any obstacle to the development and application of advanced technology to expand its powerbase and the profits of its allies. In the absence of any genuine public scrutiny, the power of surveillance, information manipulation, and promotion of addictive consumerism will be deployed without constraint. Few civil servants will dare to blow the whistle. Those who do can expect a long prison sentence. And with 24/7 monitoring, probably with the aid of bio-technology, there is little chance of escaping detection.
A government conducted for the benefit of the business elite will also want to make sure the majority of the population are unable to pool their resources to act collectively. The rich will accordingly be liberated from paying taxes, public services will be largely dismantled, and welfare safety nets will vanish altogether. At the same time, corporate leaders in the government and the media (including the privatised BBC) will work seamlessly together to present the most vulnerable people as deserving of scorn and ill-treatment – thus diverting public frustration towards those least able to defend themselves.” (excerpts from ‘What would Whitehall be like in fifty years’ time?’, in Despatches, the Civil Service College newsletter: [p.2].)
Now we hear that the Government has just appointed as the chief executive of the British Civil Service someone who has had no experience as a civil servant, and whose sole credentials are a career in the private sector where he had presided over health and safety problems in the oil industry and disputes in pushing for more fracking. On top of his key public sector role, he is allowed to keep his £100,000 a year post with a brewing company. That is not fiction.
“In this timid new world, privatisation and deregulation will keep handing more power to large corporations until there are no viable checks or balances against them. Civil servants, on short-term contracts, will be made keenly aware that they have to spend time in the private sector to impress their corporate masters (inside and outside government). Those who cannot point to a successful track record of serving business interests are unlikely to reach the upper echelons of Whitehall.
And once a corporate-led government has consolidated its position, it will remove any obstacle to the development and application of advanced technology to expand its powerbase and the profits of its allies. In the absence of any genuine public scrutiny, the power of surveillance, information manipulation, and promotion of addictive consumerism will be deployed without constraint. Few civil servants will dare to blow the whistle. Those who do can expect a long prison sentence. And with 24/7 monitoring, probably with the aid of bio-technology, there is little chance of escaping detection.
A government conducted for the benefit of the business elite will also want to make sure the majority of the population are unable to pool their resources to act collectively. The rich will accordingly be liberated from paying taxes, public services will be largely dismantled, and welfare safety nets will vanish altogether. At the same time, corporate leaders in the government and the media (including the privatised BBC) will work seamlessly together to present the most vulnerable people as deserving of scorn and ill-treatment – thus diverting public frustration towards those least able to defend themselves.” (excerpts from ‘What would Whitehall be like in fifty years’ time?’, in Despatches, the Civil Service College newsletter: [p.2].)
Now we hear that the Government has just appointed as the chief executive of the British Civil Service someone who has had no experience as a civil servant, and whose sole credentials are a career in the private sector where he had presided over health and safety problems in the oil industry and disputes in pushing for more fracking. On top of his key public sector role, he is allowed to keep his £100,000 a year post with a brewing company. That is not fiction.
16 September 2014
Dystopia Goes to Hollywood
When political writers such as Huxley, Zamyatin and Orwell first developed the dystopian genre of fiction, it marked the beginning of an intellectual movement to alert the world to societal trends which, if left unchecked, could take us all into an irrevocable nightmare. Now tales of dystopia have become mainstream screen entertainment. Is that good news or bad?
In the last decade (2005-2014), there have been one or more major dystopian films released every year. We have selected a dozen to see what they have to say about the socio-political dangers lying in wait for us:
2014 Divergent
2013 Elysium
2012 The Hunger Games
2011 In Time
2011 Atlas Shrugged
2010 Book of Eli
2009 The Road
2008 Blindness
2007 I Am Legend
2006 Children of Men
2006 V for Vendetta
2005 The Island
These films fall broadly into three categories. The first is about government becoming too over-bearing and resistance is called for to put an end to its transgression. These include:
‘Divergent’: people are divided into artificial groups based on their dispositions, and those who do not fit into a pre-determined group have a precarious existence.
‘Atlas Shrugged’: hard-working business people are threatened with excessive taxes and regulations, and decide they will go on strike.
‘Children of Men’: government has become so controlling in managing dwindling resources as the human race can no longer reproduce.
‘V for Vendetta’: government acts without constraint and seeks to crush any dissident voice with ruthless oppression, and a rebel leader rises to destroy it.
All these films suggest we should not allow any government, with its monopoly in the use of legally-sanctioned coercive force, to go beyond acceptable boundaries. But while they dwell on the spirit of resistance, they are much less clear about the rationale for opposing the government. Of course governments should not arbitrarily divide people or impose impossible burdens on businesses. But for public safety, governments do on certain occasions have to segregate people who pose a threat to others’ lives. And even the most ardent laissez-faire advocates would admit that leaving businesses alone without any regulatory framework is hardly likely to bring about the best of all possible worlds. A government which abuses its power should indeed be restrained or even overthrown, but what counts as crossing the line and what amounts to appropriate counter-moves are precisely the key factors to consider. Sometimes the true dystopian nightmare begins when a government is simply swept away with no collective and democratic alternative to take its place.
This takes us to the second category of recent dystopian films, all of which are concerned with the collapse of government when civilised rule is displaced by pervasive vulnerability in the midst of lawless chaos. These cover:
‘Book of Eli’: only a determined few can stand up against the strong who will exploit and even crush others in the absence of any government to protect the public good.
‘The Road’: a few individuals may heroically try to survive in a post-apocalyptic world where others are roaming around to hunt people for food.
‘Blindness’: when nearly everyone has gone blind suddenly, anarchy breaks out and nobody can feel safe anywhere.
‘I Am Legend’: a mutated virus has wiped out most people and turned many into cannibalistic predators, and one survivor looks to escape to an improbable sanctuary.
The unifying theme here is the horror that would envelop us if some disaster should result in the total collapse of government, leaving people with no protection from thoughtless attackers, and no basis for determining or enforcing justice. These films effectively convey the sense of unremitting crisis that would ensue, but unlike John Wyndham’s dystopian classic, ‘The Day of the Triffids’ (which anticipated the plot of ‘Blindness’), they neglect to show how, beyond surviving against the immediate trials of the post-apocalyptic situation, the only long term hope rests with rebuilding some form of viable government.
So far, we are warned to be ever vigilant both against allowing government to act irresponsibly and allowing government to collapse irrevocably. The third category of recent dystopian films turn their attention to what contemporary governments should urgently address if societies are not to fall apart. These include:
‘Elysium’: the superrich have taken off with the resources they have amassed and literally left the poor behind on a dysfunctional planet.
‘The Hunger Games’: the superrich have their life of abundant luxury in their own district while others are made to live in utterly impoverished areas.
‘In Time’: the superrich can extend their life span with a ‘time’ currency while the poor are short-changed and programmed to die young.
‘The Island’: the superrich have clones of themselves made, and the clones are killed when their body parts need to be harvested to rejuvenate the wealthy ‘originals’.
The recurring theme of these films echoes what many political theorists and economists have been highlighting: if a wealthy elite is allowed to become so much richer and hence more powerful than everyone else in society, the corrosive inequalities will leave everyone else at their arbitrary mercy. Apart from ensuring it does not abuse its powers, and maintaining the basic infrastructure for general security and public services, a government has a crucial role to play in preventing one group of citizens from exercising de facto dictatorship over all others by virtue of their concentrated wealth.
Some may be disappointed that dystopian films dwell on atmosphere and effects too much at the expense of telling a fuller story of the dangers we need to avert with the help of a democratic and responsive government. But they do help to raise awareness of political issues and shift cultural norms as to what threats are no longer tolerable. And it is not marginal thinkers or radical activists who are now saying that we need to pay more attention to safeguarding the essential functions of our government, holding it to account for its actions, and most urgently of all, pressing it to reverse the widening gap between the superrich elite and everyone else.
In the last decade (2005-2014), there have been one or more major dystopian films released every year. We have selected a dozen to see what they have to say about the socio-political dangers lying in wait for us:
2014 Divergent
2013 Elysium
2012 The Hunger Games
2011 In Time
2011 Atlas Shrugged
2010 Book of Eli
2009 The Road
2008 Blindness
2007 I Am Legend
2006 Children of Men
2006 V for Vendetta
2005 The Island
These films fall broadly into three categories. The first is about government becoming too over-bearing and resistance is called for to put an end to its transgression. These include:
‘Divergent’: people are divided into artificial groups based on their dispositions, and those who do not fit into a pre-determined group have a precarious existence.
‘Atlas Shrugged’: hard-working business people are threatened with excessive taxes and regulations, and decide they will go on strike.
‘Children of Men’: government has become so controlling in managing dwindling resources as the human race can no longer reproduce.
‘V for Vendetta’: government acts without constraint and seeks to crush any dissident voice with ruthless oppression, and a rebel leader rises to destroy it.
All these films suggest we should not allow any government, with its monopoly in the use of legally-sanctioned coercive force, to go beyond acceptable boundaries. But while they dwell on the spirit of resistance, they are much less clear about the rationale for opposing the government. Of course governments should not arbitrarily divide people or impose impossible burdens on businesses. But for public safety, governments do on certain occasions have to segregate people who pose a threat to others’ lives. And even the most ardent laissez-faire advocates would admit that leaving businesses alone without any regulatory framework is hardly likely to bring about the best of all possible worlds. A government which abuses its power should indeed be restrained or even overthrown, but what counts as crossing the line and what amounts to appropriate counter-moves are precisely the key factors to consider. Sometimes the true dystopian nightmare begins when a government is simply swept away with no collective and democratic alternative to take its place.
This takes us to the second category of recent dystopian films, all of which are concerned with the collapse of government when civilised rule is displaced by pervasive vulnerability in the midst of lawless chaos. These cover:
‘Book of Eli’: only a determined few can stand up against the strong who will exploit and even crush others in the absence of any government to protect the public good.
‘The Road’: a few individuals may heroically try to survive in a post-apocalyptic world where others are roaming around to hunt people for food.
‘Blindness’: when nearly everyone has gone blind suddenly, anarchy breaks out and nobody can feel safe anywhere.
‘I Am Legend’: a mutated virus has wiped out most people and turned many into cannibalistic predators, and one survivor looks to escape to an improbable sanctuary.
The unifying theme here is the horror that would envelop us if some disaster should result in the total collapse of government, leaving people with no protection from thoughtless attackers, and no basis for determining or enforcing justice. These films effectively convey the sense of unremitting crisis that would ensue, but unlike John Wyndham’s dystopian classic, ‘The Day of the Triffids’ (which anticipated the plot of ‘Blindness’), they neglect to show how, beyond surviving against the immediate trials of the post-apocalyptic situation, the only long term hope rests with rebuilding some form of viable government.
So far, we are warned to be ever vigilant both against allowing government to act irresponsibly and allowing government to collapse irrevocably. The third category of recent dystopian films turn their attention to what contemporary governments should urgently address if societies are not to fall apart. These include:
‘Elysium’: the superrich have taken off with the resources they have amassed and literally left the poor behind on a dysfunctional planet.
‘The Hunger Games’: the superrich have their life of abundant luxury in their own district while others are made to live in utterly impoverished areas.
‘In Time’: the superrich can extend their life span with a ‘time’ currency while the poor are short-changed and programmed to die young.
‘The Island’: the superrich have clones of themselves made, and the clones are killed when their body parts need to be harvested to rejuvenate the wealthy ‘originals’.
The recurring theme of these films echoes what many political theorists and economists have been highlighting: if a wealthy elite is allowed to become so much richer and hence more powerful than everyone else in society, the corrosive inequalities will leave everyone else at their arbitrary mercy. Apart from ensuring it does not abuse its powers, and maintaining the basic infrastructure for general security and public services, a government has a crucial role to play in preventing one group of citizens from exercising de facto dictatorship over all others by virtue of their concentrated wealth.
Some may be disappointed that dystopian films dwell on atmosphere and effects too much at the expense of telling a fuller story of the dangers we need to avert with the help of a democratic and responsive government. But they do help to raise awareness of political issues and shift cultural norms as to what threats are no longer tolerable. And it is not marginal thinkers or radical activists who are now saying that we need to pay more attention to safeguarding the essential functions of our government, holding it to account for its actions, and most urgently of all, pressing it to reverse the widening gap between the superrich elite and everyone else.
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