THE FUTURE ACCORDING TO FICTION: UTOPIAS AND DYSTOPIAS

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Definitions

A utopia is a perfect world. In utopias, there are not problems like war, disease, poverty, oppression, discrimination, inequality, and so forth. The word utopia is made-up from Greek roots by Sir Thomas More. In 1516, More wrote a book called Utopia. Depending on the Greek roots used, utopia can either mean 'no place' or 'good place.'

A dystopia, on the other hand, is a world in which nothing is perfect. The problems that plague our world are often even more extreme in dystopias. Dystopia is a play on the made-up word 'utopia' using the root dys, which means 'bad' or 'difficult.' Words like 'dysfunctional' or 'dyslexia' illustrate the use of this prefix.

Characteristics

Utopias                                                          

• peaceful government
• equality for citizens
• access to education, healthcare, employment, and so forth
• a safe environment

Dystopias

• usually a controlling, oppressive government or no government
• either extreme poverty for everyone or a huge income gap between the richest characters and the poorest characters
• propaganda controlling people's minds
• freethinking and independent thought is banned

Examples              

As you probably guessed, examples of dystopias are much more common. After all, if fiction writers could devise solutions to our world's biggest problems, such as world hunger, poverty, and war, then we would probably have implemented them and be currently living in a utopia! Another reason dystopias are more popular with writers is because they are, by their very nature, full of conflict, an integral part of any engaging story.

Dystopias                                                       

Recent example of dystopias include The Hunger Games, written by Suzanne Collins in 2008, which is about a lottery in which children are picked to fight to the death, and Divergent, a 2011 novel (adapted into a film in 2014) about a society split into five factions based on five different personality characteristics as a method to retain control over human nature. As you can no doubt tell, dystopian stories have found an increased popularity in the young adult genre of literature.

There are many classic examples of dystopian stories, including Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange. However, probably the most well-known example of classic dystopian literature is 1984 by George Orwell, written in 1949. It's an example of a dystopia in which British society, over time, became warped and transformed into an extreme totalitarian state. In addition to controlling the press, the food, and relationships of the state's inhabitants, the manipulation and control of human thought itself is the goal of this regime. If you've ever heard a political pundit or other writer use the term 'thoughtcrime', 'doublethink', or 'Big Brother', you're hearing terms from 1984.

Utopias

In utopias, the biggest issues that case conflict have been solved: there is no longer war, illness, poverty, or inequality. Sometimes a more enlightened group helps guide our society to a better world, such as inChildhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke (1954), where a group of aliens use their advanced technology and ideologies to help humans create a better society.