Dystopia in the Modern World

To understand what a dystopia is, it is a good idea to examine its antithesis, the utopia. A utopia is 'any visionary system of political or social perfection' (Dictionary.com): it is an ideal state, a place of no suffering, of political and economic stability where everyone is happy. Explored by Sir Thomas More in his 1516 book Utopia, the concept has been followed up in much political ideology and literature. The word 'utopia' is actually a highbrow pun, as when spoken, it could be translated from the Greek to mean "good place", but also "no place", suggesting that perhaps these idylls could not exist in the real world.

The word 'dystopia', on the other hand, uses no such word play. Also known as cacotopias or anti-utopias, dystopias present worlds characterised by oppression, misery and extreme political ideologies, with states which exert a worrying amount of control over the human race or let violent criminals run amok. Unlike utopian ideas, which can often seem quite banal to the intense and thrill-seeking mind, dystopias play on our very deepest fears - the fears of losing our identity, feeling nothing, loosening our grip on love and religion, letting go of all our political or personal power. Sometimes, the worlds presented are almost utopian in their perfect organisation and sustainability, but they still reflect our collective fears, the reasons we are so reluctant to embrace change. That kind of perfection can be seen as mechanical and emotionally detached.

After reading a utopian novel, you can close the book. You can wistfully return to a reality with its little niggles, its faults and its irritations - problems you know how to cope with, despite resentment. It's not quite the same with dystopias. While buying a copy of Orwell's 1984, heading to a café to read it, you're probably being watched by a series of security guards in CCTV offices; when you search for Brave New World on Google, it is being saved in some computer's omniscient and unlimited memory. Even the victims of crimes can have their unique DNA profile stored on a system run by the state. Laws which resemble those in dystopian fiction are being implemented all the time. Concepts which shock us when we read these books are gradually creeping into our lives, some more than others. This project is intended to explore just how many of those ideas exist in today's reality, and whether they really are as dystopian as they seemed to Orwell, Huxley and Zamyatin.