Hope for Tomorrow - The Politics of Utopian and Dystopian Literature
By Erika Lei
After the release of The Hunger Games, Dystopian literature has emerged as one of the most oversaturated literary genres. Teenagers are bombarded with “iconic '' young adult novels like Divergence and The Maze Runner, and every teenager is exposed to some form of Dystopian fiction by the time they enter high school. Dystopian fiction novels are touted as “cautionary tales” or “deep literature” by almost every literature teacher under the sun. It has become one of the most well known literary genres, and for good reason. Faced with the bleakness of the modern world, many seek comfort in knowing “it can be worse”. Yet, as Dystopian literature has grown larger and larger, it has become a parody of itself, stripped away from all original meaning and becoming yet another tool in enforcing the neoliberal world order.
1984 by George Orwell is perhaps the most well known piece of dystopian literature, with the all-powerful dictator Big Brother etched into the mind of nearly every American. As a critique of totalitarianism, it is undoubtedly one of the greatest pieces of literature ever written, and for that reason is on the shelves of nearly every high school English class. Yet, the message of 1984 has been bastardized, and just like everything else the neoliberal system touches, has been turned into yet another tool of capital. As society evolves into the post-World War 2 era known as postmodern society, so must our analysis. As the simulacra began to subsume every aspect of postmodern society into itself, literature proves no different.
As a father of postmodernity, the theories of Jean Baudrillard, specifically on simulation and simulacra, are fundamental to this analysis. With the emergence of mass media, Baudrillard believed that people in the postmodern era interacted more with “hyperreality” than reality itself. To define Hyperreality, Baudrillard uses the McDonald’s Burger—presented on TV as juicy, tender and teeming with flavor. It bears no resemblance to the real McDonald’s burger, which is flat, boring and bland. Yet, due to the prevalence of advertisements, we are led to believe that the fake burger is more real than the actual burger, making it “more real than real”, or hyperreal. Baudrillard takes this one step further, writing that many objects have taken on a form that transcends the hyperreal - naming such objects simulacra. The simulacra is a simulation of a simulation, so far removed from reality that it bears no resemblance to the original object itself (as seen in the meme).
Dystopian Literature too, has manifested itself as a simulacra. While earlier dystopian works such as 1984, Fahrenheit 451, or Brave New World had deeper messages behind them, postmodern dystopias such as The Hunger Games, Divergent or Legend are cheap imitations—they make the claim “government bad”, but lack any of the nuance. 1984 tells the tale of the futility of struggle, Fahrenheit 451 has a message of complacency due to consumerism and mass media (ironic), and so on. Yet, looking back at books such as the Hunger Games, Divergent, and the slew of YA dystopian novels following, they are only able to paint a generically bleak world, offering very surface level social commentary such as “overly exaggerated authoritarian government bad”. In an attempt to mimic the earlier books, they took the surface level messages and reproduced them in a slightly bastardized form. Following their success, an avalanche of authors have produced similar books, with the messages of the originals being further and further lost until the genre of Dystopian fiction has been boiled down to love triangles and lifeless wastelands filled with exaggerated characters.
Beyond the loss of meaning, the new breed of Dystopian fiction has brought upon a social acceptance of the current dystopia. While it is generally understood that the governments of the Hunger Games, Cyberpunk 2077, or Divergent are bad, there is little work done by the author to relate those worlds to our own. The consumption of such books allows us to feel complacent in our current world, where the horrors are hidden behind a veil of ignorance, letting society as a collective think “at least we don’t live in that society”. Any social progress is threatened by the topic of dystopia, with any social progress being compared to being “literally 1984”. Yet, behind the curtain of neoliberal society, the very horrors of many dystopias play out, hidden from view. While it is generally accepted that the tribute system of The Hunger Games is barbaric, the sacrifice of millions to fuel our current model of consumption is seen as “necessary”, or that “there’s no better option”. We don’t NEED children to die mining cobalt for our iPhones, but the practice goes largely ignored in the western world. While the unbridled corruption of Cyberpunk 2077 is undoubtedly wrong, the total control corporations have over our media, combined with the degradation of the United States into a plutocracy, is seen as completely normal simply because it isn’t as visible as it is in fiction.
Thus, for dystopian fiction to truly critique society, we need to make meaning beyond “government bad”. Indeed, while the goal of dystopia has always been to peel back the curtain hiding society’s problems, modern dystopia continues to add more layers, masking the terrible world we already live in. Everything in modern dystopias, from exaggerated villains to the lack of social critique, have done nothing but make people more complacent in the world we live in.
It is important to note that, despite its relation to dystopia, Utopian Fiction has never fallen into the pit of reaction. By nature, Utopianism is inherently progressive - after all, an egalitarian world where all are well off is an inherently progressive ideal, and one that can only be achieved in the future rather than found in the past. Only through imagining a better world than today’s is progress possible. If one cannot imagine a future that is free, how can one possibly attain freedom?