Dystopia and Recession

Published by

Clarissa

December 20, 2014

And I used to kind of like her for two minutes:

Dystopian fiction is hot right now, with countless books and movies featuring decadent oligarchs, brutal police states, ecological collapse, and ordinary citizens biting and clawing just to survive. For bestselling author Naomi Klein, all this gloom is a worrying sign. “I think what these films tell us is that we’re taking a future of environmental catastrophe for granted,” Klein says in Episode 129 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast.

Actually, the movies tell us nothing of the kind. Opulent, over-fed societies love titillating themselves with scary fantasies. Poor, starving societies invent Cinderella and worship Shirley Temple. The current dystopia craze shows that we are over the recession and are celebrating it in style, that’s all.

Guess who’s not reading Naomi Klein’s new book?

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13 responses to “Dystopia and Recession”

Evelina Anville

December 20, 2014

Well the Klein comment isn’t necessarily astute literary analysis. Still, keep in mind that first Hunger Games book came out in 2008–in the worst part of the recession– and was an immediate best seller. So I think the popularity of the series/franchise can be attributed to lots of factors– fantasies of starvation (as you suggest), fascination with a female hero, reconciling ourselves with the possibility of dystopia (as Klein suggests). I don’t think Klein is 100% off here.

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musteryou

December 20, 2014

I have learned that whatever people in a culture with a strong ego-orientation toward the world tell you about themselves (by contrast with what those with a strong receptive orientation tell you about themselves) will be false. There’s no point even trying to explain it. Their view of themselves is false and their view of others is false. If you get pulled into their dream and start to see things in the way they would encourage you to do, you will end up much worse in all respects. They will even punish you for believing them, since they do not expect to be believed. Their dreams or notions about themselves are not there for believing in, but are distractions from their boredom with themselves. They don’t like it if you imply that there is any level or reality “out there” by starting to take seriously their mechanisms of escape from reality. Or if you ascribe to these a truth value. Then they really freak out and accuse you of all sorts of things.

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1. Jones
  
  December 20, 2014
  
  Yes, wait ’til the Americans tell you that you’re getting it all wrong when you perceive (rightly) that they have a strong death wish and that they’re secretly waiting for some kind of the Revelations, during which time they can settle old scores …
  
  They’ll tell you that they’re open, kind, friendly, ambitious, maybe even worldly … their fictions show what they really dream, what they really fear, and what they really are.
  
  You’re right as far as I can see it — you will be made worse for it.
  
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  1. musteryou
    
    December 20, 2014
    
    You can see how unreceptive people are to my basic message. I should have written, “put a smile on your dial and turn your frown upside down”. But I’m just joking with people. They are good at heart. I, too, like the sugary substances and steer away from anything that tests my teeth too much.
    
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aglaonika

December 20, 2014

I checked her website and I don’t think you two speak of the same thing: you speak about short- or medium-term economic progress, she speaks about the long-term negative (mainly environmental) results of capitalism and overconsumption.

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Jones

December 20, 2014

I’m reading some dystopian fiction right now …

It’s a book called “The Prodigy” by Hermann Hesse, and it’s more or less an indictment of what happens when you send smart kids into punishing academic environments.

Some fictionalised realities are dystopian enough. 🙂

Still, you might like this sort of thing …

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1. aglaonika
  
  December 20, 2014
  
  “I’m reading some dystopian fiction right now …”
  
  Me too. I’m currently reading Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood. It’s the second book of the Oryx and Crake trilogy. I also liked Orwell’s 1984, and Huxley’s The Brave New World. Maybe I also like dystopian fiction :-), but at least I’m not overfed (yet).
  
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  1. Jones
    
    December 20, 2014
    
    Ah, yes, the fun thing about “Brave New World” is realising how Huxley savaged London in creating the place settings for it …
    
    I can’t go to the Foyle’s on Charing Cross Road without imagining one of Huxley’s dreaded “Charing T-Towers” on top of it.
    
    The cheeky bastard chose to site the highest towers in the city on top of the booksellers district. 🙂
    
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Ol.

December 21, 2014

Shen is talking about the environment and you, the recession. Perhaps (and likely) she talks about recession elsewhere in the book, but at any rate she is right here: we do take for granted environmental changes. What was a threat a decade or so ago is now a reality.

You binary contruct on how opulent societies create different fantasies than starving societies does not convince me. Popular culture still produces coutless versions of Shirley Temple and Cinderella.

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1. Clarissa
  
  December 21, 2014
  
  “Versions” is one thing. “Obsession” is another thing.
  
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Ol.

December 21, 2014

I do not know how to explain this well, but dystopia (especially about the environment) may tranquilize viewers because they know that in fact dystopia happens elsewhere.

The special effects in dystopias also tranquilize viewers, because they indicate that we have the technology to counteract the nefarious effects of environmental changes. At least in places that ‘counts,’ say, the US coastline.

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cliff arroyo

December 21, 2014

Was there much/any dystopian stuff in the USSR? Besides daily life I mean.

In Poland dystopian themes, while not hugely common, were a way to criticize the system that otherwise would not have been possible.
The movie comedy Sexmisja (sex-mission) showed a society where history was ludicrously rewritten to suit the government’s ideology, shortages were used to keep people in line and the population was lied to about the reality of the world outside their closed bubble (basically all true in Poland at the time). By setting it in a fictional dystopian universe the creators (and audience) had plausible deniability.

I’m not sure if there were similar thing in other eastbloc countries.

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1. Clarissa
  
  December 21, 2014
  
  This is a good question. In the post-war years (when there was real hunger), the most popular movies were the ones about abundance and joy. In 1949, for instance, the immensely popular movie The Cossacks of the Kuban came out. I have never seen as much food and consumer goods on the screen in any other movie or TV show. The hungry viewers wanted to sit there and look at the food and see the scenes where everybody was happy and joyful and all of the problems were very minimal.
  
  While the majority of people in the country were those who survived the war, movies and books were of this utopian variety. When they started receding into a minority – in the 1970s and 1980s – movies and books started becoming more gloomy. The peak gloominess was achieved in the early 2000s when the consumer abundance peaked, as well. And the survivors of the war were not there any longer.
  
  The movies about the war also traveled the road from the extremely light-hearted, joyful ones right after the war to the absolutely horrifying and dark in the 1980s. The 1980s were so far-removed form the war that now absolute horror had to be depicted to arouse any emotions about the subject. Back in 1948, these emotions were still so raw that no special efforts needed to be made to access them.
  
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