Written Thoughts

Can Dystopias Motivate Utopias?

Commentary on Scraps of the Untainted Sky: Science Fiction, Utopia, Dystopia
written by Tom Moylan

Don't forget your history,
know your destiny.
In the abduance of water
the fool is thirsty.
-- Bob Marley’s Rat Race

One thing humanity seems to agree on: We all want a better life for ourselves and our world.

One thing humanity can’t seem to agree on: How to get there.

Per Albert Einstein, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." We, especially Americans, constantly reinvent ourselves through our political shifts, our culture, and fads. Each time we do, we seem to dig a bigger hole in the ground. We forget to look over our shoulders at history so that we can move forward, up and out. Our irrational desires for a utopic state that is unattainable serves no one but those few that we willingly put in power.

Because we do not want to have that power over ourselves.

Though Critical Past is first and foremost meant to be entertaining, I also hope to demonstrate (albeit more so in my rewrite than my 1^st draft) that we can’t go forward unless we look to our past. History continues to repeat itself because we fail to memorize its maxims. Republics fall, Empires crumble, and Democracies linger in corruption. And though their intent is pure: a means to take care of the many; the few, or the one, become lost in the mix. If an ocean is made up of drops of water, shouldn’t each drop matter? How good is Utopia for humanity? And does evolution do best under fire, when our liberties and even our definitions of ourself as individuals is threatened by the culture that surrounds us?

I picked up Moylan’s Scraps of the Untainted Sky in hopes of finding contextual guidelines for my novel. I now deeply regret not having read this book a year ago when I was first outlining Critical Past. Moylan manages to tie in SF and classical literature, real politics and philosophies, and human nature in a quest for why humanity seeks perfection yet can never have it. The book is a must read for anyone who is a student of Science Fiction and its place in culture.

Utopic/Dystopic societies are a popular theme in literature (as well as music, film and on the stage). Conflict being core to good storytelling, the exploration of humanity’s ‘hunger’ to make the world a better place, create a backdrop of tension that easily echo within the mind of the reader. Science Fiction (and its stepsister Fantasy) focuses on this search for utopia. Sometimes the results are idealistic, such as the realms of BF Skinner’s Walden II, Roddenberry’s Star Trek, or even the fairy tales that end with “Happily Ever After.” But more often, Speculative Fiction, as pointed out by Moylan, explores utopias that wreck havoc on the individual and in turn, lose sight of their goals.

The theme is anything but new. And though Moylan contends that pre WWII dystopias were predominately focused on technological fears (e.g. Frankenstein), I strongly disagree. Plato’s Republic, most likely our first recorded examination of Utopia (which means Nowhere in Greek), demonstrates the limitations of a utopic lifestyle. For instance, according to Plato, a poet would be dangerous to the spirit of a utopic society, their though too free, too catalytic in tendencies. Sir Thomas More’s Utopia preaches utilitarianism; everyone wears the same clothes, does the same chores. Again, the individual is lost for the sake of the society. Although Plato and More may have meant well in their dissertations, their ideas obviously formed the basis for more cautionary tales of this idyll such as George Orwell’s 1984 to Philip K. Dick’s Man in the High Castle to Atwood’s Handmaid Tale.

Moylan spend a good deal of his tome discussing specific works in SF, including recent works such as Spider Robinson's and Octavia Butler’s. A key focus through the second half of his book is the hero’s desire (intentional or not) to upset the status quo. He’s right to drive this theme home, and in doing so has made me realize that I am NOT accomplishing this as much as I should. Instead I’ve succumbed to the styles of Ex-Utopians such as Orwell and Shaw who “have lost their original perspectives and given up hope.” There’s a synchronicity to having read this book at the same time I’m being reminded by my mentor to further emphasize my theme. I don’t want Critical Past to be Ex-Utopic. Instead, I would prefer it to end up in hope, with Kate and Jon carrying a proverbial torch for why the individual’s spirit is so vital to humanity’s future.

Thank Gods for rewrites.

+++++++++++++

Recognize that there are ties between us
All men and women
Living on the Earth
Ties of hope and love
Sister and brotherhood
That we are bound together
In our desire to see the world become
A place in which our children
Can grow free and strong
We are bound together
By the task that stands before us
And the road that lies ahead
We are bound and we are bound

There is a feeling like the clenching of a fist
There is a hunger in the center of the chest
There is a passage through the darkness and the mist
And though the body sleeps the heart will never rest

--James Taylor’s Shed A Little Light

posted by No One You Know @ 10:24 AM