Dystopia

As the title implies, what I would like to look at today is dystopias. This includes examples in fiction and reality, and how we get to such a point in the first place. Do those that live in a dystopia know that it is one? First off, let's start off in the same way I always have, with a good ol' definition. A dystopia can be described as "an imagined state of society that contains great suffering". I think a key point that we should take away at the start is the 'imagined' part telling us how this, first off, is a state society has not attained as of yet though is what models the idea of what is the worst possible outcome that can be reached. Furthermore, as this is a figment of one's imagination, the different interpretations of different people can be different and therefore creates an indefinite vision for what comprises a dystopia. Now, this might make this definition seem very vague though I think it really focuses on the common ideas of what we as humans will suffer from including: lack of resources, war, destruction etc. Moving on, I would like to focus on the analysis of a few examples and how they relate through this perception of a dystopia.

Beginning us off, I want to look at a trope that can be found in many forms of media, the zombie apocalypse. Some example include The walking dead, Train to Busan, Zombieland and many others. All of these movies follow the same premise of a world doomed to fail after the arise of a zombie outbreak which ravages the societies of the planet which reduce life to mere savagery and barbarism. This is the apocalypse which we can use as a synonym for our theme of a dystopia, but more importantly, why is this important and how does this affect us? I think I want to link back to the point I made at the start where we try and define how this is a negative situation which a society resides in and compare it to the worlds here. First, when in this world, a lot of the times we see how technology regresses due to the inaccessibility to good sources and the world being in a state of panic. This in result causes a great reduction in the energy usage that we as a society use but also a lesser portion of pollutants that damage our world. Not to sound like Ted Kaczynski but the great reduction of the population and usage of technology has a great impact environmentally when we see the grand scale of garbage that we as human produce normally. But in reality though, this is not a great comparison as in the end there is a winner and loser in this exchange whether it be for mankind or our Earth, there is a give and take for our own survivals. In this case, is there really a dystopia? Our version of a dystopia here is a benefiting of the planet from our removal. In the end, the zombie apocalypse seems like though it is a dystopia to us, from a different perspective, it might be a utopia.

Now, another type of dystopia that appears quite a lot in religions is a version of 'hell'. This can be seen as a place where those who are heretics or those that go against the principles of a god would go to suffer for their sins. This version of the world is most definitely more related to the dystopian image I was describing earlier and something I want to analyze. If we want to think about this from a perspective of justice, is following the principles of a god what we should strive for and what we must base our life on? Is it a dystopia if it is deserved? There are different views that we can get out of this I think; one from the sufferer and one from an outside watcher. I think that being the sufferer here demonstrates how to them, this is the worst possible society that they can be put in and consider their location a dystopia. It is because they are the one here that is facing the consequence that they may perceive this in such a way. On the contrary, someone from the outside who follows the set standards for which to not get into 'hell' may think that what the sufferer is facing is not true suffering as they are merely facing justice for their actions. I think the juxtaposing ideas of a person being acted upon versus a person witnessing the action are mostly different from each other when there is a lack of empathy which when roles are reversed lead to situations of hypocrisy and chaos. From this, all I am left with is pondering whether there is any true justice in repentance in suffering.

Finally, I just want to talk about the term dystopia from a more realistic context like the view of a person in a totalitarian regime. The image of North Korea from an outside point of view is one that is interpreted as having no human rights. From within the country, on the other hand, we see a very strong sense of patriotism within the country in which people display quite a sense of pride. If one is oblivious to their confinement in a dystopia, do they suffer as badly? My take on the matter at hand is that there cannot be a dystopia if it is unknown about. Without people recognizing their own suffering, people cannot imagine the worst possible situation they are in or visualize oneself in that position. Truman from The Truman show was one that was oblivious though but through the realization of a bigger world, only then realized his own suffering. This idea of understanding when one is suffering is quite important I think as it is the only way a worst picture can be imagined according to a person's situation. I think this is just like how non-tangible concepts are more harder to think about rather than things made of matter. This leads me to the final conclusion that a dystopia only arises from the acknowledgement of one's suffering and that we as human beings may never understand our lives and the universe fully and therefore a dystopia.

In conclusion, I had a very fun look into the different types of dystopias during this article's creation and learned about the many contradictory ways they go against their definition. I think that the more we learn about our suffering, the more we can learn how to escape it!