Imagine a society where every citizen was content with their lives. This society is stable, equal, crimeless, and perfect. However, could you imagine the price that’s being paid for this so called perfect society or some might call it a utopia. What might seem as a perfect environment is actually quite the opposite, rather a dystopia. “Fifty States of Fear” by Peter Ludlow, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley , and “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut, in these three stories they all depict a dystopian environment with features such as sacrifice for the good of everyone. A dystopian society offers the perfect society with order where everything functions properly usually at the cost of the individuality of the citizens. As depicted in the stories …show more content…
In Brave New World, the government has managed to create a perfect society where all of it’s citizens are always happy and everything works perfectly with each other, in other words stable. It’s evident that these benefits to society would be worth paying the small price the citizens of the story did. Quotes from Huxley sufficiently prove this, for example when Huxley stated “They 're well off; they 're safe; they 're never ill; they 're not afraid of death; they 're blissfully ignorant of passion and old age; they 're plagued with no mothers or fathers; they 've got no wives, or children, or lovers to feel strongly about; they 're so conditioned that they practically can 't help behaving as they ought to behave. And if anything should go wrong, there 's soma. " (220). There are no problems that can come up now and even if there are any they already have the solution for it. No citizen is discontent with their lives, and everything is smooth now because of their small sacrifices. This shows the reader the clear benefit society gains from all the sacrifices made by the citizens, the people are stable as well as happy, and these leads to the society being stable and prosperous. Conditioning in the story might be viewed as a horrible process that forces the people to sacrifices however, what are they sacrificing? They go through conditioning as babies and …show more content…
When Machiavelli states “a good leader should induce fear in the populace in order to control the rabble.” (PP6), fear is essential for government control. It might seem like the government is the benefici to the sacrifice but in reality the only people who gain from having a controlled society is the people, they get to live in peace while having someone to depend on for peace and security. The sacrifice is unknown to them and causes no harm, another quote that supports this is spoken by hobbes “fear effectively motivates the creation of a social contract in which citizens cede their freedoms to the sovereign”(Hobbes) . This quote again shows how many government leaders use the power of fear to control the people in return of peace and order for society. Ludlow claims “fear is even used to prevent us from questioning the decisions supposedly being made for our safety” (34). The people are seeing no problems of the decisions because they believe that they are all for the sake of protecting them, this gives them the sense of security that the government is doing the right thing. Essentially, both sides benefit from the fear that is induced into society, the government gains control over the people, while they in return gain a sufficient relationship with the government where they follow laws
A dystopian society can be defined as “a society characterized by human misery”. 1984 by George Orwell and Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury both demonstrate dystopian societies. However, that does not mean they do not their differences. In each society the government has different ways of controlling and limiting its citizens for doing only what they want them to do. In 1984, violators are brainwashed into loving and following Big Brother as if they never knew the truth and return back to their everyday lives. Fahrenheit 451 also punishes violators in a way that makes them regret and scared to ever do it again instead of making them forget.
A dystopian society is should not be a good thing. People believe that a dystopian society can be good, but a dystopian society is mostly about controlling. This dystopian societies can also be described as utopian societies. It's where they hold many desires, and ideas of perfection. Even though everyone is the same and treated the same, why you be like everyone else? The reasons that a dystopian society is not a good thing is because everyone are treated the same, everyone is controlled by one leader, and also because there is not freedom of any kind.
... towards the enemies of the government helps fear remain an effective governing force. An example today of a totalitarian regime that uses fear to control is Iraq. The leader Saddam Hussein gained his power and maintains his regime by performing brutal acts to his enemies to instill fear in his population. The fear and oppression he places on his people make thousands of them support religious ideals. During his presidential election Saddam received a hundred percent of the population votes in his favor. The majority of the Iraqis that voted for Saddam would vote against him if they did not fear Saddam's secret police. Lastly in Iraq people are paranoid to speak out against the government because of fear of punishment and death by the secret police. Since Iraq is a totalitarian government run by fear the people will only become more untrustworthy and isolated.
The novel Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, describes a Utopia created through the intense conditioning of its citizens. The people's minds in this world are molded to accept certain beliefs and values that are assumed good, while any history of their previous world is eliminated. In this story, a young man who was raised in a world where people are not conditioned, is introduced to this world of "…endlessly repeated face(s)" (Huxley 221). Through the young man's thoughts and actions the reader fully realizes that a lack of individual nature amongst millions of people can never exist in a true utopia. The society in Brave New World is a dystopia. In this society the class structure is strictly regimented. Alphas represent the highest caste of this society. Alphas hold the highest most important positions in society. Gammas and ...
In this society, citizens are bred in a factory to be whatever the society needs them to be. ( Huxley 13). This is significant in everyone who has a destiny they cannot escape, a purpose they did not choose to be their own. Without this freedom, nobody can really be truly happy and free. However this society does ensure happiness but in a different way, which is called “ conditioning”. Conditioning in this society is when the people in the world state predestined them to love their job, which is the reason why they were born and to dislike other jobs and purposes that they may have wanted to pursue without conditioning. In this novel, they were doing conditioning on 8 month old babies who were in the delta caste. Some nurses presented books and flowers to them, when they began to crawl towards the books and flowers, the babies received a mild shock which scared them and left them terrified, after so many times completing this process; the children will have instinctive hatred towards books and flowers. Mr.Foster describes how “ all conditioning aims at that; making people like their unescapable social destiny” (16). This portrays that conditioning cannot be escaped, even if they tried. The conditioned are force to enjoy what they were conditioned to enjoy without freedom of choice whether or not they want to, this is just creating false
Being fear and being powerful is a common ruling technique for leaders. Injecting fear into one's people shows that they are powerful. In Source F, “For by this authority, given him by every particular man in the common-wealth, he hath the use of so much power and strength conferred on him, that by terror thereof, he is enabled to form the wills of them all, to peace at home, and mutual aid against their enemies abroad.” In this source they are saying they use the
Vonnegut and Le Guin’s short stories about proposed utopian lifestyles are drastically different ideas of the perfect modern day “utopia”. These stories represent how two people may have contrasting ideas of the corruption that would be involved in a perfect world and lead us to question our own opinions of what part of ourselves we would be willing to give up. Kurt Vonnegut’s “2 B R 0 2 B” is a darker depiction of the human cost of living in a utopian civilization because of the idea of having daily actions controlled by a higher power. However, both of these stories explain a civilized world that the people perceive as perfection but contain many instances, such as sacrifice and inhumanity,
What makes a utopia? A utopia can mean a world without war and struggle, or for some people it can mean a place where everyone can be equal. The word "utopia" literally means "an imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect," but it comes from the greek phrase "no place.” That being said, the definition itself shows that utopias do not exist. Humans we are imperfect; people make mistakes everyday, it is just how we learn and become better version of ourselves. It is impossible for a utopia to exist due to the instinctual tendency of human beings to cause social, religious, and political disputes.
It’s been shown that “Nearly two-thirds of adult Americans are overweight or obese. Despite the attention of the health profession, the media, and the public, and mass educational campaigns about the benefits of healthier diets and increased physical activity, the prevalence of obesity in the United States has more than doubled over the past four decades” (Marks). These alarming statistics are increasing exponentially as individuals all over the globe continue to adopt unhealthy lifestyles that can lead to detrimental, and many times, irreversible, health issues. As a result, my discussion section chose to design our utopian society, named Troytopia, with the founding main vision of adhering to strict, healthy lifestyles for the betterment
Many characteristics of the American made society that we live in now demonstrate a utopia, therefore, they also demonstrate a dystopia. A utopia is a perfect world in which there are no problems like war, disease, poverty, oppression, discrimination, inequality, and other. A dystopia is a world in which nothing is perfect. Problems are extreme things are dysfunctional and problematic. I believe that a utopia doesn’t turn into a dystopia until the people living in that society don’t live authentic lives. "Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.” (Orwell 72) This quote to me shows that the people in the society of a dystopia often do not even realize that they are not
Involuntarily, humans want, or in some cases need, to live in an utopian world. Calypso, a nymph and a goddess in Greek mythological times, was lucky enough to live in one of these perfect societies, even though it was short-lived. An author states in her online article, “She is a Goddess with several functions, a complex character, and as an individual she represents the dual nature of the feminine as both light and dark in a subtle, integrated/harmonious/in accordance way” (LeVan, par. 2). Her life was made complete by means of Odysseus, a mortal who washed onto the island and later became her prisoner. Calypso’s utopian world of godliness, control, order, and power was shattered due to Athena and Zeus commanding Odysseus be freed. When Athena and Zeus ordered Calypso to free Odysseus from imprisonment, they ruined her utopian life-style.
“Utopia is that which is in contradiction with reality” (Albert Camus).A utopia is an abstract society or community that possesses nearly perfect qualities that are greatly desired for its members. Utopia can be said as the perfect abode that has been designed so that no issues exist there.
Society will never be perfect. Equality will never be sustained. A dystopian society will always have corruption of government. Corruption is present all around the world but is swept under the rug. Abridgment of human rights happens every day in our country or another. Oppression is the cause for all the sadness in our world. There will be always selfishness in dystopia. One must sink for another to rise, but “good doesn’t mean good for everyone. It means worst for someone.”
Human sacrifice killings is a horrific but devastatingly true reality for some that come too close to the jaws of the Matamoros cult. People usually think of a utopia as an amusement park or just an amazing dream. The dictionary version is often defined as “any visionary system of political or social perfection” (“Utopia”). A dystopia is quite the opposite though. Think of your worst nightmare and that is exactly what a dystopia is. The professional definition is “a society characterized by human misery, as squalor, oppression, disease, and overcrowding” (“Dystopia”). As it goes in 1984, the whole book is based on a dystopian society. Citizens have horrible lives which leave them dehumanized by the central government. They are also being under
An impractical scheme for social improvement. This is the third definition of the word utopia in the Mirriam-Webster dictionary. Anatole France says it best with this quote regarding utopian societies, „Without the Utopias of other times, men would still live in caves, miserable and naked. It was Utopians that traced the lines of the first city· Out of generous dreams come beneficial realities. Utopia is the principle of all progress, and the essay into a better future.„ The world has been constantly changing over time, new ideas pave paths that lead to better living. Most of the ideas are expressed through science fiction stories written by authors looking to change the world in some way or another. Authors begin with an idea, and then move towards placement of thought and scheme into somewhat of a reasonable reality. Authors such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Octavia Butler use the stories they write as ways to express their problems that they have with the present world. Advances in the present day world can only be reached through dreams and desires. These dreams and desires come to life as authors present their ideas on paper.