Dystopias are reactionary!

[zompist]

Iain M. Banks had a neat solution for the problem; most Culture novels are about horrible dystopias but the presence of the Culture makes it clear that there's a way forward.

That's definitely one approach, but the price you pay is that all the stories have to take place on the margins, and the utopia itself ends up watery and unexplored. Star Trek's Federation has the same problem. (At least in the first few series; I haven't seen any of the later ones.)

Maybe a better approach is to create a better but still recognizable world. Alfred Bester pulled this off in The Demolished Man, I think. It's no utopia, but it's more progressive than our times. Bad things can happen-- it's about a murder, after all-- but it's also emphasized that the murder is an extremely unusual event in this future.

[WeepingElf]

One reason there are so many dystopias around, I think, is that a novel plot is often about things going wrong -- and if you start with the premise that things have gone horribly wrong, the story practically writes itself!

Iain M. Banks had a neat solution for the problem; most Culture novels are about horrible dystopias but the presence of the Culture makes it clear that there's a way forward.

I recall some author — Le Guin, I think — commenting that even in a utopia things can go wrong: no social system can remove all interpersonal conflicts and dramas. (Not if you want to be halfway realistic about it, at least.) Those in turn allow for stories even in a utopia. It does require more imagination than dystopias do, though.

Yep. We will never live in an ideal, perfectly harmonious society. There will always be conflicting interests. Just ask a dairy farmer and an unemployed single mother about the fair price of a litre of milk, and you will get two quite different answers. Many people complain about snow, but skiers want it. And so on. There is no way Earth can become Heaven.

It is also true that it is easier to write a dystopia than an engaging story where the major problems of our world are overcome. Like you don't need a doctor to tell that you are not feeling well, but you may need a doctor to get well again. But most of our current major problems have known solutions. Climate change? Switch from fossil fuels to renewable energies as soon as possible. (Some claim nuclear power was the solution, but that has its own problems, especially extremely toxic wastes for which no safe disposal is in sight.) Plastics? Replace them by biodegradable materials. Poverty? The European social democratic welfare state is a good middle road between laissez-faire capitalism (which produces excessive inequality) and state socialism (which stifles entrepreneurship and innovation). Traffic congestion? Better public transport and bicycle lanes. Etc. There are, of course, details that have to be worked out, and there is often not one true way (e.g., different renewable energy sources have their pros and cons), but the overall direction is clear.

[xxx]

for a long time, I considered Brave New World a utopia,
since everyone there lives happily,
the kind of utopia our world is tending towards:
sex and drugs at will,
Science and tech rule,
everyone employed according to their abilities,
the state watching over everyone...
it's the point of view of the misfits, which we are, that makes it unbearable...

[WeepingElf]

for a long time, I considered Brave New World a utopia,
since everyone there lives happily,
the kind of utopia our world is tending towards:
sex and drugs at will,
Science and tech rule,
everyone employed according to their abilities,
the state watching over everyone...
it's the point of view of the misfits, which we are, that makes it unbearable...

Fair. One person's Heaven is another person's Hell, they say. There always will be disagreements; I mentioned snow and the price of milk as examples.

[Ares Land]

for a long time, I considered Brave New World a utopia,
since everyone there lives happily,
the kind of utopia our world is tending towards:
sex and drugs at will,
Science and tech rule,
everyone employed according to their abilities,
the state watching over everyone...
it's the point of view of the misfits, which we are, that makes it unbearable...

Brave New World is kind of strange that way. I think we tend to remember the eugenics and miss the satire of consumerism. It's kind of a cautionary tale, but it's sometimes hard to figure out what Huxley cautions against.
Huxley's views are an interesting mix of counter-culture and conservativism (I think he disapproved of divorce, for instance)

[Raphael]

One reason there are so many dystopias around, I think, is that a novel plot is often about things going wrong -- and if you start with the premise that things have gone horribly wrong, the story practically writes itself!

Iain M. Banks had a neat solution for the problem; most Culture novels are about horrible dystopias but the presence of the Culture makes it clear that there's a way forward.

I recall some author — Le Guin, I think — commenting that even in a utopia things can go wrong: no social system can remove all interpersonal conflicts and dramas. (Not if you want to be halfway realistic about it, at least.) Those in turn allow for stories even in a utopia. It does require more imagination than dystopias do, though.

That's more or less the point I was making in the second half of my lengthy quote above, about stories set among upper class people.

Iain M. Banks had a neat solution for the problem; most Culture novels are about horrible dystopias but the presence of the Culture makes it clear that there's a way forward.

That's definitely one approach, but the price you pay is that all the stories have to take place on the margins, and the utopia itself ends up watery and unexplored. Star Trek's Federation has the same problem. (At least in the first few series; I haven't seen any of the later ones.)

Oh, IMO, in the first part of Player of Games, the stories of how Gurgeh gets to travel to the Empire, Banks has managed it to set a more or less interesting plot in a more or less Utopian society, therefore showing that it can, in principle, be done.

[Raphael]

for a long time, I considered Brave New World a utopia,
since everyone there lives happily,
the kind of utopia our world is tending towards:
sex and drugs at will,
Science and tech rule,
everyone employed according to their abilities,
the state watching over everyone...
it's the point of view of the misfits, which we are, that makes it unbearable...

I think in principle, it is perfectly possible to combine science and tech rule, sex and drugs at will, and everyone employed according to their abilities, with acceptance of and respect for misfits. In fact, misfits are more likely to get a fair deal in such a world than in a traditionalist, anti-science, anti-tech, anti-sex, anti-drugs, and anti-employment world.

[Raphael]

Out of curiosity, and with no disrespect to WeepingElf intended - should this thread stay in Ephemera, or be moved to Conlangery? After all, fictional dystopias and Utopias are both types of conworlds.

[Ares Land]

I think in principle, it is perfectly possible to combine science and tech rule, sex and drugs at will, and everyone employed according to their abilities, with acceptance of and respect for misfits. In fact, misfits are more likely to get a fair deal in such a world than in a traditionalist, anti-science, anti-tech, anti-sex, anti-drugs, and anti-employment world.

I guess it depends on the specific way people don't fit. Modernity comes with expectation of consistent performance, ability to deal with technology and relatively complex procedure, expectations about handling, say, large crowds, or expectations of long distance mobility that not everyone is equiped to deal with.

Of course, in principle, a science, sex, drugs and rock'n'roll world could be humane too (I certainly hope we're heading that way) -- but our society aren't there yet.

[Raphael]

I think in principle, it is perfectly possible to combine science and tech rule, sex and drugs at will, and everyone employed according to their abilities, with acceptance of and respect for misfits. In fact, misfits are more likely to get a fair deal in such a world than in a traditionalist, anti-science, anti-tech, anti-sex, anti-drugs, and anti-employment world.

I guess it depends on the specific way people don't fit. Modernity comes with expectation of consistent performance, ability to deal with technology and relatively complex procedure, expectations about handling, say, large crowds, or expectations of long distance mobility that not everyone is equiped to deal with.

I think we can, and should, get rid of the "expectation of consistent performance", but good point about the other things on your list.

Of course, in principle, a science, sex, drugs and rock'n'roll world could be humane too (I certainly hope we're heading that way) -- but our society aren't there yet.

For people who are into science, or sex, or drugs, or rock'n'roll, or some combination of these, a world hostile to those things is not at all humane.

[WeepingElf]

Out of curiosity, and with no disrespect to WeepingElf intended - should this thread stay in Ephemera, or be moved to Conlangery? After all, fictional dystopias and Utopias are both types of conworlds.

Fair. I have no objections against such a move. I put it here because I wanted to be careful; after all, it touches on real-world politics.

[Travis B.]

I personally think that the most realistic means by which a society organized around councils would be brought about is by progressively building them from the ground up as parallel structures to the existing structures, such as creating informal neighborhood associations (or taking over and reorganizing HOA's to be more democratic) and workplace groups (or in cases where there is some degree of workers' organization within workplaces, such as the scrum teams where I work where we already elect our scrum masters and like, repurposing this organization to serve the workers' purposes) and building up from there.

Probably true!

I'm curious though what you think is undemocratic about HOAs. (Homeowners' associations, for our friends abroad.) They have all sorts of bad reputations, usually for pettiness or imposing weird rules-- and again, I could tell you horror stories about our last condo association-- but they're elected by the owners, and there are generally recall provisions. If they don't work well, that could be bad news for your proposed neighborhood councils.

HOA's are a good example of what is wrong with illiberal representative democracy -- you elect people who are hard to recall (even when a mechanism to recall them does exist per se) who then effectively have the freedom to do whatever they please in what is effectively their little fiefdom, including pettiness and imposing weird rules, with you the resident having little in the way of actual rights. Yes, you can vote them out, but you typically have to wait until the next election, which may be more than six months down the line, or go through an arduous process to organize a recall election and even then the same applies to whoever replaces them.

What I would transform them into is directly democratic bodies, with, say, meetings every month attended by as many people as possible, with decisions being made in these meetings. There would be a firm concept of rights in the form of entrenched guarantees for all residents that cannot be undone without, say, a 3/4 vote of all residents. When elected officers are needed, e.g. a treasurer, they would be given a firm mandate and firm limits on their powers by the residents and would be arbitrarily and immediately recallable.

[Raphael]

Travis, to be honest, I think that's wishful thinking. It might be that people elected to HOA offices who do stupid nonsense are going against their mandate. But it might as well be that they're doing exactly what their voters want them to do.

WeepingElf: as I said in another recent discussion, I think that except if a conworld is meant to be completely surreal, you can't really discuss what would or wouldn't work in it without touching on real world politics.

[WeepingElf]

Travis, to be honest, I think that's wishful thinking. It might be that people elected to HOA offices who do stupid nonsense are going against their mandate. But it might as well be that they're doing exactly what their voters want them to do.

I think the notion of an elected leader with nearly unlimited power as long his term of office lasts is an American (right-wing) understanding of democracy that is fundamentally different from the way we understand democracy here in Europe, and we now see where it leads.

WeepingElf: as I said in another recent discussion, I think that except if a conworld is meant to be completely surreal, you can't really discuss what would or wouldn't work in it without touching on real world politics.

This is indeed the case, and I didn't mean to deny it at all. It is just that over time, I have become careful about where real-world politics is an appropriate subject matter. Any discussion of a realistic conworld sooner or later touches on real-world politics. My own Elvenpath project is a good example of this - the Elves try to save the world as we know it, and that is what my novel will be about.

[Raphael]

Travis, to be honest, I think that's wishful thinking. It might be that people elected to HOA offices who do stupid nonsense are going against their mandate. But it might as well be that they're doing exactly what their voters want them to do.

I think the notion of an elected leader with nearly unlimited power as long his term of office lasts is an American (right-wing) understanding of democracy that is fundamentally different from the way we understand democracy here in Europe, and we now see where it leads.

Not sure about that. If your MdB, or mine, votes differently than we want to in a vote, there's nothing we can do about it short of trying to vote them out in the next election. Which seems to be Travis' main complain about representative democracy.

[WeepingElf]

Travis, to be honest, I think that's wishful thinking. It might be that people elected to HOA offices who do stupid nonsense are going against their mandate. But it might as well be that they're doing exactly what their voters want them to do.

I think the notion of an elected leader with nearly unlimited power as long his term of office lasts is an American (right-wing) understanding of democracy that is fundamentally different from the way we understand democracy here in Europe, and we now see where it leads.

Not sure about that. If your MdB, or mine, votes differently than we want to in a vote, there's nothing we can do about it short of trying to vote them out in the next election. Which seems to be Travis' main complain about representative democracy.

I understand. This is the question of the imperative mandate, an idea popular among leftists, especially far leftists (but also libertarians).

[xxx]

I think you should (re-)read "Brave New World",
to see the horror of Paradise,
through the reduction of what makes us human...

[Raphael]

I think you should (re-)read "Brave New World",
to see the horror of Paradise,
through the reduction of what makes us human...

I don't think you can draw reliable conclusions about the real world from a work of fiction, where the author can easily arrange everything so that it looks like their point is valid. Brave New World is far from the only possible "paradise". And I'm a lot more concerned about the horror of actual horrors than about the horror of paradise.

[Travis B.]

I think the notion of an elected leader with nearly unlimited power as long his term of office lasts is an American (right-wing) understanding of democracy that is fundamentally different from the way we understand democracy here in Europe, and we now see where it leads.

Not sure about that. If your MdB, or mine, votes differently than we want to in a vote, there's nothing we can do about it short of trying to vote them out in the next election. Which seems to be Travis' main complain about representative democracy.

I understand. This is the question of the imperative mandate, an idea popular among leftists, especially far leftists (but also libertarians).

This indeed is one of my biggest problems with representative democracy -- once elected, the public has little to no control over their representatives aside from voting them out in the next election, which may be years down the line, and even if recalls are available as an option they are so difficult to greatly limit the leverage that they give the public upon their representatives.

[linguistcat]

I hope it's ok for me to go back to the colonize Mars point for a second. I for one think we should, or at least colonize Venus. Not because "Oh then if something happens to Earth humanity will still have a chance!" but more because we can practice terraforming on them without further messing with Earth before having some idea what we actually are doing. This also means only using drastic measures in the very beginning and when the dust clears using techniques we'd feel safe using back home.

Having secondary worlds with humans living on them is a distant concern until we can help our home, the one place we KNOW life exists.

Alternately, lets all move to Titan.