The understanding of a dystopian world was best explained by not tackling the idea of a dystopia as whole, but to capture different ideas from authors and scholars that dismantle the framework to see all its characteristics. The most common practice that we see contributing to this form of society is oppression, by gathering a clearer sense of the three levels of oppression we can see the change of how oppressive acts shift into a dystopian society. For example, in the United States oppression has been geared into the uprising of this nation and even today we see the effects of this. There are constant civil disputes between citizens based on their sexuality, religious beliefs, race, etc and the government condones this behavior to keep power within the majority. In our readings of 1984 we explored a more extensive version of oppression. In this fiction novel the government remained in power by spying on its citizens and getting rid of anyone who spoke against their rule. Although we understand that it has not come this far we do recognize some similarities between the two.
The biggest similarity amongst all dystopian societies is the concept of government. There is a belief that the government is inherently evil and causes the disruption of happiness. There have been many ways combating this: anarchy – the idea of no government at all. Yet, if the purpose of the government is to stop rampant desires from becoming unhinged, then how can we express the desires of everyone equally? I honestly believe that we can’t and that is why a utopian society can never be created. There are trillions of people in the world, with different personalities, opinions, and beliefs and I don’t believe there is a true way to ensure that everyone gets what they deserve thus creating the issues of dystopian societies. As I mentioned earlier that societies are created on a spectrum of least dystopian to most dystopian, I think understanding where each society belongs on this spectrum can help us focus on which form of government is most suitable to help channel our inner desires.
Overall, with my time in this class I have learned many different aspects of a dystopian society and what simple things contribute to it. Although this fictional society does hyperbolize a lot of aspects, I think the biggest take away of how to define a dystopian world is that this could be a possibility.
