Are we Living in a Dystopia?

“He loved Big Brother.”

            The final chilling words of George Orwell’s most famous book, 1984, the moment in the book where the protagonist, Winston Smith, has given in to the tyrannical government of the future and has come to accept things as they are, and even love them. A chilling and depressing ending for a book that warned about the new types of governments that arose around the time of the book’s publication in 1949; but does the model that this dystopian novel (and other dystopian novels) present correctly display the world we live in today?

            Well, dear reader, to approach what it means to determine whether or not we are living in a dystopian world, we must first decipher what a dystopia is. Originally, the word dystopia came from ancient Greece as a way of describing a society that is frightening, terrifying, undesirable, or riddled with problems around every corner. The word did not gain popularity until the 16^th century with the publication of Utopia by Sir Thomas Moore (1779-1852) and was given its modern meaning in the mid 1860’s in a speech given by John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) to Parliament in describing the English government’s disastrous land policies in Ireland.

            In the 20^th century, the word dystopian took on a whole new meaning in terms of what it was supposed to represent; beforehand, it was used mostly to refer to a fictional society where nightmarish policies and scenarios would occur. However, dystopians and dystopian fiction changed in that it was moved from isolated societies to societies that were based on the ones we lived in. Especially after the destructive period of the World Wars and the rise of fascist governments and dictatorships, people and scholars alike became worried that we would be subjected to nightmare-like societies where problems ranged from politics to economics to social.

            Dystopia no longer became a what-if; it was a warning.

            But the question of what kind of dystopia we would end up in was unsolvable, a question that nobody had any sure answer to, but was a big enough problem on its own. Writers, authors, scholars, political and economic scientists tried to provide an answer to what the ultimate low for humanity would be, but each answer seemed to counter another with no clear winner in sight. Each scenario presented its own distinct possibility and was based primarily off of events unfolding at the time that had grave effects on people of all kinds. Some examples of dystopian works include, but are not limited to:

·      1984 by George Orwell.

·      Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

·      The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

·      It can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis

·      The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

·      Anthem by Ayn Rand

·      The Road by Cormac McCarthy

·      Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

·      A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

            Each one of these books may have contained fictional events based in societies we presently live in, but they were all written with some sort of inspiration taken from the time in which they were written. Although some of them may have been exaggerated, modern dystopian novels contain at least a shred of truth about what the future may look like if we continue going down the path we are currently travelling. What’s also important to remember is that it’s not only America or Western countries this could happen to, it can happen to any place in the world…and in some cases, it already has.

            Doesn’t the oppressive government in North Korea bring a shocking reminder to the totalitarian government posed in Orwell’s 1984? Or what about the status of women in many Middle Eastern countries? Much as how The Handmaid’s Tale predicted? Even the constant pill-popping and lethargic nature of people in Huxley’s Brave New World has drawn some parallels in many western countries, especially the United States. To an extent, one could argue that we are living in a near-dystopic society with problems lurking around every corner, with shreds of these books’ predictions as evidence. But does this truly mean we are living in a dystopia?

            When it comes to dystopias, two main mindsets are in place in what will truly be the downfall of the human race: Orwell’s harsh totalitarianism as proposed in 1984 and the way too lax and indifferent society pushed forth by Aldous Huxley in Brave New World. In a letter by Aldous Huxley to George Orwell, shortly after the publication of Orwell’s 1984 in October of 1949, Huxley expressed his sentiments towards Orwell’s work, but was skeptical of the ways that governments would come to rule us.

            In the letter, Huxley suggested that complete subversion would go farther beyond oppressive governments, endless warfare, and even beyond the planes of politics and economics. Instead, the key to proper subversion would be to start with the individual and condition them into accepting servitude and psychologically coerce them into a position that would be suitable to be taken over. While Huxley himself imagined a war of a truly devastating scale in which new forms of governments would arise, he believed that the most effective and efficient way of subverting any given population would be by psychological means.

            As he said to Orwell in his letter:

            “Within the next generation I believe that the world's rulers will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience.”

            Whatever the ways may be, the end goal is that people will be forced into servitude by one way or another to appease some sort of higher entity or class. Evidently, people have caught on to the path we seem to approach since numerous bookstores have run out of copies of 1984 or Sinclair Lewis’ It Can’t Happen Here around the time of Donald Trump’s election and inauguration. Even nowadays with terms going around such as “fake news,” “alt-facts,” “covfefe,” amongst others, one’s first instinct would be to assume that we are officially living in the nightmare world predicted by either Orwell or Huxley. However, it would not be wise to immediately jump to that conclusion, after all, a dystopia is a worst-case scenario where a society has hit rock bottom and has little chance of coming back.

            Even at the end of Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange, after the main protagonist Alex DeLarge (I swear, that is his name) has gotten the violence, the anger, the psychological torment, and the suicide attempt out of his system, he is able to reform himself anew. While a dystopian novel may present an absolutely inescapable situation, there is still a glimmer of hope in that things can change for the better. In our case, sure things may seem dark and dismal in the world of political, economical, and social institutions, but they aren’t the worst potential outcome they could be; not to mention that there is still plenty of time and enough liberty and freedom to change things before it gets worse. There are still objective rules that must be followed by politicians and institutions before they go too far, and the Constitution still ranks as the highest law of the land in terms of protecting the rights of American citizens. Despite the events that may have occurred since the inauguration of Trump, there are still civil rights and liberties, groups organized for the advancement of minorities, and a set process of laws that must be adhered to. Plus, if Trump goes down the way he is currently going, then he is sure to face severe consequences for his actions, if not impeachment; an action taken into control by the legislative and judicial branches as a means of keeping a check on the presidency.

            While it may not seem as though the United States is in a dystopia, however, that is not to say that other countries are not facing a dystopia of their own. Unstoppable drug cartels in Mexico and Central America, constant bomb droppings in Syria, a never-ending stem of refugees, and even standing on the closest brink of nuclear war since 1984, may potentially have their place when it comes to defining the period of the world which we are living in. Then again, dystopia has a relative meaning when it comes to different societies and populations, so it wouldn’t be fair to label one particular state as purely dystopic for the globe.

            But for the sake of the United States, let us just say that, for the time being, we haven’t quite reached dystopian levels yet. While we may be suffering from numerous problems in most institutions, there is not the absolute hopelessness of the situation where we cannot do anything more. We are not living in a post-classist, post-racial society, and probably never will in our lifetimes, but the important thing to remember is that there is an opportunity to change all of this. The Ludovico Techniques, and Room 101s of dystopian futures are not in existence yet, and hopefully will not be for a long time, so with the freedoms we still have now, there is still a chance to turn things around.

            So, dear reader, before you go around saying that we are living in the world predicted by Orwell or Huxley, ask yourself “Do I truly love big brother?”

The Plight of the Price Tag

Money, that one simple word evokes all sorts of emotions out of us, dear reader, it can remind us of how much we have of it, how little of it we have, what we can do with it, and what we aren’t able to do without it. Simple pieces of paper and metal that we are able to exchange with one another to acquire the product we desire so long as we have enough of it. Seems absurd, doesn’t it? We work for it, we want it, some people even go so far as to kill for it, and it is one of the prime concerns of nations to have plenty of it, and keep it grounded to a rate that is easily spendable and acquirable.

            Indeed, money is something to wonder about in society, each society has its own form of it, or some way of exchanging products and services for the right price. However, there are societies that currently thrive without the use for money such as the tribes at Jonbeel Mela in India, the Yanomami and Awa tribes in the Amazon, the Kula people of Papua New Guinea, and the Nyimang people of Sudan. Instead of relying on money or currency, these tribes have their own forms of bartering to trade goods and services with one another based on tradition and culture.

            However, these tribes are relatively small and isolated from most foreign influence; the Awa tribe is only 350 people strong. With bigger and more industrialized nations such as the United States, China, Russia, the United Kingdom, Germany, and others, money and currency proved to be a more convenient and efficient way of trading with another party and much more effective than bartering. Money itself does not qualify itself to any specific purchases; it is a blank check that can buy just about anything so long as there is the proper quantity of it. There is no limit to what exactly money can buy, the dollar in your wallet can buy a candy bar in the same way it can be grouped with other dollars to purchase a pair of shoes or a new car. So long as something has a price tag on it, it can be bought.

            Herein lies the problem.

            While money is a more convenient way to exchange goods and services, it lends its way to the problem that just about anything can be bought, even if it doesn’t have a price tag. The mid 19^th century British philosopher and economist, William Stanley Jevons (1835-1882) believed that everything had an inherent value that goes beyond what is produced, and that utilitarian value is the final value of economics. Every ounce of capital that goes into producing something must reflect the same worth of everything that was put into it; the end value of that end product must be equal or greater what went into it. Thus, everything is assigned a value from the minute it has begun production; it may be sold for more or less than what it is truly worth, but it has an inherent value that cannot be changed whatsoever. But, if everything has an inherent value, should this not stay limited to manufactured goods and products? What if it extends to feelings? People? Love? Things that supposedly are invaluable?

            What if this blank form of currency can be involved in the most intimate parts of our lives and humanities to the point of where everything is worth something? British psychologist, William Davies (1950-) explained this phenomenon in his book The Happiness Industry. In his book, Davies equates this situation to a person who sees everything as a value and only looks for utilitarian value in every little thing they pursue. Giving this figure the name Homo Economicus, Davies asserts that such a person would be little more than a psychopath, only looking out for themselves and not caring about any other factors other than what the potential worth and outcome of each experience is or could be. As Davies says of this miserable creature:

            “Homo Economicus doesn’t have friends and doesn’t relax. He is too busy looking out for number one. If he ever really existed, he would be deemed a psychopath.”

            By having the Homo Economicus focus primarily on money and overall pleasurable experiences for themselves, they lose their humanity in the meanwhile and are devolved into a lumbering creature who looks to extoll as much pleasure as they can out of everything and everyone. It was to this effect that Davies believed that money could be used to devolve people into a hedonistic leech, constantly sucking everything of their pleasure. For Davies, money truly is the root of all evil.

            Yet, there is also an upside of money that must be taken into account, one that strikes at the purpose of money. For the conservative philosopher, Ayn Rand (1905-1982), money was not only good for a society, but it was necessary in ensuring that said society would succeed and flourish with a plentiful and attainable financial capital. Money itself was a form of credit to those who have produced enough in society and have raked in the rewards, the people who have given others what they need and a rightful reward for their contributions. Not only this, but it is also a statement that man is the rightful owner of his labor and his mind if he is able to work and freely exchange money at his own disposal.

            As Ayn Rand said about money:

            “Money is the tool of men who have reached a high level of productivity and a long-range control over their lives. Money is not merely a tool of exchange: much more importantly, it is a tool of saving, which permits delayed consumption and buys time for future production.”

            For Rand, there is no alternative to money, it is either this, or a society devolves into a point of barbarism where if money does not rule an economy, then guns and primitive traditions will. Without the token of individual labor and free will that money symbolizes, there will be nothing left of a society except for savages taking things from one another in a pitiful attempt to lead a meaningless life. The end all of money should be to freely exchange with one another with proper capital that reflects what the value of that product or service is worth. Money is an equalizer in a society and serves as the best negotiator between the producer and the consumer, argues Rand.

            And yet, this is only another point of view about the worth and value of money in our society. It is not yet fully understood whether money is a good or bad thing for a society to have, and it may never be understood; after all, economics is not an easy thing to understand, and relies on a case-by-case operation. Whether money truly is detrimental or beneficial to a society is a question left up in the air since it truly has no answer since the question of what the perfect economic system is also does not have an answer. Until the day we find an answer, it will still be a battle of capitalism vs. socialism or money vs. bartering and other questions about what to exchange with others and how to keep it at an appropriate value.

            So, dear reader, the next time you pull out a $20 to pay for dinner, you may be wondering if the meal was truly worth that amount of money, and if it can equate the amount of satisfaction you got from your meal. Whatever you may be thinking, just remember that the money you pay will be used for the food, the capital of the restaurant, somebody’s livelihood, or anything else that it can be put to. Money has ephemeral like properties that can be applied to anything in a given economy, no matter how many controls or regulations are on it.

            (And leave a tip for cryin’ out loud.)

What is the Media?

The formula is always the same, dear reader, you come home from a day of work and/or school, and you turn on the television to the news station and find that things are certainly less than ideal. There’s war, corruption, problems with politics and the economy, people are dying all over the world and even close to home. Yet, as bad as these situations may seem, there are still time for commercials for insurance, TV shows, cleaning products, food, and a barrage of other products and services. However, television is only one platform that we can access the media from, we also have computers, tablets, newspapers, the Internet, and other ways in which we find out what is going on in the world. But with all these platforms and means of expressing it, it begs the question as to what exactly the media is.

            In his book Amusing Ourselves to Death Neil Postman established that the media is a force which is an aspect of every culture and is the means of knowing what exactly is going on. The means vary from culture to culture and include smoke-signals from Native Americans, drum beating from various African tribes, oral, writing, visuals, and any other means of communication. But to Postman, the first example of mass media came with the invention of the telegraph in 1850’s America; for the first time in history, people across wide swaths of distance could communicate within the same period of time and news quickly reached the other party with efficiency in communication unbeknownst to humanity.

            Postman saw this as an advancement in communication, yes, but what it lost was what exactly it had to communicate, and the formality and prose that language delivered it in. Henry David Thoreau summed up the problem in his book Walden in saying:

               "We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate ....  We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the old world some weeks nearer to the new; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad flapping American ear will be that Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough." 

            Needless to say, Thoreau was right in describing the useless and hedonistic nature of our mass medium that has come to dominate our lives; and I do not use this term lightly.

            Our lives have officially been defined by what is on the media and there is no way to escape it in the modern age. Everything we need to know is merely a push of a button away, all we need to know is on the news, regardless of whether it’s useful or not, and God help us if we lose our phones or if there’s no Wi-Fi. Yet, amongst all of the information that it has the potential to present us, of all the things going on in the world, it still finds the time to advertise countless commercials, regardless of how important the subject at hand may be.

            In a poll taken by Nielsen, the average length of television commercial breaks lasted an average of 13 minutes and 25 seconds in 2009, but increased to 14 minutes and 15 seconds in 2013 on broadcast networks. The length was even higher on cable TV networks, reaching an astounding 15 minutes and 38 seconds; a little over half of the 30-minute program scheduled for each time slot. Not to mention that no matter how bad the story may seem, there is always a break for commercials and always a shift from the serious need-to-know to lighthearted product and service advertisements. One of the few times that there was a broadcast with no commercial interruptions was on the morning of September 11, 2001.

            By having the news media littered with useless stories and commercial breaks that serve little to no purpose, the news has officially become overburdened with pandering coverage, insignificant courses of action, and has devolved to a point of where the news has become more filler than informational. By juxtaposing two stories together, the media has negated any value that either of those two stories may have had by placing them at odds with one another on a clustered schedule. After all, what better way to take away the tragedy of the Manchester bombing than by placing a video of a Shibe-Inu playing with a fidget spinner not more than ten minutes after the story about Manchester?

            When it comes to objectivity, the media is also really picky about what it would like to present. Case-in-point: Brian Williams lying about being shot down in a helicopter in Iraq. Back in 2003, towards the beginning of the war with Iraq, the helicopter that Brian Williams was in was shot down with a rocket-propelled grenade with Williams inside of it. However, back in 2015, it was discovered that the story was a lie and that Williams was in a different helicopter, 30 minutes behind the one that got shot down. The story prompted an investigation by NBC and found Williams guilty of lying and received a six-month suspension and fell from the 23^rd most trusted person in America, right down to the 835^th spot.

            This fact, plus many more shows that there is a lot that the media is not telling us, or that it does not want us to see. The media, unfortunately, has also proven itself to be a subjective manner, depending on who is expressing it. Some networks may have a political preference and choose to express information that only fits their agenda and may choose to leave out some information that they may not necessarily agree with. Certain stations either lean to the left or to the right, especially amongst bigger news names, and appeal to different audiences, but they still do not tell the whole truth. The media, paradoxically, is able to appeal to numerous amounts of people, but falls short when it comes to providing what is true, relevant, accurate, or useful.

            The media has become so engrained into our lives that it is able to lie to us, divide us, and even provoke us into issues we shouldn’t really be too worked up over. It is an entity that casts a cold hand over us and stretches from everything to sports, news, and politics, to entertainment, education, religion, and other subjects. It is able to constantly shift and evolve forms, while still able to retain its volatile nature and its bombastic way of delivering what it provides. The concern of image, the quick deliverance of products, and its scarily scientific ways of measuring what it is we like to see is a scary reminder that no matter what we think, the media has made itself a part of our lives more than we’d like to admit.

            As Neil Postman said it best:

            “There’s no business, except show business.”

The Philosophy of Destruction

Imagine, dear reader, that a tornado has ripped through a town in the middle of Kansas, everything that was once standing remains in a wreckage of its own remains plus the remains of other structures. Everything you can see within this town is completely totaled and everything above its foundation has been destroyed or uprooted from the ground. A truly stunning and heart-wrenching sight, one would even say that it brings out the more destructive tendencies of Mother Nature. But what does it mean to be destructive? And how does it apply to nature and humanity.

            The word “destruction” implies wrecking, destroying, ruining, or causing enough damage to a structure or area that it becomes impossible to restore it to its original state. In short, the word destruction implies the opposite of creation. However, when it comes to creation, it is unsure whether the world was designed by an intelligent or omnipotent being on an objective scale, but what we know insofar is that the Earth was not created under the guise of humanity. Therefore, destruction is a concept that can only apply to humans since we are able to take it upon ourselves to cause ruin to structures that we have taken the time to create and build.

            Take for example, the city of Ypres, Belgium during WWI: Ypres was a fairly bustling city in Belgium by the time WWI broke out in 1914 and was most notable for its historical legacy as well as the structure known as Cloth Hall built in the Middle Ages. Prior to 1914, Ypres suffered from a lot of invasions since it was a key Flemish trading city; it was invaded by the English, the French, the Spanish, the Dutch, and the Austrians, but didn’t really suffer until the destruction wrought by WWI in the three battles that took place in Ypres.

            By the time the war ended in 1918, Ypres was in ruins, as much of Europe was. Buildings were shelled, countless civilians and soldiers were dead, and it looked to be an apocalyptic wasteland. To put it in short, Ypres was destroyed; all of those man-made structures and achievements, gone, taken by man’s destructive capabilities to tear down what it is they have created.

            Now, contrast this to what Ypres may have been before the Belgians, even before humanity settled down and set up their livelihood there. Ypres, like much of the world, was an untamed wilderness with creatures and animals going about their own ways with the only goal being survival. In this period, who knows what happened during this time period? Fires, floods, earthquakes, and other disasters that had the potential to be appalling on its own, but nobody knows for sure. What we do know is that in this period before humanity was able to settle on this particular spot and create the Ypres we know today, it was nothing more than mere animals and untamed growth that ruled the land; humans created nothing.

            But, in this context, does the word destruction still ring true? If a storm were to come along and do extensive damage to the land, would much of the trees and wildlife be considered destroyed, even if humans had nothing to do with its creation or destruction? The answer is not as clear-cut is it would seem to be. Some trees may be uprooted; some of the shelters created by the rabbits, wasps, and other wildlife may perish, but other than that, it should serve as no more than a mere changing of the landscape. Albeit in a violent manner, the Earth has sustained much of these changes since its creation and is doomed to suffer thousands, if not, millions of more changes as long as it is in the equation given the unpredictable and spontaneous nature of the universe. Henceforth, it is not destruction if nothing is destroyed that was not created or put in place with a specific intention of doing so, as humans are known to do.

            But now the shoe is on the other foot when humans are added to the equation. Given the conscious and organized nature of humans, when we create something, we do it with an end in mind, a goal, a purpose, an intention, etc. Even something as simple as a hammer or a brush is created with the intention of nailing or brushing something off; even a naturally sharpened rock which can be used as a knife or a spear can hold a purpose, even if humans had nothing to do with its creation. When we take the time and effort out of our beings to direct it into a project such as, say, erecting a building or building a sewer, we are engaging in these projects as a result in order to get something out of it. When it is destroyed, we recognize that it is no longer of any use, or as much use as it was when it was created; it may be rebuilt or fixed, but so long as it remains in that state of destruction, it can provide few to little benefits whatsoever and is negated of its purpose; which is the ultimate priority of destruction.

            To destroy is rid something of its usefulness or its purpose. This is why in the purposes of modern warfare, centers of high-functioning industrial or manufacturing activities (such as Ypres) are targeted because those areas contain the means with which to produce the most benefits to that particular side. Whether it is to produce food, arms, technological advances, or any other necessity that side may have, when it is destroyed, it can no longer produce those amenities in the fashion that it once did, and in turn, robbing that particular side of whatever it was that the industrial hub produced required to engage in battle.

            But, what if something manmade was robbed of its purposes by conditions outside of man’s control? Take for example, the Fukishima Nuclear meltdown in 2011 that occurred after an earthquake and a tsunami. Nuclear plants on their own are unstable and given to accidents from time to time (such as Chernobyl and Three-Mile-Island) but in the case of Fukishima, it was under purely natural circumstances that the destruction was brought about, so what then?

            Even though man himself did not cause the destruction of the power plant, it can still be considered destroyed since it was something that was created and stripped of its benefits. Although man may not have destroyed it, it was still negated of its purpose, whether or not it was intentional. For even though nature may have taken its toll as it has thousands of times before, it came into interference with man’s creation and happened to wreak havoc upon a subjective purpose bestowed upon it by man. Man gave that particular structure a purpose and did so to carry out some purpose, and when its purpose stops short of its natural time for doing so, then it is simply destroyed, regardless of whether it was man or nature that was the perpetrator.

            The long and short of destruction is that it is an action undertaken in order to negate something of its purpose, no matter who engages in it. Destruction itself is a force which can only weaken or stop anything or anyone from carrying out a specific set of benefits. But since nature itself is an unpredictable and unstoppable force which destruction knows no bounds, it would be pointless to try and stop it. However, nature and/or natural objects cannot be destroyed so long as it lacks in a subjective or objective purpose, it is entirely unsure what good a patch of field can be until we designate a specific purpose to its before it is ruined in a storm. The field cannot be destroyed so long as it lacks a purpose; instead, it is merely just a change in the landscape, along with the cataclysmic events that have come to define Earth in the millennia before humanity.

            So dear reader, can we truly destroy the planet if we have not designated much of it to any specific purpose? Or is man yet another force of nature, which can change the world in ways unseen before without us even knowing it?